Empire

by Edward Cline

  Hugh smiled in apology. “Thank you, Spears. You will please excuse my…lapse in memory. Part of me, it seems, is still in Williamsburg.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the valet. “We had all come to that conclusion.”

  “Is it so noticeable?”

  Spears nodded. “We would not have said so to you, sir, but we will acknowledge it. I own that we had occasion to remark among ourselves on your…condition.” After a brief pause, he added, “We had heard that you made a great victory in the Assembly, sir, and were wondering why you were so, well, angry.”

  “Angry?” laughed Hugh. “Did I seem that? Well, I can assure you, I was not. I am very pleased with the state of things here. My compliments, Spears.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  It was only a little after nine in the evening, but Hugh said, “I think I shall retire early tonight. Perhaps after a good night’s rest, that other part of me will have come home by morning.” Then, he thought, he would awaken refreshed and in full possession of himself and of Meum Hall. “Rouse me at your own peril, Spears.”

  The valet grinned. “As you wish, sir.”

  But Hugh opened his eyes the next morning just after dawn, only a little later than his regular hour. He was up before even Spears, and had fixed himself some coffee in the kitchen before Mrs. Chance appeared. The rest had helped, but he still felt uneasy.

  That morning, while he was busy rearranging the business on his desk, and putting his new books in their proper places on the shelves, Thomas Reisdale, the attorney and vestryman, called. He had been away seeing clients in Norfolk and Elizabeth City across the James River the last two weeks, and unable to attend the House’s deliberations. “Forgive me for intruding, Mr. Kenrick,” he said, “but I am informed that I have missed some epochal event. I regret now having so many prosperous clients who take up my time. What happened?”

  Hugh answered by simply handing the attorney a copy of the printed resolves. Reisdale read them and emitted a slow gasp. He glanced at his host with new interest. “Oh, my! This is provocative!” He frowned. “And you had a part in this, sir?”

  Hugh nodded. “They are Mr. Henry’s resolutions, though only the first four were adopted by the House, and those four with great reluctance.”

  Reisdale stared at Hugh for a moment. “Why…the chamber must have been filled with the smoke of volleys from both sides!” He shook his head in confusion. “Were there so many of you that even the four had a chance to pass?”

  Hugh briefly described the last two days of the session.

  Reisdale grunted in appreciation. He held up the broadside and pointed to the resolves. “These read as though they might have been composed by Mr. Bland.”

  Hugh said, “Colonel Bland was a chief and very vocal opponent, Mr. Reisdale. I must say that I am disappointed that he did not endorse them.” He paused. “Copies of those resolves are now on their way to every colony and even to England.” He smiled. “Mr. Barret did us the service. He was there.”

  Reisdale sighed. “I am surprised that the good Colonel opposed these. They are very much in his style.”

  Hugh shrugged. “He advised caution,” he remarked. “But there is always a time when it is advisable to throw it to the winds.”

  “That you have done,” said Reisdale. “I shall write Mr. Bland about this.” He rose to leave. “I must study these resolves. When these reach England, we shall never hear the end of it!”

  Hugh looked grave. “Or nothing at all.”

  Some time after Reisdale left, Hugh sat at his desk and reread his transcriptions to make certain he had not missed anything. Later, he would assign Mr. Beecroft the task of copying the speeches so that they could be sent to his father and Dogmael Jones. He twirled his brass top as he read; its hum seemed to soothe his nerves.

  Then a remark of Reisdale’s came to mind, about the volleys from both sides of the House. It caused him to look up at his sketch of Reverdy Brune, and recall something he had said to her long ago, about the gorget of his mind. “There are battles of the intellect to be fought, Reverdy,” he said to her that precious day, “for king, country, and liberty…. A mind can accrue honor, too, and carry its own colors…. I am an ensign in our country’s most important standing army…. ” A battle had indeed been fought over the course of those days in the House, he thought. And while I was an ensign in that conflict, Mr. Henry was our captain.

