The Boys circle about, not sure of him, tho' Doc has come running, as he has done each time, at the sound of the Horse, his own Motion far ahead of his earthly feet, the moment he spies Mason, stopping short and gaz?ing intently. "Hello! All well, Papa?"
"Why, yes." Alighting, "Hello, Doctor Isaac. How's ev'ryone faring here?"
"Oh...we're all good?" He reaches up without hesitation to take Mason's hand, and they go in.
Today Mason is patient, and by and by the two have settl'd inside his slacken'd Perimeter. They live with their Aunt Hester, Mason's sister, and her husband, Elroy. Mason, having ridden up to the house prepar'd spiri?tually for Disrespect, Recrimination, bad Coffee, also finds Delicia Quail, the Clothier's daughter, in a colorful pongee gown at least an order of Magnitude too riotous for any casual Visit in these Parts. Before long it is distressingly clear, that she suffers from that uncontroll'd Need to be a Bride, known to Physicians as Nymphomania, in whose cheerful Frenzy nuances vanish, and ev'ry unattach'd man is a potential Husband.
"You're young enough," she ticks off item by item, "Your Sons need a Mother and I've been tending kids all my life. I can bake a Sally Lunn, whose Aroma alone is guaranteed to add Inches to any Waistline, even one as trim as your own, Charlie Mason. My Puddings are Legend even in Painswick. I was brought up in the Anglican Faith, and with enough Spirits to drink, am said to be a merry companion. What were you look?ing for, exactly, in a second wife?"
" 'Licia, a Joy seeing you again, till this instant I wasn't aware I was looking. Yet I must have been, mustn't I?" At this moment, were he attending, he might have heard, from the direction of St. Kenelm's church-yard, a certain subterranean Rotation.
"What a faraway soul you can be, Mr. Mason," she smiles effort-fully,— "must 1 instruct you, that 'tis universal, upon this Planet, for a young widower to seek a new wife as soon as decency permits? Even wait an extra day, if he's shy."
"Thankee. So have I heard, and keep hearing, from so many well-wishers. Were I not under unbreakable Obligation,—
"To whom? The Royal Society? A Room-ful of men in Wigs, droning away in the candle-light, that's where you'd rather be, than home at the Hearth with your next Wife, and little ones? And the Custard,— ruin'd! How could you!" to appearance self-persuaded, she draws back from him. "What sort of night-crawling creature are you, then?"
"Oh, be a friendly Girl," prays Mason.
"I am not dramatizing at the moment, Charles."
"Kiss me right now, Sweet-Heart."
"Twittering London Fop," she snarls, making to go off. The Boys come running in. "Auntie 'Licia!" "Don't go!" She gathers them in, flashing Mason a There-you-see Smirk, over their small nuzzling heads. "The time you took for your long Sea-Journey might be excus'd, as a remedy for excessive Grief. But you're back now, aren't you?"
"Not entirely, for now there's something else up. So I may be off again, and fairly soon,— "
"What?" shrieks Hester. "Where to, now? There's no work in England? You had a secure job at Greenwich once, what happen'd to that?"
"Times change, Hetty. I enjoy'd that Post by way of the Newcastle Gang, who languish now at politickal Death's Door. New sorts of Whig control the Appointments." Bradley is gone, that's it,— yet he will not whine,— not in front of the Boys. Nor may anyone 'round here even rec?ognize the Name. "The Pay's said to be good,—
"Were I you," advises Delicia Quail, "I should stick to the matter of the Longitude, for that is where the Money's at.”
"You have studied the Question.—  True that in the short term, there'll be plenty of Almanack work, Lunars being the only practickal method at sea right now, and much cheaper than any Time-piece. But soon enough, sturdier offspring of Mr. Harrison's Watch will be showing their noontide Faces all about the Fleets, and Lunars will have had their day. The best we wretched Lunarians can ever hope for, is to share the Prize, which will prove at last a Tart cut too many ways to satisfy any. The real Fees nowadays, 'Licia, are to be earn'd abroad. For the first time real money is finding its way even into Astronomy,— Public Funds paying for entire Expeditions. It ages me to recall that Bradley, in discovering the Aber?ration, was obliged to rely upon the Generosity of those Nobility who shar'd his Passion for the Stars,"— an opening for someone at least to offer Condolences. None does.
"Where is it this time, Charlie?" asks his Sister Anne, but turn'd sev?enteen and eager to be out of the House, where she is an unpaid 'round-the-clock Menial.
"There're only Rumors, nothing's decided,—
"Papa!" cries the demonick Doctor Isaac.
"Tell us, Sir?" pipes William. Their Eyes so round and unwavering.
Mason drops his head. "America."
This is greeted with an Uproar, as ev'ryone seeks to comment at once,— "For G-d's Sake, Charles," Hester in piercing disbelief, "you were lucky to come back alive once,— the Odds are well against you now,— you might be thinking of these Two, for a change," whilst the Boys thump and shout, "Snakes! Bears! Indians!" and the like, and the Tea-Kettle whistles furiously upon the Stove, and no one attends.
Whilst the Feminine Gales rage all about, Elroy draws Mason aside, offering a pipeful of Virginia. "This job in America,— you'll be Star-Gazing again?"
"They want Boundary-Lines, hundreds of Miles long, as perfect as they can get 'em. For that, someone must take Latitudes and Longitudes, by the Stars."
"And you'll be some time away, I imagine."
"I never meant the Lads to be a burden on you, or Hester, I can see poor Annie's running Night and Day,— Christ they're enormous, I don't even know them.”
"And the next time you see them? Years, again? Charles, I esteem them as mine, for in this House all get the same Porridge, out of the same Pot,— you are off traveling more than you're here, whilst we'd be happy to take 'em. In which case, you'd have to sign over—
"Ahhrrhh! Never!"
"Then there would be another Price, that you might not wish to pay."
He knows, roughly, what it is, and waits dumb as a Stone.
"When they're of Age, they'll both be apprentic'd to your Father at the Mill. Standard seven-year Contracts. He'll reimburse us till then, and we could well use that help, Charles."
"Why isn't he telling me this?"
"I represent your Father in this matter."
"You? you're a lawyer?"
"No, yet ev'ryone needs Representation, from time to time. If you go to America, you'll be hearing all about that, I expect."
A wonderful Dilemma. Meanwhile more and less distant Relations proceed thro' the Day to come at him from all directions, unerring as Swifts, pointing Fingers, shaking Fists, brandishing Sticks, all with Rea?sons he ought to stay in Sapperton, vividly recalling to Mason Reason upon Reason why, two years ago, he was happy to leave all this. Back then, of course, he had his Grief. But time has gone on, and absent the Force majeure that drove them, stunn'd, together for an Instant to agree, for the same service now, there will be a Price.
The Boys, up since before Dawn, mombly upon the Floor with Fatigue, lurch over to kiss him good-Night, as if he has never been away, and ev'ry night they have been kissing him so. As ever, he is surpriz'd by the fierceness of their bodies, their inability to hold back, the purity of the not-yet-dishonest,— 'twould take a harder Case than Mason not to struggle with Tears of Sentiment. His relations look on, variously gri?macing, sneering, or pretending not to see, all recalling his difficulties, in particular with Dr. Isaac, in even touching his Sons. "I am ever afraid they'll draw away," he confesses to his little sister Anne, sitting in the Kitchen drinking Coffee, after the Boys h............