Dominion (39 page)

“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.

“Please pardon my intrusion,” Stanton said, as he sat down, “but Magnus has been bragging on your rice pudding all over the county, Mrs. Merian, and I was wondering whether it is everything he has said.”

Adelia beamed broadly and nearly giggled aloud. “Stop,” she said. Libbie smiled into her napkin as Adelia took up a bowl, which was not fancy and silver laid, as in some homes, but plain. She then served Mr. Stanton a generous portion, feeling like a girl as he tucked into it.

Their guest still had not announced his business, and as he ate Magnus wondered whether the man's mind had not gone off wandering, or whether he was not perhaps just sad over in that great big hall by himself, and perhaps really had come over only to share in a spot of pudding.

“It is the best I have ever tasted, Adelia,” Stanton said, as he finished the bowl. “May I call you Adelia? There wouldn't happen to be any more, would there?”

Libbie served him this time, watching him smile from the corner of her eye. He was perhaps ten years older than Magnus but looked nothing
like his age, being a bachelor and having no doubt access to such potions as only men of his station did to maintain themselves.

“You have a fine place here, Magnus Merian. You have truly done well,” he said, reclining in his seat with such ease one would have thought he dined there every evening. “It is too seldom that I visit with my neighbors, I'm afraid.”

“I suspect, Mr. Stanton,” Magnus said, “that you are far too busy with your time for much visiting.”

“True,” Stanton answered, pleased that someone acknowledged how hard he labored and how scarce his time was. “Between my farm and the business of the Legislature, I don't always know where an entire day has gotten off to when it's over and done.”

If before his presence there seemed unreal, it began to seem perfectly normal to all of them as he tucked into his second helping of rice pudding and indulged in the counting of his time—such as had always been a great pastime there at Stonehouses.

“As I rode up I noticed a very handsome sundial out front. Do you mind if ask where you acquired it?”

“My father built it,” Magnus answered with pride.

“He was a quite a man, Jasper Merian,” Stanton said. “I always wished I had known him better. And how is your father, young lady?”

Libbie sat up straight as she could. “He is well, sir. Thank you for your thoughtful inquiry.”

Stanton smiled. “What a fine family you have, Magnus. Do you mind if I call you that?”

“Not at all, sir,” Merian said, flattered by such familiarity.

“And how is your holding?” he asked, turning to Caleum, for it was really him he had come to see.

Caleum had not spoken at all other than to greet their guest, and, if the others had forgotten, he still wondered what he wanted there, as ever since Stanton entered the hall he knew it must be very serious news that he was only delaying in delivering.

“I cannot complain. I have been blessed with good soil, and I imagine I'll start putting out seeds in a day or so.”

“So soon? I was thinking of waiting until next week myself. Do you think I am making a mistake?”

“No, sir,” Caleum answered with equanimity, not betraying any surprise that such a man should seek his opinion, nor showing any bashfulness in tendering it. “Acre sits up on a hill, and the way the winds come in this time of year I imagine another week of frost for you in the main field.”

“Just as I have always maintained,” Stanton answered, impressed with the younger man's reasoning and observation. “That is very sharp of you, Caleum. Then they say around Miss Boutencourt's that you are a bright young man.”

Caleum did not think to ask how Stanton knew this, or why he should go seeking it, as it seemed natural that Rudolph Stanton would know everything that went on in Berkeley.

“Tell me now, what do you think of the disagreement with our friends in London?”

“What in particular?” Caleum asked.

“Do you think in the main it is time to separate out from them?”

“I don't know about time,” Caleum answered, “but it seems headed that way. As to which side I would choose I have no doubt.”

“No, nor I,” Stanton said.

It was unclear whether they meant the same thing, and Libbie and Adelia were concerned then to know why Stanton had shown up in the middle of the night to begin a discussion of politics. Magnus, however, had his suspicions and looked at Adelia, and she at Libbie, and the two of them withdrew.

“I imagine Caleum sees things much as you do,” Magnus interjected, not wanting to leave him alone on such uncertain ground.

“Does he?” Stanton asked, giving Magnus his full attention. “How do I see things?”

“Well, Mr. Stanton, neither of us would presume to know your thoughts,” Magnus said, uncomfortable with what he feared was a trap. “But if I had to guess, based on my dealings with you from the past, I would say you thought people was pretty much the same and deserved to be treated fair and that whatever side you take would be for the best reasons.”

“Is that what I think, Caleum?” Stanton asked.

“Equal,” Caleum answered. “Not all the same, but yes, in the main, equal.”

Stanton was pleased, and nodded.

“Do you think as well that men are all born as blank slates and that only experience makes them what they are?” Caleum asked then, grown a little bold.

Stanton smiled at him. “Indeed, boy,” he said, “I do. Is it what you think?”

“In principle,” Caleum said. “I think, though, some men might be born inclined more toward one thing than others, and what they experience might only bring it out in them.”

“Well, it is a ticklish business.” Stanton smiled. “You know then why I have come here?”

Caleum and Magnus both admitted that they did not, as Stanton took his pipe from his vest and began to smoke, much at home in the Merian house and happy with Caleum's natural good sense. “I have been charged with organizing a militia,” he confessed, “and I wanted to know whether you might have any interest in it.”

