The Sot-Weed Factor (87 page)

Billy Rumbly was flabbergast. "Great Heavens, sir, you leave me breathless! My father, my wife, my long-lost brother -- thou'rt setting my world a-spin!" He laughed. " 'Tis clear I misapprehended you, and I humbly beg your pardon, Mr. --"

"Cooke; Ebenezer Cooke, of Malden." The poet was relieved to observe that the name apparently meant nothing to Billy Rumbly.

"Mr. Cooke, sir." The Indian shook his hand warmly. "May I say at the outset, Mr. Cooke, that gossip to the contrary notwithstanding, my wife is as dear to me as you declare she is to you, and her condition (which I gather thou'rt aware of) is a matter of gravest concern to me. In fact, 'twas to seek advice from Mrs. Russecks on that subject I drove hither this evening -- for which praise God!"

Mary, having by this time got the better of her emotions, explained that Mrs. Russecks was indisposed and excused herself to return to the patient's bedside.

"If ye still mean to call on Mrs. Rumbly," she said to Ebenezer, "we'll ride out first thing in the morning."

"Nay," Billy Rumbly protested, "you must be my guest tonight, sir, and tell me these wonders at your leisure; I shan't have it otherwise! And you, Miss Mungummory, if you really must go now, take my sympathies and regards to Mrs. Russecks and tell her I'll consult her another time; but you and I must speak together very soon about Mattassin -- tomorrow, perhaps? I've much to ask and much to tell!"

Almost too carried away to speak, Mary managed some sort of acknowledgment and left the inn. Billy watched her intently until she was gone and then shook his head.

"I'll wager she was beautiful once! And even now, despite all -- I don't presume to understand
her,
Mr. Cooke, but I quite understand my brother, I believe." He turned to the poet with a smile. "Now, sir, what say you? If your business with regard to my wife is not to duel for her affections, let's out at once for Tobacco Stick Bay; 'tis but four miles down the road, and I've a fair team to fetch us. Astonishing, this business about my brother!"

Ebenezer was altogether charmed. He had not suspected how deep was his anxiety at the prospect of encountering Billy Rumbly until now, when the man's amiability removed it. It was like meeting Henry Burlingame again after a long and discouraging separation -- but a Burlingame whose formidability was not ambivalent; whose benevolence was unequivocal; in short, the gay, efficient Burlingame who had come to his rescue once in Magdalene College. There still remained the task of inducing him to save Bertrand and Captain Cairn, and the rather more ticklish problem of what to do about Joan Toast; but in the presence of Billy Rumbly -- his princely animation, his mannered power -- Ebenezer could not feel pessimistic, much less despairing. On the contrary, his flagging spirits soared; his face grew flushed with the ardor of gratitude, the warmth of reciprocal good feeling. While he donned his greatcoat, Billy Rumbly (who had never removed his own) declared to the house that Miss Mungummory's earlier commotion had been due to a simple case of mistaken identity: she had taken him for his late brother, Charley Mattassin, the misguided fellow who had been hanged for the murder of Mynheer Wilhelm Tick and family. Ebenezer was surprised at the man's candor, but Billy apparently knew his audience: although the revelation shocked them, their murmurs seemed commiserative rather than hostile.

"Now," Billy cried, "having blessed your wives with some gossip, let me bless you gentlemen with a dram!" When the drinks were distributed among the admiring patrons, he purchased in addition a "rundlet for the wagon," declaring that the day Sir Harry Russecks broke his head must not go uncelebrated. This sentiment was affirmed with loud hurrahs, and when the two men made their good nights and mounted Billy's wagon, Ebenezer felt himself envied by everyone in the tavern.

They paused briefly at the mill, where he introduced McEvoy to the object of their mission, announced his current plans, and learned that while Mrs. Russecks had finally been got to sleep, there was no change whatever in the miller's condition; then they set off westward along a dark and narrow path. The night was still and frosty; through the trees the poet spied the great triangle of Deneb, Vega, and Altair, though the constellations to which they belonged were obstructed from view.

"Our little drive takes half an hour," Billy said. "If I may request it, spare me the message from my father till later, as I can estimate its substance out of hand. But I must hear about this gentleman who claims to be my brother, and methinks 'twere better we spoke our minds on the subject of my wife ere we arrive. Yet stay: we durst not essay these weighty matters with dry throats; the first thing to do is take Lady Rundlet's maidenhead!"

