The Syme Papers

by Benjamin Markovits

  ‘I might stay‚’ I said at last.

  ‘Think, Phidy‚’ Tom said. ‘You must be certain.’

  ‘I have often acted as secretary to my father. They called me the little minister in the court. I think’, I said, looking straight at Tom, ‘I know what your duties were.’

  “That is settled then‚’ said Mr Harcourt. ‘I will not intrude my business on the marriage feast. Indeed, I am sorry now to have come at all.’ He paused, and added with an odious air, ‘Though I hope you are not.’

  ‘No, indeed, Mr Harcourt‚’ I said quickly, taking him by the arm. ‘I will show you to the gate. We hope to hear from you shortly. A note at the Dewdrop Inn will find me for the time. I’m afraid you will think us a band of gypsies, but the truth is, another week would have found me under sail. I am glad of the chance to stay, however. Even in Pactaw of Pactaw County. That is the blessing of this country. There is no one like Sam in all the courts of Europe, and here we find him in a corner by himself’

  ‘That is what I hope to change, Phidy. May I call you that?’ he inquired smilingly and took his leave.

  ‘There,’ I said proudly, rejoining my friends. ‘Tom could not have done better.’

  ‘What do you think of old Easy Harcourt?’ Tom said.

  ‘Is that what we call him? “Easy” is good. He had me by the “Phidy” before we reached the gate. A foul man, though wealthy, you say? All honey till he sticks to your hands, though I should not think he is sweet, when crossed.’

  ‘Phidy‚’ Sam broke in, ‘are you sure of this?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Have you the heart to stay?’

  ‘I did not think twice before I answered “yes”. But if asked twice, I will answer “yes” again.’

  ‘Do not answer me tonight, Phidy‚’ Sam said. ‘Your own father needs you. Easy has offered us no postponement. This is the sticking-point. If you say “yes”, who knows when you will turn home again or what you will find there?’

  ‘I will think on it, if you wish, Sam.’ Yet in my heart, did I not know it was a postponement, a season prolonged? ‘But you know my love for you, and that has only one answer.’

  ‘Sam‚’ Tom said. ‘May I speak with Phidy alone for a moment?’

  ‘I will find Kitty‚’ he said, ‘and quiet her fears.’

  ‘Phidy.’ He turned to me with an air I could not read, a kind of remorse. ‘You do not owe him this. I may follow his fortune if I abided his defeats.’

  ‘You cannot, Tom; look about you. Sam himself said it. You have joined the race of respectable men. The paper awaits you. Your new father stares at us. Kitty weeps in Sam’s arms, but he cannot comfort her. These are games for young men, and you have other duties now.’ I could not help adding, ‘I have won – you said as much yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I would love to stay for his triumph, just that long. To see all those little mocking men scrambling in his shadows.’

  ‘You must leave him some time. That much is clear for all of us. It is only a question of the occasion. I hope mine will be as happy.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, Phidy. Well, I must see to my new wife.’

  As I watched him cross the garden to Kitty, I could not help but mutter, ‘Tom, oh Tom, I do not have your faith.’

  Then Sam took me by the elbow and said, ‘A magazine, Phidy. Our very own, after all. Just the thing to give old Ben Silliman and his kind – a kick in the breeches.’

  Tom and Kitty left that night for their honeymoon, by river-boat towards Norfolk along the Potomac. ‘I have a fancy to see New York again‚’ Tom said, ‘before we settle in Richmond by the Courier.’

  ‘I thank you most of all, Phidy‚’ Kitty said. ‘Tom would not trust that great baby to anyone else’s care.’

  ‘I will have my eye on you, Hen Mooler, never forget it‚’ Tom said, and I waited for a smile but none came. ‘Perhaps I will ride to Pactaw some time to see how you get along.’

  ‘Kitty, see that he thinks of something other than Sam’s great theories for a week or two. It will do him good.’

  ‘I think so too, Phidy. I will do my best.’

  They had a full moon for their river journey, and I was lonelier when they left.

  Sam and I slept at the Dewdrop that night, and stayed a while over our last glass of ale.

  ‘It is some destiny, Sam, I said, half-joking, ‘that Easy should come just as we gave up hope. I look on it as proof of our triumphant fate.’