When Stanton said
charged,
it was clear he was in with other powerful people, and by
interest
he meant Caleum's loyalty.

“Are you expecting troubles?” Magnus asked, concerned only for Caleum's well-being.

“What is on the horizon I cannot say, but I plan on Berkeley being prepared and all our properties protected, whatever occurs.”

Both men looked at Caleum, who took in everything before him but did nothing to betray his thoughts.

“He'll answer you tomorrow then, Mr. Stanton, unless of course you need an answer right this moment,” Magnus said, knowing they would be granted what he had requested. It was not that he thought Caleum a child and unable to decide properly, but only that he wanted to protect his boy's interest and well-being as he was used to doing, even if he was a man by now. In this case time would best achieve that.

“I'll join,” Caleum said abruptly, defying his uncle and grown tired of the game with Stanton.

“I think you had better think about it,” Magnus reprimanded him. “Mr. Stanton, you know we've always tried to do whatever we could in support of Berkeley, but this is serious and needs to be thought about seriously.”

“Yes, you should think about it,” Stanton said to Caleum.

Caleum agreed to think it over for the night.

He did not wish to trade the harmony of his life for the lawlessness of war, but he already knew what he would do. It was less a matter of political belief than the fact that his neighbor had asked him, and he felt he had a debt of honor to repay and would not fail his responsibility.

His natural beliefs, they were not far behind, though they still needed time before they would be fully developed.

Caleum joined Stanton's militia in October, and they began immediately to prepare for battle. Stanton himself drilled the troops in the beginning, having experience of warfare from the French and Indian campaigns. However, as the seriousness of the political situation grew, he had recourse to hire a seasoned colonel to give the men greater discipline and lead them like conscripts in a full army. Each Saturday they could be seen out on the town square practicing maneuvers, as the colonel lectured them on various theories of warfare. These discourses were sometimes formal, as when he spoke about the use of mobile artillery, and other times they were ribald tirades on the privation of war, or else dissertations on the rights of the colonists. No matter the conversation, though, it inevitably spilled over and continued at Content's tavern afterward, where the men argued the day's lesson and often made merry.

To assemble his army, Stanton had gone through all the families in the valley and hill country and picked those he thought were best fit to serve. Caleum knew many of the other men in the militia by name or reputation, but he could not claim friendship with any of them, as they were from so far and wide, and he seldom associated beyond his small circle. Because they had been individually selected by Stanton, though, it was considered quite an honor to serve, and they bonded over their position as the ablest young men in the county.

They were also envied by those men who had not been asked to join, a thing that turned to jealousy whenever womenfolk mentioned the militia with approval. “I don't think those British would dare show themselves in Berkeley with Stanton's militia guarding us.”

They were a fine assembly, who feared very little of the sacrifice they were being asked to make and, though young, heeded Stanton's admonishment to be farsighted enough to ask what their colony and country should be after the strife of war had passed and gone.

At Stonehouses this looming reality still yet to settle, and everything seemed to move and progress as normal for that time of year. In June the corn was high as a yearling, and in July they prepared for the harvest that would soon be upon them. Libbie's pregnancy was well advanced, and though Caleum urged her to stay off her feet, she was defiant about it—helping with the summer chores as any other maid of the country. Adelia worked her garden, and was trying that year to introduce orange trees from seeds Magnus got for her after they saw Libbie's embroidered picture. Magnus, as he went to work that season, thought for the first time in years of his past humiliations, first at Sorel's Hundred, then at the hands of the tax assessor—and also those little assaults that are too small and diffuse to be given name in memory but only stored away. Through this reminiscence he managed eventually to convince himself in the rhetoric and need for war, and that what came after it would outlive what had been before, as everything would be equal in it, and none captive to the major part against his will. It was not something he shared with anyone, but whenever he saw Caleum ride into the stable in his militia uniform his own heart was made very proud, though of course not vengeful or thirsty for blood.

Whenever she saw her boy in his uniform and considered the news that reached them out there that summer, Adelia too had no doubt but that there would soon be a war of some kind. She remembered when Caleum first showed up there on the land with his guardian, Rennton, and how fearless he seemed, as only a small child can be. It was the same confidence that seemed to reawaken in him during that summer, and where before it had worried her to no end, now she allowed it to dispel her natural fears for his safety. She had thought from the moment he came there and became her son that he would always be with her. Now she realized she was foolish as any mother to have ever harbored such hope. She wept in private like an old woman, as it dawned in her mind that he was leaving.

Libbie was even less certain what shape the events unfolding would take and still had hope they might reverse their seeming course. She
began in secret nonetheless to make her own war preparations and to craft for her husband a new suit of clothes for the winter months, including a hunting shirt and a greatcoat, the inside of which was decorated with a scene from Stonehouses, with everyone who lived there represented. There was but one face she could not weave in yet, as she had never seen it, but left a space for it to be filled in later.

Caleum himself worked all day long, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, even though there was a weighty congress taking place in Philadelphia that summer, which would determine the future of the colonies. At night, though, heeding Stanton's suggestion, he would read books borrowed from the library at Acre, which made his positions better reasoned, as he considered what his own future, and that of Stonehouses, should be. He struck on many plans in those days, each of them fired by a sense of new possibilities and in its own way utopic.