“For what it’s worth.”
“It’s worth a great deal,” Mrs. Comstock said tartly. “To me, Julian, if not to you.”
Julian accepted his mother’s rebuke, and his expression softened. “Very well. We have a few weeks until Independence Day, in any case. And if I’m to live that long, I want to live as a human being, and not a fugitive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that tomorrow I’m going back to Manhattan.”
Our nervous idyll had ended.
* * *
We went aboard the Sylvania the next day. A storm had blown up overnight, and the morning was a cool and rainy one. I spent some time in the Sylvania’s pi lot house, satisfying my curiosity about the principles and techniques of steam navigation. Then I went to the warmer cabin below, where Julian was sitting with a book in his lap.
“The future is on my mind,” I said.
“Should we prove lucky enough to have one, you mean?”
“Don’t joke, Julian. I know the risks we face. But I’m a married man—I have obligations, and I need a plan of my own. Calyxa and I can’t impose on your hospitality forever. When we reach Manhattan I mean to find myself a job—anything short of the meat-packing industry [I had taken to heart Lymon Pugh’s many sermons on that subject.]—and then locate a place where Calyxa and I can live on our own.”
“Well, the thought is nobly intended. But don’t you think you should wait until after Independence Day? You can certainly stay with us until then. You’re no burden on the household, believe me.”
“Thank you, Julian, but why wait? I might miss an opportunity.”
“Or undertake an engagement you won’t be able to keep. Adam… perhaps my mother wasn’t sufficiently explicit about Deklan Comstock’s invitation. When she said we were invited to the Executive Palace , the pronoun included you.”
“What!”
“And Calyxa as well.”
I was appalled, and not a little weak about the knees. “How’s that possible? What does the President want with me? For that matter, how could he know anything about me at all?”
“The President’s men no doubt bribe or threaten the household servants. Walls are transparent to them. Your name and Calyxa’s were explicitly mentioned in the invitation.”
“Julian, I’m just a lease-boy—I don’t know how to behave in the company of a President, much less a murderous one!”
“Probably he won’t have you killed. But he must have learned that you were the true chronicler of my so-called ‘adventures,’ and I suppose he wants to have a look at you. As for your behavior—” He shrugged. “Be yourself. You have nothing to gain by posing, and nothing to lose by revealing your origins. If the President wants to mock me for associating with lease-boys and tavern singers, let him do so.”
This was not a pleasing prospect; but I bit my lip and said nothing.
“Meanwhile,” Julian said, “I owe you a favor.”
“Surely you don’t.”
“I do, though. You befriended me in Williams Ford, and showed me all you knew about that Estate and how to hunt it.”
“And you’ve shown me Edenvale.”
“Edenvale is nothing.
Manhattan, Adam! My town is Manhattan , and I want to instruct you in the perils and the pleasures of it, before you begin life as a working man.”
Perhaps this was meant as a distraction, but I was willing to abandon myself to it, considering how perilous our existence seemed to have become. “Maybe I can learn some of the ways of the Aristos before I’m thrust into their company at the Presidential Palace.”
“That’s right. And the first lesson is not to use the word ‘Aristos.’ ”
“Aristocrats, then.”
“Nor even that. Among ourselves, we’re ‘the Eupatridian Community.’ ”
A label big enough to strangle a man, I thought; but I practiced it dutifully, and after a while it ceased to stick in the throat.
3
The reader, if not versed in recent history, may be anxious to discover whether or not Julian and I were killed on Independence Day. I do not mean to protract the answer to that important question, but the events of the Fourth will make more sense once I have described some of what happened prior to that date.
It was a nervous time for Calyxa and me, though we were newlyweds and tempted to believe in our own immortality. President Comstock was hardly concerned with us, Calyxa said, and in any event we were not locked up in the fine rooms of the Aristocracy. We could pack up our belongings at any time, and travel to Boston or Buffalo , and live there anonymously, beyond the reach of any maddened Chief Executive. I would write books under an assumed name (in this scenario), and Calyxa would sing in respectable cafés. We went so far as to price railway tickets and scrutinize timetables, though I was distressed at the prospect of abandoning Julian to his fate.
“It’s his own fate,” Calyxa said, “and he could shed himself of it if he chose to. He ran away once—can’t he run away again? Ask him to come with us.”
But when I proposed this option to Julian he shook his head. “No, Adam. That’s no longer possible. It was a miracle that I escaped from Williams Ford. Here, I’m under much closer scrutiny.”
“What scrutiny? I don’t see it. New York City is a big locality—big enough to get lost in, it seems to me.”
“My uncle has eyes everywhere. If I so much as packed a bag he’d hear of it. This house is watched, though very discreetly. If I go for a walk, the President’s men aren’t far behind. If I drink to excess in some Broadway tavern, a report will find its way to Deklan Conqueror.”
“And are Calyxa and I also under this observation?”
“Probably, but the surveillance isn’t so strict.” He cast a glance to make sure no servant could overhear us. “If you want to escape, you’re well advised to do so. I won’t stop you or blame you. But it must be a clean escape, or else the President’s men will haul you back and use you against me. To be honest, given your trivial position in Deklan’s eyes, you might be safer here than elsewhere. But the decision is yours, of course.” He added, “I’m sorry you find yourself mixed up in it, Adam. I never meant for it to be so, and I’ll do anything I can to help.”
So Calyxa and I went on studying our railroad timetables, and made airy plans, but failed to pursue them. We continued living in the brownstone house as the days and weeks passed. Mrs. Comstock kept on with her charitable work, and held occasional gatherings of the Manhattan artistic circle, events which Julian enjoyed very much. Sam was often absent during this time, pursuing contacts in the upper echelons of the military—for he was no longer “Sam Samson” but Sam Godwin once again, restored to his reputation as a veteran of the Isthmian War; and I imagined he was performing his own kind of intelligence-gathering, with the aim of discovering the President’s ultimate intentions.
There was no such useful work for me, but I spent many pleasant hours with Calyxa as we adjusted to wedded life. Calyxa in her own way was as philosophically-inclined as Julian, and liked to discuss the flaws and shortcoming of the system of Aristocracy, of which she disapproved. When that palled, we took walks around the city. She enjoyed exploring the shops and restaurants on Broadway or Fifth Avenue ; and on fine days we ventured as far as the great stone walls of the Presidential Palace Grounds. [The grounds of the Executive Palace had once been a great Park, according to Julian, and open to the public; but that had changed when the federal government moved north from Washington.]
The walls were immensely tall and thick, and made of granite fragments salvaged from city ruins. The huge Broadway Gate at 59th Street , with its stone and steel guardhouse, was a work of architecture nearly as impressive as the Montreal Cathedral where I had first spied Calyxa in her surplice, and twice as monolithic. I couldn’t imagine what lay within those moated and forbidding walls (though I was destined to find out).