  ‘On the contrary, it is a proof of my theories, of mathematics. In all justice, I lost my right to success when I turned from Philadelphia. But life is only a question of conjunctions, and the seasons they usher in.’

  He was right, too, and the season that followed ended in another conjunction, of men and circumstances, that yielded a rare and great eclipse.

  ‘What are you thinking, Sam?’

  ‘That I shall miss Tom. And that I have always envied him.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Remember what I said. Think on it tonight, Phidy, and do only as you please.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Then drink up. There is work to be done in the morning, of one kind or another.’

  I had a task that night and sat at the table by my bed, writing another letter to my father. How lightly I dropped a fine coat upon the floor now; left a cravat dangling loosely over the back of a chair. My hair unkempt – those fine brown locks falling at their own sweet will about my face, so that I knuckled them from my brow, more than once, before the letter was done. Some ease at least had been learned; a certain primness forgotten. Did I stay because I could not bear to lose such changes I had rung upon myself? Did I fear my father’s anger at my delay, and so delay the more? Did I remain because I mistrusted the vicissitudes of my own home more than Sam’s? ‘My dear Sir,’ I began. ‘I am sorry to write you only with news of another postponement, though it may be a happy one, I hope, and find both our circumstances improved on my return

  Or did I linger simply because I could not part from Sam – yet.

  *

  The first order of the day was to secure lodgings. Easy found us a house on Whippet Lane, in a formerly grand though never genteel neighbourhood of Pactaw, away from the river, towards the low hills in the west. The lane once led to the racetrack. But Pactaw had suffered greatly in the last decade from enthusiasm, which had drowned out those loose games in the tide begun twenty years before with the sermons at Cane Ridge. Church End had become the fashionable quarter. The track now was simply a round brown field that grew out of the end of the street and then fell away into trees.

  Hotels and taverns had lined the street in its heyday, when Pactaw was an English town, a drunken night’s rest for merchants sailing up the Potomac, or farmers bringing their goods to Norfolk, and thence the world. The buildings were still grand, though somewhat fallen in. All the business had shut down. A distant rumour of a man, Mr Talbot from New York, had bought up much of the lane, and split the great houses into apartments and let them, mostly to large families whose parents had known better lives: schoolteachers and newspapermen, and in one case the large and shouting brood of a theatrical match. Ours, once the least and darkest of the inns, had been left to itself and now, by revolution, had become the smartest house by ‘the Races’, as we all still called the muddy field at the bottom, where torn papers and bedraggled pamphlets among the leaves announced its old and busier purpose. It was a draughty, ghostly, windy, cold place, gone in the tooth. The cheap glass in the window panes had grown fat and cloudy at the bottom, so Sam and I saw the world through a Hamburg fog, except for the sky, which shone through the thin pane on top, clear as winter air. We had no need of a cook and turned the kitchen into our parlour; spent divers afternoons by the great iron stove, smoking our pipes and warming our hands flat on the sour metal, saying little or nothing, happy in our common cause against the cold. It was so cold when we first moved in that we burned the chairs.

  I missed the Boathouse, sure. Sam had a taste for dilapidation; t
his, I argued, was taking things too far. Yet I was never happier in America (which means never happier in the world) than by the Races – where I got Sam to myself at last.

  The second order of business was to see Easy’s father. We set off one dark November morning west from the Potomac for a visit of a few days. An oriole woke Sam and me at black dawn, and then Easy called for us in his carriage. The bird’s call ran through my sleepy head to the tune of the horses’ hoofs all the six-hour journey, across the Rappahannock River, even to the long avenue of black elms cutting through the plantations towards the Harcourt mansion. The song ceased only as we sat down to lunch.

  Easy grew silent in his father’s shadow. He bent his eyes to his plate and hid his hands as well, as if they might reveal him. I marvelled to see Sam deferential.

  ‘Superior grounds‚’ Sam said, ‘and such magnificent sentinels, those great black elms.’ And even, ‘Mr Harcourt, your son I mean, sir, has boasted of your facility – shall I call it that? – in the last war … I would be delighted to hear the particulars.’

