The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2

by Daniel A. Rabuzzi

  “Hooo, hooo, hooom! You sing small songs, to hide your crepuscular creepings. Please, Sally, abuse your power, betray the trust your family places in you. I encourage you, ma petite papelarde.”

  He rocked himself, rasping his teeth with his tongue.

  “Oh hoo, yes, my little larroon, sing your tawdries—a pilfering from the Great Song you and yours are trying to compose—divert the melody from the commonwealth towards your own selfish ends.”

  He stood up and slowly raised out his long, long arms.

  “Sing on, Sally, mortgage yourself with a narrow song, a song that runs out into sand.”

  Cook was pottering late in the kitchen, two days after Candlemas. Maggie had just left her after a good “mardle.”

  “No Sally tonight either,” said the Cook. “Tain’t right. Change in the breast of the little smee. But I don’t see things clearly with her the way I used to. Glakes and glamours in my eyes.”

  She finished putting the pans in order, ready for the next day’s round of meals.

  “Poor Mr. Reglum. A real gentleman, he is. In his stead, most other men would be throwin’ daggers right about now. Sally not actin’ the lady—much as it pains me to say so.”

  She placed her leaching knife beside the others, all lined up like soldiers on parade with the heweling knife as the general at their head.

  “What was I just thinking? Something. . . . I cannot make it out. Maybe it will come to me, but now I am off to bed.”

  Cook wiped her hands, gave the kitchen one last look, and—taking her candle—went out to her quarters behind the house.

  The dike began to give way just after Easter, which in 1817 fell on April 6th.

  The shipyard announced on St. Gilthoniel’s Day that the McDoons had two weeks to make good on all arrears, or work on The Indigo Pheasant would cease, and the yard would consider proceedings to realize their claims in rem.

  The day after that, the firm of Henry Maudslay—also citing late payment—said they would not continue working on the steam engine.

  In mid-April, the first ships of the spring season arrived from over the North Sea, bearing ill tidings for the McDoons. The merchant house in Riga that was to supply the fir for the masts insisted on full payment in advance before shipping in the summer; the McDoons’ Hamburg bankers wanted an additional fee for issuing their bill. The Landemanns confirmed that McDoon credit was sliding—and that Coppelius Prinn & Goethals (Widow) was the only firm actively seeking to buy McDoon notes, albeit at a very steep discount.

  Matchett & Frew shared news that Coppelius Prinn & Goethals (Widow) were everywhere present in London as well, scooping business from others at ridiculously low prices, “depriving us of our profits.” Matchett half-joked about the wits and gossipmongers in the coffeehouses who claimed Coppelius & Co. had an enchanted mill producing gold sovereigns in the cellar of their counting house, or that Prinn was an alchemist whose familiars were trustees of the Bank of England.

  The Gardiners—stalwarts of Gracechurch Street, Elizabeth Darcy’s relations who had invested in The Indigo Pheasant—suffered a calamitous loss in April. An entire ship load of lemons and oranges from Malaga had gone rotten, from bright and aromatic to murrained and sulpy in the course of one night, between the vessel’s tying up at the wharf and its unloading the next morning. No one had ever seen the like. The wharfinger mumbled tales about voluminous hissings and rustlings emanating from the ship’s hold that night. Others spoke of seeing weevils the size of human babies scrambling about the ship just before dawn, “beetles, cenchers, scalavotes, scorpions.” Whatever the cause, since no one had ever heard of an entire cargo rotting overnight, the Gardiners had not insured the lading for more than half its worth.

  Mr. Gandy’s tale was just as strange. The droll architect, never fortunate with money, claimed that a “Damosel O’ The Green”—who had befriended him the previous autumn—had cozened him out of all his wealth (such as it was), to the extent that the bailiffs sought to arrest him for his own unpaid debts. The McDoons bought Charicules and the birdcage from Mr. Gandy, in an attempt to add a few coppers to his meagre pot, but the architect was forced to withdraw from the Project as he fended off the poorhouse.

