But Cawthorne made all the difference. Richard Oswald and David Hartley were as delighted to meet him as if he were a young, beautiful, loose-living actress. Oswald used a pair of spectacles of Cawthorne's design, so that he could read with the lower halves of the lenses while still seeing clearly at a distance through the uppers.
"Ingenious! Most extraordinarily ingenious!" the Scot exclaimed. "How ever did you come to think of it?"
"What gave me the idea, actually, was a badly ground set of reading glasses, in which part of the lenses were of improper curvature," Cawthorne answered. "I thought, if what had chanced by accident were to be done better, and on purpose- Once the notion was in place, bringing it to fruition proved easy enough."
"Remarkable," Oswald said. "It takes an uncommon mind to recognize the importance of the commonplace and obvious."
Curtis Cawthorne preened. The only thing he enjoyed more than hearing himself praised was hearing himself praised by someone with the discernment to understand and to state exactly why he deserved all those accolades.
Because the commissioners so admired Cawthorne, they even put up with Fenner's urge to fiddle with the treaty. As far as Victor could see, none of the changes from either side made a halfpenny's worth of difference. A few commas went in; a few others disappeared. Several adjectives and a sprinkling of adverbs were exchanged for others of almost identical import. Fenner seemed happier. The Englishmen didn't seem dismayed or, more important, irate.
The one phrase David Hartley declined to change was "earnestly recommend" in the fifth article. Fenner proposed several alternatives. Hartley rejected each in turn. "I do not believe that has quite the meaning his Majesty's government wishes to convey," he would say, and the Atlantean would try again.
Finally, Victor took Fenner aside. "He likes the wording of that article as it is," Radcliff said. "He is particularly pleased with it because he created the formula himself."
"Ah!" Fenner said, as if a great light had dawned. "I had not fully grasped that he was suffering from pride of authorship."
Although Victor might not have phrased it just so, he found himself nodding. "That is the condition"-he didn't want to say disease-"controlling him."
"Very well, then." By Fenner's tone and expression, it wasn't. Victor followed him into the meeting room with some apprehension. But Fenner was smiling by the time he sat down across the table from the English commissioners. "Mr. Hartley, General Radcliff has persuaded me that your language will serve. I shall earnestly recommend"-his smile got wider-"to the Atlantean Assembly that it should abide by this article as it does by all the rest."
"That is handsomely said, Mr. Fenner," Hartley replied. "I am pleased to accept it in the spirit in which it is offered. And I also thank you for your good offices. General Radcliff."
"My pleasure, sir," Victor replied. He still wasn't sure he liked the way Isaac Fenner was smiling. The Atlantean Assembly could earnestly recommend as much as it pleased. That didn't necessarily mean the Atlantean states would pay any attention to it. Fenner had to know as much, too. But he said nothing of it to David Hartley. Maybe he had the makings of a diplomat after all.
"With that matter settled, have we any more outstanding?" Richard Oswald asked, as he had with the draft he and Hartley arranged with Victor. Nobody said anything. Oswald nodded decisively, like an auctioneer bringing down the hammer on… On a slave, Victor thought, and wished he hadn't. Before he could dive deeper into his own worries, Oswald went on, "Then let us affix our signatures and seals to the document. Mr. Hartley and I will deliver our copy to London, whilst you take yours to Honker's Mill."
His manner was altogether matter-of-fact, which only made the comparison more odious. London was the greatest city in the world, perhaps the greatest in the history of the world. Honker's Mill… wasn't. A touch of asperity in his voice, Isaac Fenner said, "Now that peace has been restored, New Hastings will become the capital of the United States of Atlantis."
"How nice," Oswald murmured. New Hastings wasn't the greatest city in the history of the world, either. Maybe one day it would be, or Hanover if it wasn't so lucky, but neither came anywhere close yet. Not even the most ardent-the most rabid- Atlantean patriot could claim otherwise.
"Signatures. Seals," Custis Cawthorne said-and not one word about New Hastings' honor.
Men from both sides solemnly initialed the changed adjectives and adverbs on the treaty. They let the altered commas go. Maybe, one day, some historians would note the ones that had been deleted and learnedly guess which ones had been added after the first draft was done. For the time being, nobody thought they were worth getting excited about.
Richard Oswald and David Hartley signed for England. They splashed hot wax down on both copies and pressed their signet rings into it. Then the Atlanteans followed suit: first Victor, then Isaac Fenner, and finally Custis Cawthorne. One by one, the Atlanteans also used their seals.
"It is accomplished," Hartley said as the wax hardened. "Your land is separated from ours." Jeremiah could have sounded no gloomier. Even Job would have been hard-pressed.
"Now it is truly our own, to do with as we will!" Isaac Fenner, by contrast, exulted. Victor wondered how that balance between gloom and exultation would tip in years to come. Only the coming of those years would tell.
Company by company, regiment by regiment, the Atlantean soldiers who'd taken service for the duration of the war against England went home. The United States of Atlantis would retain a small professional army-one modeled on that of the mother country-but most of the greencoats wanted nothing more than to go back to their farms and shops, and to their families.
And French ships put in at Croydon to return de la Fayette and the survivors from his army to their native land. French sergeants cursed more musically than their English or Atlantean counterparts, but they were no less sincere. Ordinary French soldiers seemed as ready to go anywhere they were told and do anything they were told as a like number of redcoats would have.
De la Fayette clasped Victor's hand. "You may be sure, Monsieur]e General, it was a great honor to serve beside you and to help bring freedom to your land." The French noble grinned impishly. "And I also very much enjoyed giving England one in the eye."
"The fight would have been much harder and much longer without you, your Grace," Victor answered truthfully. "Your army's courage and its skill taught us a great deal, and your fleet slammed the cork into Cornwallis' bottle." He paused a moment, then added, "And, had you not come here, I should not have made a friend I value."
"I feel the same way." De la Fayette squeezed his hand again. He too hesitated before continuing in a low voice: "Now that Atlantis has shown the world what freedom means, perhaps my country will also discover it before long."
Victor remembered Custis Cawthorne's comments on the current state of France. What Cawthorne could say among his fellow Atlanteans, Victor didn't feel comfortable repeating to a French nobleman, even one of liberal ideas like de la Fayette. He contented himself with replying, "Come what may, in your land and in mine, I hope we meet again."
"As do I-and may it be so!" The marquis' smile was sweet and sad and knowing beyond his years. "If this is to come to pass, I think I shall have to come back here. Atlantean affairs will likely leave you far too busy to cross the sea and visit me in France."
"Maybe so-but then again, maybe not," Victor said. "I am going back to my farm. I never wanted to be anything more than a private citizen. Now that the war is over, I intend to seize the chance and go back to what I was."
"Well, man ami, I wish you good fortune in your endeavor." Yes, de la Fayette's smile looked knowing indeed. "But fame, once it takes up a man, often is not so eager to let him go again."