Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (57 page)

Between the pamphlets and the conversation I began to assemble an outline of Magnus Stepney's unusual doctrines. He was a true apostate, in that he denied the legitimacy of the Dominion of Jesus Christ as a worldly power, and his ideas about God were profoundly unorthodox. God, he asserted, was not contained in any Book, but was a Voice, which every human being could hear (and which most of us chose to ignore). The common name of that voice was Conscience; but it was a God by any reasonable definition, Stepney claimed. What else could you call an Invisible Entity who said the same thing to members of every diverse branch of humanity, regardless of class, geography, or language? Because that Voice was not contained in any
single
 mind, but experienced consistently by
all
 sane minds, it must be more than merely human, and therefore a God.

Gods, the pamphlets asserted, were not supernatural beings, but tenuously living things, like ethereal plants, that evolved in concert with the human species. We were simply their medium—our brains and flesh the soil in which they sprouted and grew. There were other Gods beside Conscience; but Conscience was the one worth worshipping, because its commandments, if universally obeyed, would usher us into a veritable Eden of mutual trust and universal charity.

(I don't offer these notions to the reader with my endorsement, but only as a sample of Magnus Stepney's peculiar doctrines. At first encounter the ideas seemed to me both eccentric and alarming.)

Julian's discussion with Stepney covered much of the same ground, though at greater length. Julian was obviously entertained by these airy abstractions, and enjoyed pressing the pastor with logical objections, which Stepney, for his part, equally enjoyed parrying.

"But you're a Phi los o pher!" Julian exclaimed at one point. "This is Philosophy, not Religion, since you rule out supernatural beings—you know that as well as I do!"

"I suppose it
is
 Philosophy, looked at from one angle," Stepney conceded.

"But there's no money in Philosophy, Julian. Religion is far more lucrative as a career."

"Yes, until the Dominion takes your Church away. My mother and Adam's wife were caught up in that trouble, you know."

"Were they? Are they all right?" Stepney asked, with a concern that did not seem feigned.

"Yes; but only because I took them under my wing."

"The President's wing must be a reasonably reliable shelter."

"Not as sturdy as it could be. Don't you fear the Dominion at all, Magnus? You'd be in prison yourself, if you hadn't escaped the raid."

Pastor Stepney shrugged his broad shoulders. "I'm not the only unaffiliated church in town. The business is only dangerous when the Dominion is in a vindictive mood, and the Deacons take up these crusades just once or twice in a de cade. A few weeks or months will pass; then they'll declare the city sanctified, and the rogue Churches will spring up again like mushrooms after a rain."

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 ner vous 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 mea sure 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
AWestern 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 im mense 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 dev il 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 scien-tifically 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 ser vices."

"Still, if it's an effective treatment—"

"Sometimes it is—more often it's fraudulent. A syringe full of creek water and a sharpened knitting needle. The field is rife with profitable fraud, and more likely to spread disease than prevent it. Just this month a new Pox has broken out, especially severe among the high-born, probably as a result of just such unhygienic practices."

"Can't the Senate make a law against it?"

"Against vaccination shops? I suppose it could; but the Senators are wedded to the idea of Free Trade, and the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace, and all those shibboleths. Of course they feel the consequences too—or will, when their daughters begin to sicken. Fifteen cases this week alone. Ten the week before. Not a Pox that's familiar to me, either. A little like Dog Pox, a little like Denver Pox in its signs and indications."

"Is it very deadly?"

"Fewer than half my patients have recovered."

That was alarming. "Do you fear an epidemic, then?"

"I've seen Pox sweep through this city half a dozen times in my career. I fear an outbreak of it every day of my life, Mr. Hazzard. We don't know where epidemics come from and we don't know how to stop them. If it were up to me—"

But I never learned what the doctor would do, if it were up to him, for Calyxa called out anxiously from upstairs. Her labor had begun, and Polk dashed off to attend her.

I didn't follow him. He had told me to keep clear during the delivery. It wasn't a difficult promise to make. All I knew of the act of birth was what I had learned as a stable-boy in Williams Ford. I understood,
abstractly,
 that Calyxa would be enduring the same trials the brood mares in the Duncan-Crowley barns suffered when they foaled; but I could not juxtapose those memories with my intimate knowledge of Calyxa—the resulting image was distasteful, at best.

The sound of Calyxa's cries came down from the bedroom at increasingly frequent intervals. Dr. Polk had sent for a female accoucheur (as the Eupatridians called their midwives) as soon as the labor began, and when this nurse arrived she took note of my anxiety and tried to ameliorate it by giving me a tincture of hemp oil and opium in a glass of water.

I wasn't accustomed to the medication. It took effect within the hour, and the result was not altogether calming. I lost direction of my thoughts; and before long I had invested all my attention in a survey of the doors of the kitchen cupboards. The oiled oaken doors became a kind of Movie Screen, to my eyes, on which the grain of the wood evolved into images of animals, steam engines, tropical forests, scenes of war, etc. These impressions were elastic, and each one flowed into the next like water in a rocky stream. I laughed at some of the visions, and recoiled at others—an observer might have mistaken me for feeble-minded. And while the effect was distracting, it was less than reassuring.

Dr. Polk and his nurse passed in and out of the kitchen like wraiths during this interval, drawing pans of water or rinsing out towels. Hours passed, though they might have been minutes or months, in so far as I could calculate time in my intoxicated state. I did not entirely wake from my reveries until I heard a prodigious scream from the upstairs bedroom—a deep,
masculine
scream, in the voice of Dr. Polk.

I stood up shakily. I hadn't forgotten my promise to keep out of the doctor's way. But this seemed like an exceptional circumstance. Had Dr. Polk really cried out in terror, or had I imagined it? Uncertainty retarded my step.

Then there was another cry, neither Calyxa's nor the doctor's—the nurse had joined the chorus. A cold dread came over me, and I rushed to the stairs.