The Sot-Weed Factor (95 page)

The Poet Awakens from His Dream of Hell

to Be Judged in Life by Rhadamanthus

F
or centuries upon centuries,
so it seemed to Ebenezer, he had sojourned in the realm of Lucifer, where in penance for Lust and Pride he underwent a double torture: the first was to be transferred at short intervals from everlasting flames to the ice of Cocytus, frozen by the wings of the King of Hell himself; the second, less frequent but more painful, was to see commingled and transfused before his eyes the faces of Joan Toast and his sister Anna. Joan would bend near him, her face unmarred and spirited as it had been in London: her dress was fresh, her pox vanished; her eyes were bright and tender -- indeed, her face was not hers at all, but Anna Cooke's! Then even as he watched his sister's face he saw her eyes go red and dull, her teeth rot in the gums, her flesh go raw with suppurating lesions -- until at last, with Joan Toast's face, she became Joan Toast, whereupon the cycle would sometimes recommence. The metamorphosis invariably stole his breath; he would choke and cry out, thrash his arms and legs about in the fire or the ice, and gibber blasphemies as obscure as Pluto's
"Pap
è
Satan aleppe. . ."
It is not difficult to imagine, therefore, with what joy he found Anna quite unaltered when at length he opened his eyes and saw her sitting near his bed, reading a book. The very magnitude of his relief thwarted its expression; he fell at once into profoundest dreamless sleep.

Upon his second awakening he was more rational; he realized that he had been ill and delirious for some time -- whether a day or a month he could not guess -- and that now his fever was gone. It pleased him no end to see that his sister was still in attendance at his bedside, since now he was quite able to address her.

"Dearest Anna! How very kind of you to nurse me. . ."

He spoke no further, both because his sister, weeping joyfully, rushed from her chair to embrace him, and because he suddenly understood how incredible it was that she should be there, apparently safe and sound!

"I'faith, where am I?" he whispered. "How is't thou'rt here?"

"Too great a story!" Anna sobbed. "Thou'rt home in Malden, Eben, and God be praised thou'rt back among the living!" Without releasing him she called through the open doorway,
"Roxanne!
Come quick! Eben's awake!"

"Roxanne as well?" Ebenezer closed his eyes to gather strength.

"Thou'rt weak, poor thing! Marry, if you but knew how I wept when I learned what Captain Avery had done, and how I yearned to die with you, and how I feared you'd perish here at Malden and spoil the miracle -- i'God, 'tis too much to tell!"

Mrs. Russecks and Henrietta came in from the hall, neither evidently the worse for their ordeal, and when their initial rejoicing subsided, the poet learned the circumstances of their escape.

" 'Twas an act of God, nor more nor less," Mrs. Russecks declared simply. "How else account for't? Long Ben Avery is Benjamin Long of Church Creek, my first and long-lost lover!" Immediately after dispatching the three male prisoners, she said, the privateer had summoned the women aft for the avowed purpose of taking his pleasure, but as it turned out, they suffered no more than a few prurient remarks, for upon learning first her Christian name and then, in response to closer inquiry, her maiden surname, his attitude had changed altogether: he had apologized for having thrown the men overboard, expressed his hope that they would reach Sharp's Island safely, and at the risk of his own life changed course for the mouth of the Severn, where he had bid them
adieu
and returned to his own ship, leaving Captain Cairn to ferry them singlehanded to Anne Arundel Town!

"We don't
know
'twas Benjamin Long," Henrietta admitted. "He'd not answer Mother's questions. But I can't account for his behavior otherwise --"

"Of course it was my Benjy," Mrs. Russecks said. "The dear boy ran off to sea thirty years ago and turned pirate. 'Twas purely out o' shame he'd not own up to't." On this point she was calmly impervious to argument, and despite the staggering unlikelihood of the coincidence, Ebenezer had to admit that he could think of no hypothesis to account more reasonably for Long Ben Avery's sudden charity. He sat up to embrace them all by turns, and his sister again and again, and then lay back exhausted. His sojourn in Hell, he now learned, had actually lasted four days, during which he had hung in the balance between life and death; McEvoy and Bertrand had also been bedridden from the effects of exposure, though not comatose. The former was now quite recovered, but Bertrand, whom they had not located in the barn until the morning after, was still in grave condition.