  Even John Ramshaw, when he stopped by Meum Hall on his way to the Sparrowhawk, had acknowledged the violence of the conflict, and remarked, “It was not a soldier’s wind that sailed your resolves through, my lad. You were beating to windward all the time you were taking and giving shot, and hazarding a wreck close to some killer rocks.”

  Hugh found himself wishing that his friend Roger Tallmadge was here, so he could ask him what he felt after a battle, and if it was natural for a man to feel drained and lifeless, even in victory. Because, he thought, while he was engaged in that battle, he had felt exaltation.

  Then a smile began to grow on Hugh’s mouth as he identified the thing that was troubling him: I felt then that I had not only been defending an important hill, but attacking it, as well, and that the struggle was terrific, and merciless, and deafening, one side crashing repeatedly against the ramparts and parapets of the other, and thrown back. It was a steep slope to charge up, and a precarious one to hold, but both sides were determined, fearless, and courageous, and they thought it would never cease…. The enemy? wondered Hugh. He was nameless, faceless, almost irrelevant…. ”

  Hugh’s completed smile was one of enlightened irony and contentment. It is no wonder you are tired, he thought. You were fighting yourself. And you were victorious.

  His eyes wandered back to the picture of Reverdy Brune. But I know what is missing here, he thought. A pair of lonely, grateful, hungry arms holding me to her, and my cheek resting on her scented hair…. That special soldier’s homecoming, that intangible recognition of valor that only a woman can bestow….

  Hugh shut his eyes against the longing. Well, he thought, pushing himself away from his desk. Enough of that. It is early in the day, and there are things to be done.

  * * *

  Jack Frake was not troubled. He was in the fields today, as usual, appraising his own crops. But he turned in his saddle now and then to look at the great house of Morland in the distance, and then let his sight roam over the expanse of fields that spread just south of it. Even though he knew that none of it had ever been in jeopardy, he felt now that somehow a great cloud of doubt and uncertainty was lifted from over it. He felt somehow released from that doubt and uncertainty, freer than ever before. The great event in Williamsburg had happened. He had been fortunate enough to witness it. He would have believed it, even had he not witnessed it. A copy of the resolves lay on his desk in the library.

  Men were emerging from the caves of servitude, he thought; some boldly, some tentatively, still others darting back at the first touch of sunlight on their foreheads. He wondered for a moment where he had heard that analogy, other than in Redmagne’s Hyperborea. Oh, yes! he recalled; during that long-forgotten encounter with Plato’s Republic, when he was a youth being tutored in the very house he now owned. Yes: Men were emerging from those caves to see with their own eyes; beginning to doubt the necessity of guardians and messengers to tell them what the upper-world was and meant; beginning to question the assumption that such knowledge was impossible to them, or too special to acquire by their own efforts; beginning to suspect that the intermediaries and guardians were hostile obstacles who had a powerful interest in keeping the cave-dwellers ignorant, dependent on them, and chained to their tasks.

  Jack Frake had never dwelt in those caves; he knew of them only as an external observer. He had always viewed it as a tragic paradox that other men remained in them, either from ignorance or indifference, or by educated choice. He was glad, however, that he had known some men who were much like himself, men who had never needed to ascend the darkened, jagged
, perilous heights to reach the light that shone through the entrances to the caves, men who had refused to allow themselves to be herded at the birth of their consciousnesses to the depths of those caves. Patrick Henry was certainly one of those men, he thought. And Hugh Kenrick.

  He heard the jingle of reins and the thud of hooves near him, and turned to see John Proudlocks approach and ride up to his side. And this man, he added.

  “You are looking…philosophical, Jack,” said the Indian, “when you should be concerned about the corn.” He waved a hand to indicate the broad square of cornstalks before them. “Worms and birds have been fattening themselves on this crop. I do not know why they are so…numerous, this year. Our people pick off the worms and chase off the birds, but it is useless. The…vermin always return.”

  “I know,” said Jack. “This year, we will be lucky to harvest enough fodder for ourselves.” In the past, Morland had been able to sell about half its corn crop to merchants and ship captains for resale to farmers and planters throughout the Tidewater.

