Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (33 page)

"I can grow another just as admirable ... Emily."

"Please do so." She refocused her attention. "Julian, did you have to indulge in such theatrics simply because you found yourself in the Army?"

"I felt as if I did. I was performing my duty, in my mind."

"But did you have to be so
thorough
 about it? And you, Mr. Hazzard, you claim to have written the words published by this Theodore Dornwood?"

"They were never meant for publication," I said, blushing down to my hair-roots. "This is as shocking to me as it must be to you. Dornwood pretended to tutor me in the literary art, and I showed him what I imagined were exercises in narrative. He said nothing about publishing them, much less publishing them under his own name. I would have forbidden it, of course."

"Which of course is why he didn't ask. Are you really that naive, Mr.

Hazzard?"

I could not frame an answer to this humiliating question, though I saw Calyxa nodding vigorously.

"None of this would be a problem," Sam reminded her, "if the connection between Commongold and Comstock hadn't been made. What were you doing at the depot, Emily?"

"A favor for the Patriotic Women's Union. We often greet returning veterans who distinguish themselves on the field of battle. Such ceremonies improve morale among civilians, and the name 'Comstock' lends a certain
éclat
. I wouldn't have reacted the way I did, but ... well, a great deal of time has passed since you and Julian disappeared from the Duncan and Crowley Estate. There was the implication that you might have been killed. I didn't adopt that repulsive idea, but neither could I completely discount it. When I saw Julian again—well." She dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye.

"Wholly understandable!" Sam exclaimed. "Don't blame yourself!"

"Luck was against us. The vulgar papers will be full of this tomorrow.

And of course ...
he'll
 hear of it."

The emphatic pronoun referred to President Deklan Comstock—Deklan Conqueror, as he was also known. A grim silence fell over the gathering.

"At least," Mrs. Comstock said finally, "we can put some distance between ourselves and the Executive Palace. Edenvale won't protect us, but it will make things less con ve nient for Deklan if he decides to act rashly. More than that I cannot do. But let's not be gloomy. My son is home safely—that's something to celebrate. Mr. and Mrs. Hazzard, will you join us at our Estate for the next few days?"

I was humbled by Mrs. Comstock's offer, since I had done nothing to deserve her hospitality and everything to deserve her opprobrium. I was about to decline, when Julian answered for me: "Of course Adam will come. We can hardly set him loose on the streets of the city. He'd be eaten alive."

Mrs. Comstock nodded. "You've been a loyal friend to my son, Adam Hazzard, and it would please me if you traveled with us, especially if Julian can locate some more appropriate clothing for you and your lovely wife. Consider it settled."

She clapped her hands again. A dozen servants appeared as if from thin air, and the house hold became a whirlwind of preparation for the journey to the countryside.

Calyxa and I spent a night in one of the guest bedrooms of the Comstock brownstone—as sybaritic an apartment as I had ever inhabited, fitted with a mattress so plush and downy that lying
on
 it was equivalent to lying
in
 it.

This might have presented unique opportunities for marital intimacy,
⁴⁸
except that Calyxa was conscious of the movements of servants in the hallway and adjoining rooms, which awareness of interfered with her sense of privacy.

She did note that the bedroom, like the other rooms we had seen, contained a framed photograph of Julian's father, Bryce Comstock, in a neatly-tailored Major General's uniform. "He doesn't much resemble the reigning President," she observed, "at least the face on the coin."

The resemblance existed but it was entirely structural: the high cheek-bones, the thin lips. In that which
animates
 a face—that is to say, the spectrum of human emotion, apparent even in a photograph—Bryce was the opposite of Deklan. In fact there was much of Julian in him: the same brightness of eye and readiness of smile. "He was the better brother," I told Calyxa. "Genuinely brave, and not inclined to casual assassination. He was a hero of the Isthmian War before Deklan had him hanged."

"Heroism is a dangerous profession," Calyxa observed, correctly.

I slept restlessly and woke as the rest of the house hold began to stir in the morning. The stars were just disappearing and the air was cool as we assembled ourselves and our luggage into another of Mrs. Comstock's capacious carriages, and set off with a train of servants for the docks.

