The Sot-Weed Factor (96 page)

Sir Thomas nodded. "Mister Lowe here hath informed me that the Governor went to Oxford yesterday and, being notified of Mister Cooke's rescue, plans to cross to Malden today. We expect him hourly. What say you, sir?"

"I am quite ready and most eager to report to him," Ebenezer said.

"Very good. The Province is in your debt, sir!"

"I say --" Colonel Robotham had become quite florid; his round eyes glanced uneasily from Ebenezer to Andrew to Sir Thomas. "I've no doubt this lad's a hero and hath business of great moment with the Governor; I've no wish to seem preoccupied in selfish concerns or appear ungrateful to His Majesty's secret operatives, whose work requires them to assume false names --"

"Out on't, George!" snapped Andrew. "Mister Lowe here may well be the Governor's agent, or King William's, or the Pope's, for aught I know, but this lad is my son Eben and there's an end on't! Heav'n forgive me for conniving with Mister Lowe to deceive the lot o' ye, and Heav'n be praised for bringing my son back from the dead, Malden or no Malden!"

"Enough," Sir Thomas ordered. "I remind you, Colonel, that the Province hath no small interest in this estate; 'twas to look into it I came hither in the beginning. If the Governor's willing, haply we can hold a hearing on that question this very day, now Mister Cooke is with us." He further reminded the entire party, and especially Richard Sowter, that they were forbidden to leave the premises until the matter had been disposed of.

"By the organ of St. Cecilia!" Sowter protested. " 'Tis an infracture o'
habeas corpus!
Well hale ye to court, sir!"

"Your privilege," Sir Thomas replied. "In the meantime, don't leave Cooke's Point: Mister Lowe hath communicated with Major Trippe, and as of this morning we have militiamen on the grounds."

This news occasioned general surprise; Colonel Robotham tugged at his mustache, and Sowter invoked Saints Hyginus and Polycarpus against such highhandedness on the part of public servants. Sir Thomas then requested everyone to leave the room except Anna, who had established herself as her brother's nurse, and "Mister Lowe," who declared it imperative that he not leave the key witness's bedside for a moment. Andrew seemed reluctant. "We shall have much to say," Ebenezer consoled him, "and years to say't. Just now I'm dead for want of food and sleep."

"I'll fetch broth for ye," his father grunted, and went out.

Ebenezer sighed. "He must soon be told who you are, Henry; I am sick unto death of false identities."

"I shall tell him," Burlingame promised, "now I know myself. I'faith, 'tis miraculous, Eben! I can scarcely wait to lay hands on my father's book -- what did he call it?
The Book of English Devils!
King of the Ahatchwhoops! Miraculous!" He held up a tutorial finger and smiled. "But not yet, Eben; nay, he oughtn't to know quite yet. My plan is to go to Bloodsworth Island as soon as possible -- tomorrow, if we settle our business here today -- and do what I can to pacify my father Chicamec and my brother -- what was his name?"

Ebenezer smiled despite himself at his tutor's characteristic enthusiasm. "Cohunkowprets," he said. "It means 'Bill-o'-the-Goose.' "

"Cohunkowprets! Splendid name! Then I'll return here, pay court to your sister, and sue my good friend Andrew for her hand. If he consents, I'll tell him who I am and ask him again; if not, I'll go my way and ne'er disturb him with the truth. Is that agreeable to the twain of you?"

Ebenezer looked to his sister for reply. It was clear to him that her private conversations with Burlingame had dealt with matters more ultimate than
The Book of English Devils;
he felt sure that Henry knew all that had transpired not only between Anna and Billy Rumbly but also between Anna and himself. She caught her breath and shook her head, keeping her eyes down on the counterpane.

" 'Tis so futile, Henry. . . Whate'er could come of it?"

"Nay, how can you despair after such a miracle as Eben's stumbling on my parentage? Only let him gain his feet again and he'll solve that other riddle for me: the Magic of the Sacred Eggplant, or whatever!" He gave over his raillery and added seriously, "I proposed to Eben not long since that the three of us take a house in Pennsylvania; since Nature hath decreed that I be thwarted, and Convention hath rejected your appeal, where's the harm in being thwarted together? Let us live like sisters of mercy in our own little convent -- aye, I'll convert you to Cosmophilism, my new religion for thwarted seekers after Truth, and we'll invent a gross of spiritual exercises --"

He went on in this vein until both Ebenezer and Anna were obliged to laugh, and the tension among them was temporarily dispelled. But Anna would not commit herself on the proposal. "Let us attend to first things first: come back alive from Bloodsworth Island, neither scalped nor converted to
their
religion, and we shall see what's to be done with ourselves."

"What came of your pilgrimage to John Coode?" Ebenezer asked Burlingame,

"Ah, my friend, you've much to forgive me for! How can I excuse myself for having deceived you so often, save that I put no faith in innocence? And to plead this is but to offend you farther. . ."

"No longer," Ebenezer assured him. "My innocence these days is severely technical! But what of Coode? Did you find him to be the savior you took him for?"

Burlingame sighed. "I ne'er found him at all." It had been his intention, he said, to establish himself as Coode's lieutenant (in the role of Nicholas Lowe), the better to learn what truth might lie in certain current rumors that Coode was organizing slaves and disaffected Indians for another rebellion, to be staged before Nicholson could institute proceedings against him on the evidence of the 1691 Assembly Journal. But in St. Mary's City, on the morning after the same stormy night that had carried Ebenezer to Bloodsworth Island, Burlingame had encountered Andrew Cooke himself, who he thought had crossed from Captain Mitchell's place to the Eastern Shore. By discreet inquiry, he learned that Andrew had fallen in with Colonel Robotham at Captain Mitchell's, and upon hearing the Colonel refer to Ebenezer as "my son-in-law in St. Mary's," had hastened to investigate as soon as he recovered from the shock.