  After a moment, Proudlocks asked, “What were you thinking?” He was intimate enough with his friend’s manner and bearing that he knew that the corn crop had not been on Jack’s mind.

  Jack smiled. “How wonderful this place is, John, now that what must be said has been said.” He related his thoughts on the caves to Proudlocks, who listened with great interest.

  Proudlocks nodded sagely when Jack had finished. “Oh? Plato and his guardians and philosopher-kings? I have read that parable. It was quite silly, and without purpose.” He pointed to the sky. “There is the sun,” he said, “and there is the house, and the fields, and Mr. Hurry on his horse, and the river beyond. Where is the messenger to tell me those things?” He pointed to his eyes and forehead, wagging a finger a few times to stress that he made no distinction between them. “Here. They are truth-tellers, not tale-tellers of shadows and forms, or philosopher-kings who deal false cards to their subjects.” He shrugged. “They are…more little men, that is all.” He paused. “What happened in the Assembly — that is the beginning of a march from the caves, as you say, is it not?”

  Jack shook his head. “For others,” he said. “They have not yet begun their march. They are only just gathering at the entrance, so to speak.”

  Proudlocks nodded to another figure in the distance. “Look. It is Mr. Kenrick.”

  Hugh Kenrick walked his mount through the fields, then urged it into a canter for the last fifty yards. As he approached, Jack doffed his hat in salute and greeting.

  Hugh smiled and touched the brim of his hat. “Good afternoon, sirs. May I invite myself to supper, Jack?” he asked. “And perhaps persuade Etáin to give us a round on her harp?”

  Jack saw by a subtle, unintentional set of Hugh’s face that it was not merely company that he was seeking. He was certain that Hugh was still trying to close the wound he had suffered in the House over the apology, that he was in the final stage of recovery, and that he simply needed some kind of reminder that there were men he did not need to persuade, fight, or oppose. Nor apologize to. He needed some time in Hyperborea. “You are welcome to stay, Hugh,” said Jack. “And I believe Etáin would oblige us with a private concert.”

  “Thank you,” said Hugh. He accompanied Jack and Proudlocks as they inspected Morland’s fields. At the end of the tour, they rode back to the great house. Etáin was sitting in a chair on the veranda. She rose and said, “Here are my soldiers!”

  Hugh grinned, but laughed inwardly to himself. Jack said, as he dismounted. “And hungry ones, too. Ask Mrs. Beck to set another place for Hugh. He is staying to supper.”

  Etáin nodded. “I saw you three in the fields, and have already instructed her.” Israel Beck, husband of the cook and servant and assistant bookkeeper for Mr. Robins, the business agent, came out and led the mounts to the stables. Etáin bussed her husband first when he stepped onto the veranda, then Hugh. Hugh said to her, “I am hoping also that you will charm us with some music. My head, at least, is still staggered by the excess of words I have spoken and heard these last few days, and I believe that a dose of your talent will clear them away.”

  “Of course,” laughed Etáin. “I have tamed Mr. Bach, and have been wanting you to hear how.”

  “Ah!” laughed Hugh. “I cannot bear him on the organ, but on your harp, he is quite heavenly!”

  That evening, over supper, together with Mr. Robins and William Hurry, they talked about everything but politics. Jack, Hugh, Etáin, and Proudlocks laughed more than they had ever before. And later, Etáin performed on her harp in the music room, playing her own transcriptions of Bach and several Continental composers.

  Far into the evening, at Hugh’s request, she played “Over the Hills and Far Away,” and ended with “Westering Home.” Near the end of the latter, Jack happened to glance at Hugh because his guest had not moved in a while. He saw that Hugh’s eyes were shut. Hugh sat in his armchair in too relaxed a manner, his head lolling to one side.

  Etáin completed the melody, and noticed it, too. She whispered, “He called it a soldier’s lullaby, and indeed it put him to sleep!” Proudlocks rose and made to rouse Hugh, but Jack put up a hand. “No. Let him sleep. We’ll get him a pillow and a blanket.” He paused. “He is tired, and ought to awaken here.”

