Julian Comstock

by Robert Charles Wilson

Julian roused from his brooding silence and said, “It’s true, Calyxa, and it isn’t Adam’s fault he didn’t tell you before now. I had hoped to remain a ‘Commongold’ for many more years to come. But the pretense is all blown up. The President’s my uncle, yes, and he isn’t charitably disposed toward me.”

  “And now that your identity has been revealed?”

  “News of the scene at the rail station is bound to circulate quickly, the city being what it is …”

  “And will your uncle try to kill you, then?”

  Mrs. Comstock stiffened at these blunt words, but Julian just smiled sadly.

  “I expect so,” he said.

  “Murderous relatives are a curse,” nodded Calyxa, who considered herself knowledgeable in these matters. “You have my sympathy, Julian.”

  The plush carriage followed a street I would later learn to call Broadway, then turned aside into a fashionable district of antique houses with stone facades, either original or built up from authentic remains. I looked about as we dismounted, and everything I saw—a tree-lined street, gardens blooming with spring flowers, glass windows of gemlike clarity, etc.—spoke of Aristocracy and Ownership, and not timidly, but boastfully. Up a flight of stairs into the reception-room of the great house, then, where a small army of servants greeted the returning Mrs. Comstock and gaped at her son. Mrs. Comstock clapped her hands and said brusquely, “We have guests—rooms for Mr. and Mrs. Hazzard and Mr. Godwin, please, and if Julian’s quarters are not in order they must be brought up to acceptable conditions. But only for the night. Tomorrow we remove to Edenvale.”

  I looked questioningly at Julian, who told me in a low voice that Edenvale was the family’s country Estate, located up the Hudson River.

  Some of the servants began to welcome Julian personally. They seemed to remember him warmly from earlier times, and were astonished at his arrival, since (as I later learned) rumors of his death had been circulating freely. Julian smiled to see these old acquaintances; but Mrs. Comstock was impatient, and clapped the servants to their chores, and we adjourned to an enormous parlor. A girl in a white apron brought us iced drinks. I supposed this sort of hospitality was common among Aristos, and I tried to accept it as if I were accustomed to it, though such luxury exceeded anything in my experience, including what I had seen in the houses of the Duncan and Crowley families at Williams Ford—rustic retreats by comparison with the excesses and indulgences of Manhattan, if this was an example.

  Calyxa, meanwhile, regarded it all with a painfully visible skepticism, and looked at the servant girl as if she wanted to indoctrinate her into Parmentierism, a project I hoped she would not undertake.

  “I think I understand the outline of the misfortune,” Julian said as we settled into the depths of our prodigiously-upholstered chairs. “Somehow the story of my experience in the war has been circulated in the city … though I don’t know how that could have come about.”

  I gritted my teeth but said nothing. I couldn’t, until my suspicions were confirmed.

  “You’ve been in the papers,” Mrs. Comstock acknowledged. “Under your assumed name.”

  “Have I?”

  Mrs. Comstock summoned the servant girl again. “Barbara, you know I banned cheap journals from the house.…”

  “Oh, yes,” said Barbara.

  “And I know that the ban isn’t universally observed. Please don’t deny it—we don’t have time. Go down to the kitchen and see if you can find anything sufficiently degraded on the subject of ‘Julian Commongold.’ Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes! The cook reads them out loud to us,” Barbara said, then blushed at the admission, and hurried off to find the papers.

  She came back with a weeks-old copy of the Spark and a crudely bound pamphlet. These specimens of urban journalism were passed among us to inspect.

  The Spark contained “the latest intelligence from the Saguenay front, including the capture of a Chinese Cannon!” This proved to be a truncated account of Julian’s bravery at Chicoutimi, printed under the byline of Theodore Dornwood, “the Spark’s famous front-line correspondent in the Saguenay Campaign.”

  Worse than this was the pamphlet, nearly a small book, which had been printed as a compilation of Mr. Dornwood’s reporting, under the title The Adventures of Captain Commongold, Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. It was selling briskly on all the better street-corners, the servant girl said.

  Julian and Sam explained to Mrs. Comstock that Dornwood was a scoundrel who had debauched himself in Montreal all during the Campaign, and who made up his stories out of rumor and whole cloth.

  But I looked into the pamphlet with careful attention, and my humiliation was complete. I confessed at once—I could do nothing else. “It’s Dornwood’s signature,” I said haltingly. “But the words … well … the words are mainly my own.”

  They say it’s a pleasant experience for any aspiring writer to see his work set in print for the first time. This occasion was an exception to that rule.

  The pamphlet’s paper cover featured an engraved illustration of “Julian Commongold” (rendered as an iron-jawed youth with a piercing gaze and immaculate uniform) astride the fender of a Dutch train-engine, waving an American flag several times larger than the version he had actually employed for the purpose, while a crowd of soldiers cheered at the capture of a supposed Chinese Cannon the size of an iron-mill smokestack. Apparently artists as well as journalists were expected to err on the side of drama, and this one had not stinted in the effort. Mrs. Comstock took the pamphlet from me and held it at arm’s length, an expression of distaste playing about her features.

  “Did you actually do these things, Julian?” she asked.

  “Some less florid version of them.”

  She turned to Sam. “And is this your idea of protecting him from harm?”

  Sam looked stricken; but he said, “Julian is a young man with a will of his own, Emily—I mean, Mrs. Comstock—and he doesn’t always yield to suggestion.”

  “He could have been killed.”

  “He nearly was—several times. If you regard this as a failure on my part, I can hardly contradict you.” He explained the circumstances of our departure from Williams Ford and our unwilling enlistment in the Army of the Laurentians. “I did my best to keep him safe, and here he is intact, despite his recklessness and mine—I say no more.”

  “You may continue to call me ‘Emily,’ Sam—we never stood on ceremony. I’m not unhappy with you, only confused and surprised.” She added, “You shaved. You used to wear an admirable beard.”

  “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 t
ime 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 convenient 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 household 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,* 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 cheekbones, 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 household 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.

  * I beg the reader’s pardon.

  2

  “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.* In palmier days, Julian explained, the house might have been crowded with visiting Aristos and Owners 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.