The chapel of the Church of the Apostles Etc. contained one single high window, and through it I could see the daylight beginning to ebb. I pointed this out to Julian, and reminded him that I had promised to be back with Calyxa by nightfall (as she preferred during the nervous last weeks of her pregnancy).
Julian seemed reluctant to leave—he was enjoying the pastor’s company, and sat so close to him that their knees touched—but he looked at the window and nodded. Julian stood up, and Pastor Stepney stood up, and they embraced as two old friends.
“You ought to come to the Palace,” Julian said. “My mother would be pleased to see you.”
“Do you think that would be wise?”
“I think it might be fascinating,” said Julian. “I’ll send you a note, discreetly.”
* * *
Pastor Magnus Stepney did come to the Executive Palace, more than once in the ensuing months, often for overnight visits. And Julian’s renewed acquaintance with his old friend produced two immediate and unanticipated results.
One was that Julian was moved to meddle even further in the relations between the civil authority and the Dominion. He summoned lawyers, and made himself knowledgeable about ecclesiastical law, and came to certain conclusions. The fact was, he said, the Dominion had no real jurisdiction over the non-affiliated churches, except to deny them membership in its organization. What gave the Deacons their power was the legal consequence of that denial. A rogue church could not be a registered charity, nor were its tithes and properties tax-exempt. In fact its possessions were taxed at a punitive rate, forcing such institutions into bankruptcy if they attempted to comply with the law, or into an outlaw existence if they did not. Those regulations had been put in place by a compliant Senate, and they were enforced by civil, not religious, authorities.
Julian objected to such laws, believing they conferred an undue power on the Dominion. To remedy the injustice he composed a Bill to moderate the levies on such churches and place the burden of proof of “apostasy” on the complainant Deacons. He felt he had enough popularity to shepherd the bill through the Senate, though he knew the Dominion would oppose it bitterly, for it constituted nothing less than an assault on their long-standing Clerical Monopoly. Sam didn’t approve of this maneuver—it was sure to rake up another fight—but Julian would not yield to argument, and tasked his subordinates with introducing the measure before the Senate as soon as possible.
The second visible result worked indirectly by the visits of Pastor Stepney was a change in Sam’s relationship to Emily Baines Comstock. Mrs. Comstock was attentive to Magnus Stepney during his visits (although he was only a fraction of her age), complimenting his appearance within the hearing of others, and saying she was not surprised that he came of Eupatridian stock, and making other such flattering comments as that. This effusive praise wore on Sam like a saw-blade on a piece of rough lumber. Sam did not care to see Mrs. Comstock so patently charmed by another and younger man. Her affections ought to be channeled more in his direction, he believed. Therefore, after what must have been much deliberation, he summoned up his courage, and suppressed his embarrassment, and barged into her presence one night while she was dining with Calyxa and me.
He arrived trembling and sweating. Mrs. Comstock stared at him as if he were a strange apparition, and asked what was wrong with him.
“Conditions,” he began—then he hesitated, shaking his head as if he was appalled at his own effrontery.
“Conditions?” Mrs. Comstock prompted him. “What conditions, and what about them?”
“Conditions have changed…”
“Be specific, if it’s within your power.”
“Before Julian assumed the Presidency I could never—that is, it wasn’t within my compass to ask—although I’ve always admired you, Emily—you know I’ve admired you—our stations in life are different—I don’t have to tell you so—me a soldier, and you high-born—but with the recent changes in all our fortunes—I can only hope that my feelings are reciprocated—I don’t mean to presume to speak for you—only to ask—to ask hopefully—to ask humbly —”
“Ask what ? Arrive at a point, Sam, or give it up. You’re incoherent, and we’re ready for dessert.”
“Ask for your hand,” he finished in an uncharacteristically meek and breathless voice.
“My hand!”
“In marriage.”
“Good Lord!” said Mrs. Comstock, standing up from her chair.
“Will you give it to me, Emily?”
“What an awkward proposal!”
“But will you give me your hand?”
She reached out to him, frowning. “I expect I’ll have to,” she said, “since you’ve gone and lost one of your own.”
* * *
Sam and Emily set their wedding date for mid-May, and it was to be a quiet ceremony, since she was a widow and he was of uncertain lineage (as the Eupatridians would say). I would forever mark that ceremony as the end of a brief “golden era” in the reign of Julian Conqueror—but not before the advent of some events even more historical, at least from my point of view. On Tuesday, April 11th, two days after we celebrated Easter, I finished writing A Western Boy at Sea; or, Lost and Found in the Pacific. I presented the typewritten manuscript in person to Mr. Hungerford at the offices of the Spark. He thanked me and told me he would bring the book to press quickly, to capitalize on the recent success of The Adventures of Captain Commongold. It might see print by mid-summer, he said.
Even more significantly, Calyxa went into labor on the 21st—a Friday afternoon, as sunny and pleasant as any day that season, with a high blue sky and a warm wind blowing.
* * *
The doctor who attended Calyxa was a man named Cassius Polk. Dr. Polk was a white-haired venerable of the highest respectability, who carried himself with immense dignity and didn’t smoke or drink. Toward the end of Calyxa’s term he began to spend much of his time at the guest-house, even sleeping there on occasion. Julian had enrolled him to attend exclusively to Calyxa, and paid him generously for his time.
On that particular afternoon he was sitting with me at a table in the kitchen of the house. Calyxa was resting upstairs, as she did most days. We knew her hour was near. Her belly was drum-taut, and when I held her at night I could feel the child kicking and moving about inside her with surprising vigor and determination. Its entrance into the world seemed, if anything, slightly overdue.
Dr. Polk sipped a glass of water I had given him. He was a discursive man, and liked to talk about his work. He specialized in obstetrics and female problems, and kept an office in a desirable section of Manhattan when he was not attending the births of high Eupatridians. Many of his clients, he told me, were young women of wealth, “the kind who insist on daring the devil by patronizing vaccination shops. I give them my advice on the subject, but of course they ignore it.”
I told him I knew very little about the business of vaccination.
“Oh, it’s fine in principle. Vaccination has been a useful preventative for certain diseases since before the Efflorescence of Oil. But it has to be scientifically applied, you see. The problem with fashionable vaccination is precisely that it is fashionable. A scar on the arm is imagined to make a woman more attractive to suitors, and it advertises her wealth, in addition, since the shops charge absurd amounts of money for their services.”