  After they had made Hugh comfortable, and Robins, Hurry, and Proudlocks had gone to their quarters, Jack and Etáin sat on the steps of the veranda for a while before they, too, retired. “When I was in town today,” said Jack, “I met Mr. Stannard, who has somehow procured a copy of the resolves. He promised they would cause trouble. I replied that when one purchases a bull, its horns are natural and inevitable appendages.”

  Etáin laughed. “What did he say?”

  Jack chuckled and drew on his pipe. “Nothing. He made a face, as though he had just tasted some wrong beer. Reverend Acland was about, too. He crossed the street to avoid me.”

  “I never liked that man,” remarked Etáin. “Not as a man, not as a minister.”

  “Hugh said today that the resolves will have a greater effect and consequence than did Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses when they were nailed to a church door in Wittenberg. I agreed. He also said that he had half a mind to nail a copy of the resolves to the door of Stepney Church.”

  “That would be prankish and beneath him,” said Etáin, “though I think that Reverend Acland has deserved to have such a trick played on him.”

  Jack sighed and shook his head. “Hugh doesn’t quite realize what he’s done, Etáin, or, at least, what he’s helped Mr. Henry and the others to do. He has advanced my own thesis, and shattered his own.” He paused. “A part of him is still captive in Plato’s caves.”

  “How can he not know, Jack?”

  “Because…he has not yet found the words.”

  “What words?”

  “The words his friend Glorious Swain told him he would find someday.” Jack paused again. “The words Skelly told me once I would find.” He shook his head. “I am closer to finding them than is Hugh. They are simple words, words we use every day, words I sometimes think I am about to pronounce that particular way. But they elude me. They are simple words, Etáin, but they are at the peak of a great complexity. I cannot fathom their source.” He smiled. “They are the crest of Hugh’s Mount Olympus…the spirit that envelops and animates and protects Hyperborea.”

  Etáin leaned over and rested her head on Jack’s shoulder. “Have you told Hugh what you plan to do in November?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “He will approve. He will join you.”

  “We’ll see.” Jack and Etáin had discussed it between themselves, and then with John Proudlocks. For on the day they returned from Williamsburg, Jack had announced, “I have made my own resolution — that not a single stamp will be landed in this county.”

  Etáin sat up and gazed at the profile of her husband’s face in the light of the lantern that hung from a hook on the veranda above them, then passed
a loving, possessive hand over his hair. “If this is Hyperborea, then you are my Drury Trantham.”

  * * *

  Hugh Kenrick did not attach any significance to dreams. He once wrote to his mother that they were “but the skewed, tilted, involuntary recollections of one’s experiences and thoughts.” Tonight, however, he had one of his infrequent dreams, and if he had been able to remember it, he might have seen some relationship in it between its events and those of the last month.

  He saw himself wandering among the stalls and carts of the booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard in London, then picking up an ancient tome, and wondering of a sudden how he was going to announce that he had just discovered a lost play by Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Henry the Second. In the dream, he recognized it instantly. It was about Thomas á Becket’s clash with Henry over whether the Church was going to punish a pair of murderous priests, or the Crown. Then he saw himself sitting in a theater, watching Garrick in the role of Becket, delivering a glorious soliloquy, and then the actor Samuel Foote as Henry speaking a hand-wringing answer. Then, with unaccountable abruptness, the stage figures merged, and Hugh imagined himself, at times with Patrick Henry, and, oddly enough at times, with an older Thomas Jefferson, delivering speeches on liberty to a malodorous assembly of men of Becket’s time. Somehow he knew that his scruffy audience understood every word he spoke, but also that what he was saying was unintelligible to every man in it. The serfs, the knights, the tradesmen, the princes all gaped up at him with cows’ and sheep’s eyes. He was standing on a dais with Patrick Henry and Jefferson, and turned to them to remark, “We may as well be speaking Dutch, or Algonquian, or court German, sirs. Ought we to go on, before they take us for sorcerers, and burn us at the stake?”