  It hurt my heart to see it, for Sam was truly a great man, and Mr Harcourt a mere bull, with the cleverness only of sharp horns. He was a bull in shape too, with a barrel chest, and heavy dark brows and a red face. His back ran straight as a pike but his arms hung curiously loose and idle, as they do in men whose strength lies in their ribs. The exploits Sam enquired after proved to be no soldier’s stories, but the commercial rogueries of a man who made a treasure in the late war with England. (In which Sam risked a great deal more than a fortune.) Sam always hated ‘money tricks’, as he called them. He left such to Tom, and I felt a sudden shame to hear him ask after Harcourt’s facility’.

  I wondered at Sam’s desire to please and reflected that a rich man can draw honey from the voice even of a stubborn old soldier like Sam, who hated common proprieties. I heard money in Sam’s accent, the sad, tinny sound cluttered his true note – like a groschen rattling on a piano string. But then I thought more kindly and considered that even a noble hope – especially a noble hope – can put a false catch in the throat of a man an inch from his purpose. How many ways our own desires deceive us.

  My shyness and a glass of claret, I’m afraid, had led me to a rather superior silence. I watched Jeb Harcourt’s thick wrists tear bread, while he talked on. ‘The rotten – quite literally, mind you – rotten English harvest in the year eleven … simply a question of knowing the ports – and the captains … as to pretended embargoes …’ and so on. To be fair to Bull Harcourt, he spoke honestly and without fuss, though indeed he did pride himself on just those qualities. The thought struck me then, how just such a creature as Syme (even without any hope of advantage) might fall under the spell of someone like Harcourt – a man of good parts who knows the world and his trade in it. And being ashamed to call it envy, he might call it something else. ‘Do not be deceived,’ Sam told me afterwards, ‘Harcourt is more than just shrewd, for all his bluster.’

  We ate snow-goose for dinner. And the claret was very good.

  For a day and a half Easy and I were thrust upon each other’s company. Mr Harcourt assumed that Sam was the only man of substance and business among us. Sam was flattered, and, with manners borrowed from his father, quickly dressed himself as a man of the world. Easy was accustomed to this neglect. And oddly, in that grand house, with the long, flat fields all round, I felt foreign as well as strange. My accent hung in the air like oversweet tobacco.

  Ezekiel was not an Easy companion. He was too tall to be quiet – his eye peered down an inch, even, above my own – and yet he was quiet, made a man feel awkward. His character grew clear to me in that house. His father, strong and practical and rich, had left his son to his own fancies. At thirty, Easy was still frightened of him. But he fell in naturally with clever, ineffectual men, who talked philosophy and art, topics his father knew little about and cared less for. So Easy had something to say. At the foothills of middle age, he had learned to dress well and amuse men who prided themselves on their nice sense of amusement. And then I thought, This is how he has fallen in with us.

  But for once he had found a pursuit with hard science behind it, or at least something like it. So he brought the protégé to see his father, who liked what he saw and took it to himself. This left the two of us together. We went for a ride that afternoon in the early dusk, well wrapped about, to the chatter of brisk hoofs. It grew dark early but it was too cold to talk, so the dark suited us. We returned to a bright fire and a glass of brandy glowing in it. I could hear Sam above us, in the map room, intoning a familiar lecture to Mr Harcourt. At last he sounded sensible and himself. The warm sting of the brandy brought the sense back to my hands and heart. Now I was happy, hearing our prospects argued in such sure and assuring tones above. Then Easy turned to me, and said something that clouded my comfort, though I liked him better for the confession.

  ‘Shall I tell you my secret, Phidy.’ He held his shy damp hands before the fire. ‘It is that I like other people overmuch.’ My heart went to him, though I found nothing to say. Soon after we sat down to supper.

  That evening, after Mr Harcourt had retired to his study and Easy had gone to bed, I came to Sam’s rooms. Half a moon shone through his black window and lay on the floor at our feet. Sam could not keep silent for excitement and talked like a swarm of bees.