  On April 29th, most appropriately the Day Marking St. Adelsina’s Dismission from the Flesh, Coppelius Prinn & Goethals (Widow) sent notice that—under the terms of Article 8 and 17 (on governance and control among the associates, and partial payment for shares) of the Association Agreement relating to The Indigo Pheasant—they were calling on McDoon & Co. as general partner to pay in the remaining unpaid capital, and further that—under the terms of Article 26 (on rights of offerings and first refusals)—if McDoon & Co. were unwilling or unable to pay in, then Coppelius Prinn & Goethals (Widow), having over the required 33.3% share of the entire project required to tender for all shares, would exercise its right to buy out all partners including McDoon & Co.

  “We’ll fight ’em!” said Barnabas. “We’ll fight ’em all. We will not be ‘all broken implements of a ruined house.’ We will see ourselves in Hell first!”

  “We are in the Devil’s forecourt already,” said Sanford, looking perversely happy, as if a battle he had long feared was now upon them and he discovered he was ready after all.

  “We must get Sedgewick, he will know the legal ins and outs,” said Barnabas.

  Sanford looked at the prints of the foundering East Indiamen, then dashed off a note to Sedgewick.

  But Sedgewick would not come.

  “Conflict of interest?” said Barnabas that evening, when Sanford had read Sedgewick’s reply aloud for the third time. “What in the world can he mean by that? He drew up all the contracts for The Indigo Pheasant. Figs and fishwater, he has been lawyer to the McDoons for years!”

  “Be that as it may, Sedgewick writes that he cannot help us directly as it could be construed (notice how carefully he puts that) as a conflict of interest,” said Sanford. “I dare say this has something to do with our other partners, the East India Company. I smell the Admiralty behind this. After all, where is our promised meeting with Sir John Barrow? Sedgewick made very large cakes of that, his capacity to get us with Sir John. It has been months now, and still not so much as a whisper from the Admiralty about us. Why is that?”

  Charicules warbled a very low series of notes, challenging the clock on the mantlepiece (or was that ticking the sound of an elf-mill in the wall?).

  “There is more to this than just business,” said Barnabas. “Sedgewick has not been right since the attack on his poor wife. He hardly comes by anymore, not even to sample Cook’s meals. And Mrs. Sedgewick, who used to come by so frequently. . . .”

  “Mrs. Sedgewick declines our hospitality for other reasons, you know that Barnabas. She is a vehement study on the subject right now.”

  Barnabas ignored this last. He thought of Maggie, and of Afsana. He saw a ghostly army of foes approaching Mincing Lane. One hand gripping his vest (an especially resplendent corded silk and sagathy in the pattern called “The Rising Lark”) and the other waving his invisible saber, Barnabas exclaimed:

  “Tighten our belts, declare emergency, we’ve thrown and must now stand the hazard of the die,” he said. “We’ll fly right at ’em, by God we will Sanford!”

  In an unmarked room within the Admiralty building, still as dust except for the ticking of a clock held by hippocamps, two black-clad acuminate gentlemen traded notes.

  “Mr. I., the affair of The Indigo Pheasant goes less well than planned,” said one. “The general partners appear to have over-extended themselves; I begin to fear the ship shall never get built, which would mean even more—possibly much more—than the loss of ten thousand pounds sterling to His Majesty’s Government.”

  “Yet Kidlington and Sedgewick report interesting developments that might mean—with our careful husbanding and oversight, Mr. Z.—a very attractive outcome for the Crown and for the Empire.”

  “I think we wait until we have more clarity before we ha
ve Sir John meet with the ship’s principals. Agreed, Mr. I.?”

  “Agreed. No reason to be over-hasty: Sir John is more than busy as it is, with the Navy’s new ports at Mauritius and at Simon’s Town in South Africa, besides new acquisitions on Madagascar and in Malta.”

  “Not to mention at Trincomalee.”

  “Do not forget the coming fight with the Marathas.”

  “Nor should we overlook young Raffles and his grand ideas about Sumatra, or Beaufort in the Hydrography Office agitating for more funds.”

  “All hands are applauding Lord Exmouth’s marvelous victory at Algiers last summer, little time for distractions relating to a ship that is yet unbuilt and a land that may or may not exist.”

  “In short, the plan’s virtues still lie buried too deeply to be immediately perceived (except by ourselves, of course).”