Manhattan in a spring dawn! I would have been in awe, if not for the dangers overhanging us. I won't test the reader's patience by dwelling on all the wonders that passed my eye that morning; but there were brick buildings four and five stories tall, painted gaudy colors—amazing in their height but dwarfed by the skeletal steel towers for which the city is famed, some of which leaned like tipsy giants where their foundations had been undercut by water. There were wide canals on which freight barges and trash scows were drawn by teams of muscular canal- side horses. There were splendid avenues where wealthy Aristos and ragged wage workers crowded together on wooden sidewalks, next to fetid alleys strewn with waste and the occasional dead animal. There were the combined pungencies of frying food, decaying fish, and open sewers; and all of it was clad in a haze of coal smoke, made roseate by the rising sun. As we approached the docks I saw the masts and stacks of schooners and steamers bobbing against the sky. Our company traveled along a wharf until we came to a steam launch, the
Sylvania,
 which belonged to Mrs. Comstock. It was a small, trim, impeccably whitewashed vessel, gilded in places, and its captain and crew had already brought the boiler up to pressure and were ready to sail.

Before we went on board Mrs. Comstock sent a dock-boy to procure copies of the morning
Spark.
 The boy returned with a bundle of these journals, and as soon as we had been assigned staterooms and stored our possessions we gathered in the fore- cabin to inspect them.

Our worst fears were quickly confirmed. The front-page headline announced:

COMMONGOLD A
COMSTOCK!
Heroic "Boy Captain" Revealed as Nephew of President.

The byline this time wasn't Theodore Dornwood's, but there were several mentions of his
Adventures of Captain Commongold,
 the sales of which would no doubt be redoubled by the news. The story itself was a reasonably accurate account of Julian's arrival in Manhattan and the warm greeting he received from his mother, not much embroidered with spurious drama. Most disconcerting was a brief note in the tail of the piece to the effect that the Executive Palace had been approached for comment "but has not yet issued a public statement."

Julian, Sam, and Mrs. Comstock began to discuss the possible ramifications of all this, while Calyxa and I went to the foredeck in a gloomy mood, to distract ourselves with the passing sights. Manhattan with its skeletal towers and relentless commerce had already fallen behind us, but there was evidence of the work of the Secular Ancients on every shore—scavenged ruins as far as the eye could reach, a reminder that human beings in inconceivable numbers had swarmed here during the Efflorescence of Oil. What they had left behind was essentially a Tip of monumental proportions, so expansive that even a century of scavenging had skimmed off only the most accessible deposits of copper, steel, and antiquities. There was testimony to this continuing work on the New Jersey shore, where re-rolling mills and iron foundries vented black smoke into the air. We passed beneath two monstrous bridges—one half-fallen and choked with goosegrass, one still in repair and busy with industrial traffic—while the river itself was alive with barges, steamers, and those oddly-rigged little boats called
dahabees
 which the numerous Egyptian immigrants liked to sail.

Calyxa had dressed herself, under Mrs. Comstock's tutelage, in the blouse and skirt of a modest Aristo. She wore the clothes unwillingly, but they were becoming to her, although she picked at the belt that cinched her waist as if it were some medieval implement of torture. "This is not exactly how I expected to spend my honeymoon," she remarked.

I began to apologize, but she waved it off. "It's all very interesting, Adam, if slightly terrifying. Is Julian really in mortal danger?"

"Almost certainly. His father was killed by Deklan Conqueror as punishment for achieving exactly the sort of notoriety Julian has just acquired. There are limits to what even a President can do, of course—the contending forces of the Army and the Dominion are practical constraints, Sam says—but Deklan is devious and may bide his time until some scheme occurs to him."

"Is there anything we can do to help?"

"In
strategizing
, no—that's best left to the Aristos, who understand how these things work. In practical matters, Julian knows he can count on us."

"Much of the blame, of course, lies with this Theodore Dornwood."

"If there's any justice he'll be made to pay for his thievery and lies."