  ‘I could have wished you to see more of Mr Harcourt this afternoon‚’ Sam said, ‘for he makes an interesting study – and is no fool neither. For one, he has read more deeply in Greek than either you or I. I began my little tale of creation, hey Phaedon, etc. – and he completed it for me in sonorous tones – much pleased with himself, to be sure. And then he is the acquaintance – and often more than friend – of the chief American literary figures of our day. Last week that fellow Cullen Bryant slept on this bed. Harcourt says he has dined out with Irving. I tell you what it is, Phidy – he is a true American – of a species just now beginning to flourish. There was a different breed in old revolutionary days – Jeffersons and Frenchified folk – some more English than the English. I should know, my father was among them. But this Jackson has set up a new flag – and he is finding the men to raise it …’

  There was more in that vein. He was happy as a schoolboy with a brand-new teacher. I saw only then how discouraged he had become in this past year and how much he had shrunk in his own esteem.

  Perhaps he saw this for himself, for his spirits ebbed and he sat on his bed, with his large hands on the large knees of his short legs, and rocked somewhat to and fro. Then he said, ‘I am frightened, Phidy,’ and I knew his meaning, but he went on. ‘What if I should not deserve his faith?’ Then he undressed and I stayed, though we both were exhausted of speech. I sat on the green-backed chair by the basin and lingered until he was content and breathed happily, and then I snuffed the lamp and retired to my own cold room and bed.

  The next evening, after supper, the Bull called us to the drawing room. We sat down and he talked. ‘I shall get to the nub of it quickly. You tell me, Mr Syme, that you are right and that everybody else is wrong. Fine. I am no judge of that. I know enough of history and the masses to have no great respect for either. Nothing to me seems more likely than that we are all blundering about on an eggshell For me the question has always been: Can I guess what way the blundering will go? And where the shell will crack? I am a lawyer and a landowner, not a scientist. But I am also a citizen with an eye to our country’s honour. Don’t let that put you out, Mr Miller. I have money and don’t mind spending it on what my son calls “the Questions”. You tell me, Mr Syme, that your theories could christen a new American Science. That’s the line I like. Stick to it.

  ‘I don’t know what you came here expecting but this is what you’ll get. I want those ideas to get about. I never saw the use of burrowing away in a library so you could stick another book on the shelves when you’ve finished. One thing I know about is business, I will buy you a magazine. My son tells me that you live on Whippet Lan
e. You know about the Tracks then. Two streets away is the old office of the Pactaw Racing Times. That closed down with the Races. Nobody’s there, but upstairs the old press still stands. That’s yours. I have agents from Williamsburg to Baltimore to see that what you print gets around. I think in terms of twelve months. I want six magazines to come out in that time. If you can, contract articles from other scientists. Remember, this is to be the forum for the new American Science. That’s the line. Call it what you like, just make sure it says “New American Science” big and black underneath it on the cover. As for the rest, how to live and such, I’ll see you men taken care of.’

  He smiled then, big as a cigar. Which in turn he handed out, and Easy opened a bottle of champagne, which tasted very cold in front of the fire and brought us back to ourselves. We smoked the cigars and drank another bottle, four grown men happy and standing straight. We did not know what to say to one another, but Sam took each of our hands in turn and shook them. The Bull laughed, and smiled as big as a glass of brandy, which in turn he handed out. I remember mainly how quiet we all were.

  In the morning we rode back to Pactaw and began work.

  *

  The next month was among the happiest of my stay, a renaissance of the joy of my arrival. Sam took to prosperity like a duck in water. He preened himself and glistened in it and swam lightly. I could not then have guessed how soon I should be going.

  Sam and I slept, ate, read, worked and wrote together, often side by side on the long table in the attic with his strong left arm flat on the wood and his cheek in his hand. The sour-sweet smell of his pipe hung in a cloud above us. Snow fell in heaps that week, stuck and froze. Children cluttered the track with makeshift sleds, falling and pulling one another till the rope cut and burned their hands in the cold. Once again that round field was streaked with races.

  ‘The cold is good for business‚’ said Sam, with the warm stem of his pipe in his mouth, but the smoke cold and sweet. ‘Can you not hear – the prickings and stirring of the gases underground – caught in snow piles and the frozen channels of stiff roots? A great eclipse is coming – very near indeed. I had not mentioned it before, Phidy, when my purpose seemed dying. No volcano, to be sure. We could hardly hope for such in Virginia. But still a great eclipse near Pactaw, the biggest in my time – so that a man well placed and well informed – might with a little digging – have a glimpse inside.’