  “Thus, we will let the natural agency of time promote the airing of the plan, and only then speed it to its beneficial conclusion. Sir John can wait—at least until the Chinese arrive, which we hear may happen this summer, the winds from Cape Town allowing.”

  “Yes, Mr. I. The Chinese will pique Sir John’s interest.”

  “In the meanwhile, Mr. Z., let’s keep Thracemorton, and most of all, Shufflebottom, tight to their tasks—especially as wards against the Others.”

  “Without doubt, Mr. I. Now, moving to our next file, in the matter of . . .”

  “Mr. Sanford says we are to be more ‘economical,’ as he calls it, and so we shall be,” said Cook to the maid, Mr. Fletcher, and Maggie, on an evening the week after The Glorious First of May. “I can tighten a belt as well—no, better!—than anybody, just you wait and see. Can work a wonder with eke-meats, tripes, stale hare. They sell broke-bellied fish at Billingsgate for half the price of the whole ones, and taste is no different, if I dress ‘em right!”

  Her audience, marveling at Cook’s genius with a menu but dreading its manifestation under the emaciated new regime, nodded with less than full vigour.

  “Come on now, you lot,” said Cook. “The house needs us—one and all, come cut, crop or long tail—to pull up and push forward.”

  “I, for one, am no stranger to going light and bony,” said Maggie, shrugging.

  “That’s the spirit, my girl,” said Cook.

  “I suppose ropy vittles is better than none,” said Mr. Fletcher.

  “Oh, there you sound like Mr. Harris,” said Cook, going quiet for a minute. She made a little fuss of pouring milk into a bowl for Isaak, who had come downstairs with Maggie.

  The maid and Mr. Fletcher left for even more intimate surroundings.

  “Sit and mardle a piece with me, Miss Maggie?”

  The two talked for a time, while Isaak lapped at her milk.

  “I don’t suppose Miss Sally is upstairs, is she?” asked Cook.

  “No. She is out again this evening.”

  “You know, it may not be my place to say so, but I think this house would feel better in its bones and kidneys if you and Miss Sally were on better terms. Meaning no disrespect there, of course.”

  “I try, I really do, chi di,” said Maggie, reaching out to help Cook polish the forks. “But Sally won’t have me. Surely you see that, you who know her best.”

  “Hey-along there, Miss Maggie,” said Cook, with a smile but gently pushing away Maggie’s offer of help. “You have no need to do that. My place to clean the forks and all the rest of this.”

  Maggie smiled in reply.

  “On the matter of Miss Sally,” said Cook, returning to the topic. “My head has hattled long on her, and on you, these past months. Here is what I reckon: she thinks you will take her place.”

  Maggie rose in protest, saying, “But I barely feel a part of this house, as it is! Me, take over her place?”

  They talked a long while. As Maggie made to leave, the Cook said, “When we sift and shred it, the fact is: Miss Sally fears you are taking her place. She thinks you are trying to steal something from her.”

  “By Macrina, I don’t want to steal anything from anybody,” said Maggie, loudly. “Why would she think that? Except maybe because . . . why do so many white folks think blacks are thieves?”

  The Cook looked uncomfortable. Just before Maggie left the kitchen, Cook blurted out: “I thought so too, when you first came here! I took to countin’ the spoons and such.”

  A hole opened in the air between the two. Maggie stood so still that Isaak might have been forgiven for thinking her a statue.

  “What would you have me say?” said Maggie, crossing her arms.

  “By Morgaine, I am so ashamed,” said the Cook. “I don’t even think about counting spoons or any such things now. Can you forgive me?”

  Maggie did not answer right away. At length she said, wearily, “Yes, I can . . . but not straight off, not at this moment. In my own time.”

  Cook looked simultaneously miserable and relieved, saying, “I understand, I do. My confession tastes yarrish in my mouth.”

  “Not half so bitter as it does in mine upon hearing you,” said Maggie. Then—stately as a queen, with astringent grace—she walked out of the kitchen.

  Two nights after the Cook’s sad, embarrassed confession, Maggie took the battle to the Owl. On tiger’s feet, she strode through the long-case clock in the shrouded house on Hoxton Square.