"Thank Heav'n they're alive!" Ebenezer exclaimed. "What of Father, and Henry Burlingame, and the cooper? Do I hear them belowstairs?" Indeed, from the rooms below came the sound of several men's voices, apparently in argument.

"Aye," Anna said. "The fact is they're all under house arrest till the matter of our estate is settled! Governor Nicholson is much alarmed about the rebellion and the opium traffic, and hath put Cooke's Point under a sort of martial law till your recovery. In the meantime, everyone accuses everyone else, and no man knows whose title is valid." Directly upon their arrival in Anne Arundel Town, she explained, Captain Cairn and they had gone to the Governor's house, roused him from bed despite the hour, and reported as much as they could piece together of their kidnaping, the activity on Bloodsworth Island, and the vicious enterprise of which Malden had apparently become a regional headquarters. Thanks to the mention of the John Smith papers and Captain Cairn's reputation as a sober citizen of St. Mary's, Governor Nicholson had accepted their report at face value: two armed pinnaces had been dispatched in pursuit of Captain Avery's
Phansie,
and the President of the Council himself, Sir Thomas Lawrence, had set out with the ladies for Cooke's Point before dawn, empowered by the Governor to act as his proxy in any matters involving the welfare of the Province.

"And marry," Henrietta laughed, "what a jolly time we've had since!" Andrew Cooke, she declared, had suffered a series of such great and ambivalent surprises that for a time they had feared for his sanity: to begin with, his joy at finding Ebenezer alive had given way at once to wrath and no small embarrassment -- the latter occasioned by his having sworn to all and sundry that "Nicholas Lowe," who in truth had befriended him a fortnight previously and told him that Ebenezer was dead, was the
real
Ebenezer Cooke, and that the so-called Laureate of Maryland who had given Cooke's Point away was a gross impostor. How had his dismay been compounded, then, when in the space of twenty-four hours he had learned that his "son" was apparently a highly placed agent of the Governor's; that Anna had been captured and freed by the notorious Long Ben Avery; and -- perhaps most disconcerting of all -- that she had brought with her his old mistress Roxanne Edouard and a young lady alleged to be his natural daughter!

"Beside these wonders," Henrietta said, "such trifles as the Bloodsworth insurrection are beneath his attention! Really, Brother Eben, 'tis a droll fellow we have for a father!"

"Henrietta!" Mrs. Russecks scolded. "Let us hasten to tell Sir Thomas that Mister Cooke is himself again, and will soon be strong enough to speak with him." She kissed the poet quite maternally. "Thank God for that!"

Anna was greatly amused. "Henrietta is a marvelous tease," she said to Ebenezer when they were alone again. "Roxanne hath warned her not to call us
brother
and
sister
or speak of Father as
her
father, but she doth it nonetheless to provoke him." By Roxanne's own admission, she said, Andrew had not known when he left her in 1670 that she was carrying his child; she had refrained from telling him lest he marry her under coercion, and so had been doubly embittered when he returned her to her "uncle" in Church Creek. "But ah, he loved her," Anna declared. "You should have seen him when we came in! So overjoyed to see her, he scarce had eyes for
me,
yet so ashamed of having left her -- i'faith, he was crucified by shame! He ne'er once questioned that Henrietta was his daughter, but for days now hath gone from begging the whole world's pardon to raging at the lot of us as vultures and thieves, come to do him out of Malden! 'Tis a pitiful sight, Eben: we must forgive him."

Anna seemed to have been altered by her late experience: her face was drawn and weary as before, but her voice and manner reflected a new serenity, an acceptance of things difficult to accept -- in short, a beatitude, for like Mrs. Russecks she reminded Ebenezer of one to whom a miracle, a vision or mystic grace, has lately been vouchsafed. The memory of their last exchange in the hold of Captain Cairn's sloop brought the blood to his face; he closed his eyes for shame and gripped her hand. Anna returned the pressure as if she read his thoughts clearly, and went on in her quiet voice to declare that despite Roxanne's coolness to Andrew's contrition, and her assertion that Benjamin Long, or Long Ben Avery, was the only man who ever truly won her heart, Henrietta and Anna agreed that she had by no means lost her affection for their father, but was too wise to grant her pardon overhastily.

Ebenezer smiled and shook his head. He was frightfully weak, but he could feel the balm of his good fortune working magically to restore his strength.