"Is there, though? Any justice, I mean?"

I took this as a practical rather than a philosophical question. "There will be, if I can help it."

"You mean you intend to punish him yourself?"

"Yes," I said, and meant it, though I hadn't given the prospect much thought. Perhaps Deklan Comstock couldn't be brought to justice, unless at the Final Judgment; but Theodore Dornwood was no Aristo, and he didn't live in a walled palace, and it might be within my power to extract some sort of payment from him.

I vowed that I would do so, sooner or later.

"Any outdoor game or sport," Julian said, "to
be
 a sport, ought to have three essential qualities. It should be difficult, it should be impractical, and it should be slightly silly." His father had taught him that interesting truth, he said.

It was our second week at Edenvale. There had been no word or signal from Deklan Comstock, and the furor in the press had begun to die down for lack of supplemental fuel. Perhaps that engendered a premature sense of security among us.

Certainly Edenvale was a soothing locality. I had never summered at an Aristo's country Estate, unless you count tending stable for the Duncans and the Crowleys, and I was appalled and seduced by the luxury and laziness of it.

Edenvale's properties were not cultivated, but kept in the wild condition.

Trails were maintained for Scenic Strolling or Riding, and the vast acreage of wilderness invited hunting and exploration.

Edenvale House itself sat on an immaculately-tailored lawn bordered with flower gardens. During pleasant weather we took breakfast outdoors, the meal catered to us by servants while we sat at dainty whitewashed tables. On rainy days Calyxa and I explored the seemingly endless rooms of the House, or perched in its library, which was stocked with nineteenth-century classics and Dominion-approved novels of light romance.
In the evenings Sam broke out a deck of cards, and we pursued the diversions of Euchre or Red Rose until bedtime; or we adjourned to the music room, where Mrs. Comstock was teaching herself to play
Las Ojos Criollos
 on the piano.
⁴⁹
In palmier days, Julian explained, the house might have been crowded with visiting Aristos and Own ers and Senators and such. But the hanging of Bryce Comstock had cast a shadow over the family, and Mrs. Comstock had been shut out from the elite social circuit. Since then her companions had been drawn from the Manhattan show business crowd, or from the lower ranks of rising wealth; and Edenvale was not the social magnet it once had been.

Sam, on the other hand, was made rapturous by her performances, and claimed he could listen to her all night without tiring, though even he seemed grateful when she moved on to such simpler compositions as
Ladies of Cairo
 or
Where the Sauquoit Meets the Mohawk.

After two weeks these small entertainments began to pall, and Julian proposed taking me on a tour of the wilder parts of the Estate—the Estate as he had known it as a child, before he was sent to Williams Ford. I readily agreed, and we set out from the house on a sunny, cool morning. Julian carried an unusual piece of luggage with him: a canvas bag, narrow, and about three feet long. I asked him about it; and that was when he quoted his father's remark about the nature of sport.

"Is it sporting equipment of some kind, then?"

"Yes, but I'll keep the nature of it to myself for now—I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

We had dressed in clothes not much grander than what we had worn in Williams Ford when we hunted squirrels in the forest; and this was a relief after the complex and constraining Aristo fashions into which we had recently been belted and braced. A breeze turned the leaves of the ailanthus and the birch trees as we walked beneath their overarching branches, and it was as if we had become young again, for a few hours, at least.

In Williams Ford such expeditions always put Julian in a philosophical mood. That hadn't changed. We paused in a grove of cork trees to refresh ourselves from the canteens we had packed, and Julian said, "This is where I learned to love the past, Adam—as a boy, this was my private Tip."

"More trees than trea sure, as far as I can tell."

"So it was meant to be. But all this forest has grown up over layers of scuttle from the days of the Secular Ancients. Dig anywhere and you're bound to unearth an old spoon or button or bone. Over that way"—he pointed at a hillside lush with birch and blackberry—"over that way there are foundations cut into the slope, and the remains of tumble-down houses. Do you know what I found there, as a boy?"

"Beetles? Spiders? Poison ivy?"