  The Owl was shocked. No one, in all his endless memory, had ever walked through that gate without his invitation or else being under his orders. Despite himself, he admired her bravery and wondered at her skill. How had Maggie sung herself through the mazy gate, over the wickets and hurdles, past the wide-awake guardians? What song had she sung to unlock the locks, unbolt the bolts?

  He bowed. His black-red lips stretched very wide in a sardonic smile, he said that her audacity was out of all proportion to her frame, and that her impudence was matched only by what he called “the finitude of her strength.”

  Maggie did not bow in turn. Putting her hands on her hips, she surveyed the interior of the Owl’s earthly demesne. Completely against her will, she found herself admiring his taste in furnishings: the subtly carved oak armoire (dolorous faces, their tongues sticking out; a phoenix wreathed in ivy); snakes and frowning dolphins twining the candelabra, gleaming in the candlelight; dark grey draperies patterned with chevrons the sweet, deathly red of bryony; a hanging in pale slate bordered with symmetrical rust-coloured pilcrows; the ceiling painted, a great oval, slightly cupped, with a procession of robed figures bearing books, staffs, carpenter’s tools, sextants and musical instruments, led by a man dressed in sheeny satin white, with on his head a red mitre, carrying before him in both hands a monstrance, the ensemble surrounded by solemn putti; another wall covered almost entirely by a map of the world, delicate black and umber inkings on sepia, a multitude of sea-horses and spouting physeters in the seas, elephants with impossibly long trunks, insouciant smooth-legged camels and shaggy lions disporting themselves in the corners; engravings of fleeing nymphs being transformed into trees and birds, centaurs being shot with arrows, other forms of martyrdom ancient and modern, Saint Anthony in the desert, comets over cities with conical towers, annunciations, Saint Fulgentius at his labours. She let her gaze linger on the many, overflowing bookcases.

  Swinging out his right arm in an elegant arc, the Owl said, “A universe of knowledge, all yours for the taking, if you just accept a few words of recommendation from me.”

  Maggie said, “I can take whatever knowledge I want, without your recommendations, without conforming in any fashion to your will.”

  The Strix regarded her. He rubbed his long lean white hands (a meticulous silken twist of his fingers), shifted slowly from foot to foot. He wondered—and was amazed to be so wondering—what she had come to do: interrogate him, warn him, command him, threaten him? He thrilled to the novel feeling that the game had turned to confront its pursuer.

  Maggie hummed a small theme, that uncurled around the room as if inspecting the engravings, the map, the putti on
the ceiling.

  “You cannot win,” said the Owl, hooting in the back of his throat. “You are all alone in this foolish quest.”

  Words, faint, indistinguishable, entered Maggie’s hum. The Owl blinked twice, brinched his globular head sidewise.

  “Your so-called family,” continued Wurm. “Do you really think the white people trust you? Respect you? Let alone love you? Hoom, you are no more than a ragged shadow that has somehow come attached to them.”

  Maggie paused, her song dwindling back to a hardly audible hum.

  “Yes, you see that, don’t you?” said Wurm. “Mrs. Sedgewick, as one example very close to home, so solicitous when you were naught but her plaything: does she visit you now; does she invite you into her own drawing room?”

  Maggie said, “I myself am not so friendly towards Mrs. Sedgewick, I cannot refute that, but what you did was cruel, exceeding so. She did not deserve such.”

  The Owl laughed and said, “‘Deserve’ has nothing to do with it. Do you deserve her antipathy, her scorn? She blames you for what befell her. Someone else breaks the window, but she blames you for the glass that shattered into her eye.”

  Maggie started her song again, wisps of melody that barely escaped the Owl’s swiping hands.

  “Sally mocks you,” hoomed the Wurm. “She writes and receives letters in German, knowing you cannot read the language. She never includes you on her calls, in her meetings—she is credited with all your invention, all the fruits of your genius. No one has heard of you, except in a backhanded, bored way; they view you (to the extent they see you at all) as a freak, a ‘Calibanna’ who has learned a few tricks for the parlour. No one will ever believe your claims to original thought. Where is your invitation to breakfast with the great Sir Joseph Banks? Do you sit with Sally when she visits the Royal Institution?”

  The Owl crushed with his long, adroit fingers Maggie’s incipient motet. He made a tremendous gulping sound, and his chest hove up.