"Marry," Ebenezer laughed, "thou'rt more a twin than a common brother to Henry Burlingame! How of't have I burned to hear some news he had for me, or tell him news of my own, and been obliged to sit through a chine of pork ere he'd give me satisfaction!"

They sampled the rundlet, and the good white Jamaica scalded the poet's innards most gratifyingly. Both the Indian and himself had availed themselves of lap robes, which, together with the rum and the absence of wind, kept them as comfortable as if the month were April instead of latest December. The team stepped leisurely in the frozen path, and the wagonwheels creaked and crunched with a pleasing sharpness. Ebenezer permitted his body to rock with the motion of the springs; the task of relating once again the story of Burlingame's quest and his own intricate history had previously appalled him, but in these circumstances it seemed a pleasant labor. He sighed as he commenced, but it was the sigh of a man certain that his story will give its bearers unusual pleasure. Making no mention of his doubts, reservations, disappointments, and astonishments, he told of Burlingame's rescue by Captain Salmon; his boyhood as sailorman, gypsy minstrel, and Cambridge scholar; his tenure at St. Giles in the Fields and the twins' affection for him; his adventures in the provinces as political agent and unwilling pirate; his rescue of the Russecks ladies; his vain endeavors to discover his parentage; and the poet's recent solution of that mystery.

"The question," he asserted near the end of his relation, "was who came 'twixt Sir Henry and Henry the Third, and how my friend came to be lightskinned as any Englishman, when neither Sir Henry's
Privie Journall
nor Captain John Smith's
Secret Historie
referred to any Lady Burlingame. E'en that last installment of the
Historie,
that your people call
The Book of English Devils,
did not resolve these questions, inasmuch as any offspring of Sir Henry and Pokatawertussan must needs be a blend of English and Ahatchwhoop -- as is the Tayac Chicamec, in fact."

" 'Tis as much a mystery now as erst, for all I grasp it," Billy confessed. "Yet I have no doubts this fellow is in sooth my brother. Miraculous!"

"Aye, and no less so is the chance that gave me the key." He told of his visit with Burlingame to the Jesuit Thomas Smith, who had entertained them with the tale of Father FitzMaurice. "When I spied Father Joseph's chests in the house of the Tayac Chicamec and learned the King had wed that martyr's offspring, I had the answer: 'tis by decree of the Law of Averages their union should have issue not alone like thyself, who have the same commingled blood as both thy parents, but also pure-blooded Indian and pure-blooded English, in equal number. In short, Mattassin and Henry Burlingame."

"What a gift you have presented me!" Billy exclaimed quietly. "A brother, to replace poor Mattassin! I am forever in your debt, sir! But what is his trade at present, that hath plied so many in the past, and where might I find him? For I mean to seek him out at once, whether in Cambridge Maryland or Cambridge England."

With his imminent plea for Billy's assistance in mind, Ebenezer replied that Burlingame was still very much engaged in provincial politics as an agent for Lord Baltimore, in whose service he had jeopardized his life time and again for the cause of justice. It was difficult to praise as anti-revolutionary a man who had lately changed allegiance to John Coode (and who for all Ebenezer knew might be the arch-rebel and insurrectionist himself), but the poet reasoned that Billy Rumbly would be more likely to assent to a plan of which he believed his long-lost brother would approve.

"As to where he is now, I am not certain, for his home is where'er the cause of civilization leads him. But my desire to find him is no less urgent than your own, for I know well he'd gamble his life to prevent a massacre." Here, though he had promised to save the story, he could not resist telling of the perilous circumstances under which he had learned about the coming attack, and of Chicamec's ransom terms for Bertrand and the aged sea-captain. "He wants a son with the power of Quassapelagh and Drepacca to lead the Ahatchwhoops in the insurrection. My prayer is that you or Henry, if not the twain of you, will deceive him in the name of peace and good will; take your place as King of the Ahatchwhoops and use your influence for the good of red man, black man, and white man alike. 'Twere not beyond question, methinks, if only you --"

"Ah, sir, your pledge, your pledge!" Billy held up his hand. "Let us proceed to the subject of my wife. Before you speak your business, may I assume thou'rt acquainted with the story of our --
courtship?"