"What of you and Henry, Anna?" he inquired. Anna lowered her eyes. "We have talked," she said, "-- like this, with eyes averted. He was as confounded as Father when I walked in with Roxanne and Henrietta! He rejoiced at our safety and yearns to see you. I told him privily what I could of his father and brothers, and your fears for the safety of the Province; naturally he is ablaze with curiosity and cannot wait to set out for Bloodsworth Island -- you know how Henry is -- but he won't go till he talks to you. We've promised not to reveal his disguise, you know: even Sir Thomas calls him 'Mr. Lowe,' and Father thinks he's the finest fellow in the Province -- he's supposed to be a friend of yours, that bemoans your loss and agreed to help Father get Malden back. The three of us, I suspect, will be much embarrassed by one another for some time. . . our situation is so hopeless. . ." She sniffed back a tear and made her voice more cheerful. "The others are quite delighted with each other, or at least resigned: Henrietta and John, Roxanne and Father; even Bertrand and the Robothams have a sort of truce: the Colonel still vows that Bertrand is you and presses his claim to Malden for fear of scandal, and Lucy, poor thing, hath not got long to her term and trembles at the thought of bearing a bastard. They know very well their claim's a fraud and they're as much to blame for't as Bertrand, but they're desperate, and Bertrand won't confess for fear the Colonel will murther him where he lies. 'Tis a splendid comedy."

Ebenezer heard the sounds of new excitement downstairs: his recovery had been announced.

"Tell me about my wife," he begged, and saw Anna try in vain to dissemble her shock at the deliberately chosen term.

"She hath not long to live. . ."

"Nay!" Ebenezer raised up onto his elbow. "Where is she, Anna?"

"The sight of you and John McEvoy was too much for her," Anna said. "She swooned in the vestibule and was fetched off to bed -- 'twas another grand moment for Father, you can fancy, the day he learned she was your wife (that he himself once paid six pounds to), and another when he learned she wasn't Susan Warren but the same woman you knew in London! He swears the match is null and void, and rants and rages; but withal he hath not abused her, if only because Henry --"

"No matter!" Ebenezer insisted; a number of people could be heard ascending the stairs. "Quickly, prithee, Anna! What is her condition?"

"The swoon was only the last straw on her back," Anna answered soberly. "Her -- her
social disease
hath not improved, nor hath her need for devilish opium, nor hath her general health, that was long since spent out in the curing-house. Dr. Sowter hath examined her and declares she's a dying woman."

"I'God!" the poet moaned. "I must see her at once! I'll die before her!" Against Anna's protests he endeavored to get out of bed, but immediately upon sitting up grew dizzy and fell back on the pillow. "Poor wretch! Poor saintly, martyred wretch!"

His lamentations were cut short by a commotion of visitors led by Henrietta Russecks. First in were his father and Henry Burlingame.

"Dear Eben!" Henry cried, hurrying up to grasp both his hands. "What adventures are these you deserted me for?" He raised his head to Andrew, who stood uneasily on the other side of the bed. "Nay, tell me truly, Mr. Cooke: is't a bad son that saves a province?"

Ebenezer could only smile: his heart was full of sentiments too strong and various to permit reply. He and his father regarded each other silently and painfully. "I am heartily sorry, Father," he began after a moment, but his voice was choked at once.

Andrew laid his left hand on Ebenezer's brow -- the first such solicitude in the poet's memory. "I told ye once in St. Giles, Eben: to beg forgiveness is the bad son's privilege, and to grant it the bad father's duty." To the room in general he announced, "The lad hath fever yet. State thy business and have done with't, Sir Thomas."

Three other men had come into the room: Richard Sowter, Colonel Robotham, and a courtly, white-wigged gentleman in his fifties who bowed slightly to Andrew and Ebenezer in turn.

"Thomas Lawrence, sir, of the Governor's Council," he said, "and most honored to meet you! Pray forgive me for imposing on your rest and recuperation, so well deserved, but none knows better than yourself how grave and urgent is our business --"

Ebenezer waved off the apology. "My sister hath apprised me of your errand, for which thank God and Governor Nicholson! Our peril is greater than anyone suspects, sir, and the sooner dealt with, the better for all."

"Excellent. Then let me ask you whether you think yourself strong enough to speak this afternoon to Governor Nicholson and myself."

"Nicholson!" Sowter exclaimed. "St. Simon's saw, sirs!" Andrew too, and Colonel Robotham, seemed disquieted by the Council President's words.