“It is true silver,” the pamphleteer vouched.
“Indeed,” said Caleum. “I have seen the likes of it before.”
“Have you?”
“Not the pattern, but the style.”
“They were given me by a woman in Philadelphia.”
“Before or after you had lost your way?”
“Surely it was before, though not long.”
“Then you will stay your course,” Caleum said, feeling then as if he belonged to some secret fraternity. It was only silver specie, though, and not some secret union.
“Which side are you on?” the stranger asked him.
“Pardon?”
“The divide.”
“None but our own,” Magnus intervened, not wanting a political argument with the man. He shifted his concern back to Caleum. “I think we must sow in the next three days.”
Seeing himself locked out of the conversation, the stranger got up to leave.
“Deny what you want,” he said as he departed, “but it is surely happening.”
“I will believe it when I see it.”
“There are men who look but never see.”
“Aye. Women as well.”
After the man had left, though, they thought about what he said and the events that were swirling everywhere about them but seemed so ethereal that, for when and where they alighted, there was nothing but speculation. Their attention had been so focused on their own fortunes that they had not yet joined in the general debate about the looming prospect of war, which was more and more all anyone spoke of. Magnus, being cautious and having his own profitability to keep him occupied, hoped there would be no disturbance of the status quo, as he had never been upset in his doings other than the unpleasant business with the tax assessor. In his mind that is what it was by then, “that unpleasant business with the judge’s man.” Other than that he did not look at it in his memory. Of liberty he had what he required and saw no need to change who he paid taxes to, and certainly no need of arguing it with strangers.
Though he had come to know more of its shape, Caleum still tended to be idealistic about the world in general and claimed everyone should be master of his own house, reaping as he planted.
After finishing their drinks they shunted aside political matters and rode back to Stonehouses, satisfied with the evening and the start of the new growing season. If there was a drawback to the day’s adventure it was only this: Magnus had not ridden so far in many months, and the saddle did take its toll on him — so that when he returned home he wished only for his supper and to retire for the evening.
This first desire was granted in full when Adelia served the last winter ham from their stores for dinner, along with pickled beets and potatoes. Caleum and Libbie joined them that evening as well, such as had not happened in a long time outside of Sunday, so Magnus Merian was much satisfied: able to forget the day’s politics and his own physical complaints.
Adelia, pleased to have her family’s full company, delighted in spoiling Caleum with extra helpings and the promise of a rice pudding for dessert, and spoke of a bonnet she thought Libbie must have before she went home. Her love of their visits was matched only by her crossness whenever it was time for them to go, so that when she mentioned dessert Caleum knew to steel himself, as it was usually around this time that her bad mood would descend.
“Aunt Adelia, have you started your garden yet?” he asked, steering conversation toward a topic sure to please her.
“Yes,” she answered, “but I’m already afraid it won’t be as nice as last year. There was a frost the last two nights running, which in likelihood ruined half of it, and if not the frost then the birds.”
There had been no frost, of course, and the birds were no worse than any other year. Magnus looked at Caleum with a wry smile, as if to say he should have known better.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she went on. “No one appreciates the garden anymore. I remember the first time I saw it. I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and it was a privilege when your grandmother Sanne invited me to help her with the planting and weeding of it.”
“We all love your garden,” Libbie interjected. “I think it is the most beautiful I’ve seen.”
“Thank you,” Adelia answered, pleased but not satisfied.
From the time he noticed it, Caleum was amazed that older people could be so sensitive, or else vain, and especially his aunt. He thought it was something one should naturally shed with age, like a first skin. In time he had come to find it reassuring, as a promise that certain things in life, and one’s character especially, never change after a certain point. Because of this he was happy to see his wife fawn over his aunt’s garden, or else little things that gave her pleasure or that inflamed her pride, much as she delighted in treating him at times like a boy. It made him feel the world was stable and unflagging in some things, no matter what happened around them. “I will come round Saturday and help with planting, Auntie,” he told her then, “and I will bring bell jars in case of another frost.”
“I will get the rice pudding,” she said, smiling as she left the table. “There are raisins in it, Caleum.”
He smiled at her in turn but suppressed the greater part of his joy at this dessert, from embarrassment that something so simple always brought him such pleasure but also from feeling he had been coerced.
It was as Magnus and Caleum waited for Adelia and Libbie, who had gotten up to help, to return from the kitchen that the knocker at the front door sounded. It was a very deep and assured rapping that startled them, because no one ever used the instrument, and in time they had come to think of it as purely ornamental. Caleum rose to go to answer the insistent visitor, not knowing who on earth could be out there on the other side.
When he returned he announced their neighbor, Rudolph Stanton, had come to pay a visit. Everyone was taken by surprise that the mighty man should come down from his place at Acre to see them, instead of sending a messenger as was his usual custom no matter what the business, let alone at such an advanced hour.
“Is it really so unusual?” Magnus asked, as he went to the door, relishing the honor. “He’s a man just like I am, and he isn’t so far above us after all for all his fancy titles and what not.”
When he greeted Mr. Stanton he recalled in his mind the great turn his neighbor had once done him all those years back, and there was a real warmth he felt for him, though of course he did not dare express it in familiar terms. “Good evening, Mr. Stanton,” he said, when he entered the parlor where the other was waiting. “What an honor to have you here.”
“I did not mean to interrupt your dinner,” Stanton replied. “I didn’t mean that at all, but I figured better your leisure time than working hours.”
“It is nothing to think of. Can I offer you anything?”
“Whatever you’re having,” Stanton answered.
Magnus was a bit astounded to have Stanton accept his hospitality, and worried he hadn’t anything suitable for the man. His father, Merian, would have produced something rare and exquisite that was the best of its kind, but he himself had never been one for entertaining visitors or all that kind of indulgence. “Well, we were just having a rice pudding my wife made.”
“Then I will join you in that,” Stanton said. “If it is not too much a bother.”
Caleum stood up at once when Stanton came to the table, and the women looked at each other, uncertain what to do, for in that part of the world he was grand as a duke, maybe even a prince, and was in fact directly related to one of each.