"Aye, from Harvey Russecks and from Mary Mungummory, who had it from Sir Harry's wife."

"Both excellent sources. Then you doubtless know I share your alarm at Miss Bromly's self-imposed degradation. I am not yet either a Christian or a legal denizen of the Province, sir, and thus cannot properly marry her as I wish to. But she would have none of't e'en were't possible; she wishes no more than the simple Ahatchwhoop rite I performed -- the which neither I nor the laws of Maryland honor where one of the parties is English."

"Then in reality she is not your wife at all, save in the spirit of Common Law?"

Billy acknowledged that this was unhappily the case. "I freely own, what you know already, that I was prepared to ravish and abduct her after the old Ahatchwhoop manner. I hid in the woods near Sir Harry's mill and brought her to the window by means of certain noises, whereupon I revealed myself to her sight. The object of this is to terrify the victim, but so far from swooning away, Miss Bromly came out to me alone, and when I offered to attack her -- ah well, 'tis enough to swear no attack was necessary: she came with me of her own choosing, and of her own choosing remains. Moreover, for all my pressing her to live like a proper gentlewoman, she hath transformed herself into a salvage -- nay, worse: into a brute, that neither speaks nor grooms itself! You have heard tales that I torture her over the fire? I swear to you that I would not willingly harm a hair of her head, but she hath learned somewhere that Indian husbands are wont to truss a shrewish wife near a green-wood fire, to cure their ill temper, and she obliges me to rope and smoke her in like manner above the hearth."

Ebenezer clucked his tongue. "Alas, poor woman!"

Billy regarded him carefully and gave the reins a little snap. " 'Tis with reason I tell you these things, my friend. I would imagine there hath been some adverse sentiment regarding Miss Bromly and myself; for aught I know, despite your cordial air you may be her brother or her betrothed, come to take revenge for her abduction -- she tells me naught of her former life or past connections." He did not mean to suggest, he went on to say, that he was devoid of responsibility in the affair: whatever Miss Bromly's past, it was he who had in ignorance assaulted her in Russecks's tavern and set out deliberately to ravish her afterwards; it was not impossible that her current state was a deranged one caused by the shock of his attacks. However, he dearly loved her and wished her well, and was willing to do anything to improve her condition or otherwise discharge his responsibility.

So disarmed was Ebenezer by the man's frank and friendly attitude that, though the thought of Joan's degradation stung him to tears, he could not muster anger against her abductor. "More virtuous men than I may call you to account," he said instead. "Only tell me this: doth the girl wear any sort of ring?"

"A ring? Aye, she hath one, that she kisses and curses by turns but will not speak of. 'Tis a silver seal of sorts: methinks 'twas designed to fend off evil spirits, for it hath the word
ban
or
bane
around the seal:
B-A-N-N-E."

For a moment Ebenezer was puzzled: then he recognized the anagram. "Ah God, 'tis as I feared! I am more than the girl's betrothed, Mr. Rumbly; I am her husband and I came hither, among other reasons, to save her from your clutches! Howbeit, I am persuaded thou'rt even less to blame than you imagine: 'tis I, above all others, who am responsible for Joan Toast's sorry state -- that is her true name, not Meg Bromly, and if you truly love and pity her, 'tis
you
should punish
me,
not vice versa." His former sense of well-being entirely flown, he apprised Billy of the history of his relationship with Joan Toast and his crowning injustice to her, which he attributed her flight from Malden and her current distracted state.

The Indian attended with great interest and sympathy. "You must forgive me if this question is improper, sir," he said, when the poet was finished. "I believe I understood you to say that albeit you married the woman thou'rt yet a virgin, did I not? Remarkable! And yet methinks you implied that Miss Toast, or Mrs. Cooke -- how doth a gentleman say it? -- that you are perhaps not the only man who hath enjoyed her companionship, and that some others, let us say, were not so tender of her honor as were you. . . Is that correct, or have I misconstrued your words?"

Ebenezer smiled. "No need to step lightly, sir. In London she was a whore."

"I see," Billy murmured, but his frown suggested that he was not altogether satisfied on the matter. "And of course thou'rt quite certain of these things?"

The poet could not suppress a grim amusement. "Belike thou'rt new to the ways of cultivated ladies, sir: a clever tart may whore herself to the very gate of Hell and then sell Lucifer first go at her maidenhead."