"Well, friend," Burlingame went on, "I scarce knew what to think; I'd searched all night in vain for you and finally got word that Captain Cairn had sailed at dusk with the Laureate of Maryland and some long skinny fellow and was thought to be drowned in the storm. Your father had learned the state of things at Malden and was at his wit's end for loss of both his heirs and his estate." When it had seemed likely that Ebenezer was either dead or lost from sight, Burlingame had introduced himself to Andrew as Nicholas Lowe, "a steadfast friend of the Laureate," and declared further that it was he who had posed as Ebenezer, the better to cover his friend's escape. This news had redoubled Andrew's wrath; for some moments Burlingame had expected to be assaulted where he stood (in Vansweringen's Tavern). In order to pacify him, therefore, console him in some measure for his loss, and at the same time put himself in a better position to hear news of the twins and pursue his complex interests, Burlingame had made an ingenious proposal: he would continue to pose as Andrew's son; they would go to Cooke's Point together, declare both the grantor of Malden and the husband of Lucy Robotham to be impostors, and so refute the claims of colonel and cooper alike.

"Thus came we hither arm in arm, the best of friends, and save for one fruitless visit to Church Creek to chase down a rumor I caught wind of -- you know the story? Is't not ironic? -- save for that visit, I say, here we've sat to this day, waiting for word from you or Anna. As for the estate, Andrew and I threaten Smith and Sowter, and they threaten us in return, and of late the Colonel hath been threatening the lot of us; but no one durst go to court lest he lose his breeches, the case is such a tangle, or lest he find himself answerable for the whores and opium. What old Andrew's connection with
them
might be, if he hath any, e'en I can't judge."

"Thou'rt not John Coode thyself?" Anna asked half seriously.

Henry shrugged. "I have been, now and again; for that matter, I was once Francis Nicholson for half a day, and three Mattawoman tarts were ne'er the wiser. But this I'll swear: albeit 'tis hard for me to think such famous wights are pure and total fictions, to this, hour I've not laid eyes on either Baltimore or Coode. It may be they are all that rumor swears: devils and demigods, whichever's which; or it may be they're simple clotpolls like ourselves, that have been legend'd out of reasonable dimension; or it may be they're naught but the rumors and tales themselves."

"If that last is so," Ebenezer said, "Heav'n knows 'twere a potent life enough! When I reflect on the weight and power of such fictions beside my own poor shade of a self, that hath been so much disguised and counterfeited, methinks they have tenfold my substance!"

Burlingame smiled approval. "My lad hath gone to school with a better tutor than his old one! In any case, Francis Nicholson exists, that is neither a Coode nor a Calvert, and he counts Nick Lowe as the cleverest spy he knows. 'Twere indiscreet to press me farther."

There were still a number of questions on Ebenezer's mind, but at this point the cook -- whom he recognized as the old Parisian trollop who had wept at his wedding -- brought up his beef broth, and Burlingame took the opportunity to excuse himself.

"I must see to't the Governor's not murthered on your property, my dears." He kissed Anna lightly and unabashedly on the mouth, as husband kisses wife, and then, to the poet's surprise, kissed him also, but discreetly, upon the forehead, more as father might kiss son or, in more demonstrative latitudes, brother brother. "Thank almighty Zeus thou'rt back amongst the living!" he murmured. "Did I not once say there'd be great commotion at thy fall?"

Ebenezer protested with a smile that, ruined and spent though he was indubitably, as yet he was not officially among the fallen, nor did it appear likely that he would ever join their number. Burlingame responded with a characteristic shrug and departed.

"Heav'n knows our other problems are far more grave," Anna sighed, "but I cannot give o'er my concern for that man and for the three of us!"

"Will you marry him?" asked her brother.

Anna too shrugged her shoulders. "What is the use of't? As well go off with him, as I did with his brother, and live in sin." So peculiarly inapposite was the phrase, under the circumstances, that both twins had to smile. But then Anna shook her head. "What I most fear is that he'll not return from Bloodsworth Island."

This notion surprised Ebenezer. "You fear Billy Rumbly might do him in from jealousy? I'd not thought of that."

"Nay," said Anna. "Formidable as Billy may be, he is no match for Henry, and there's the danger."

Ebenezer saw her point and shivered: how slight and qualified were Henry's ties to the cause of Western Civilization (to say nothing of English colonialism!), than which his mind and interests were so enormously more complex that it seemed parochial by comparison! Had he not already been a pirate and perhaps an agent for Heaven knew what Satanic conspiracy? Had he not extolled the virtues of every sort of perversity, and pointed out to Ebenezer man's perennial fascination with violence, destruction, and rapine? It was by no means unthinkable that, whatever his present intention, Burlingame would remain on Bloodsworth Island to ally his wits with those of Drepacca and Quassapelagh; and with three so canny, potent adversaries -- not to mention John Coode and the shadowy Monsieur Casteene -- God help the English colonies in America!

The broth did wonders for his strength; when he had finished it he sent Anna to express his contrition to Joan Toast and beg her to allow him an interview.

"She refuses," Anna reported a minute later. "She says she hath no quarrel with me, but wishes to die without having to endure the sight of another man. Not e'en Dr. Sowter may come near her anymore."

As always upon hearing news of her, Ebenezer was stung to the heart with shame. Nevertheless he took it as a good sign that Joan had at least not sunk into apathy: where belligerence lingered, he declared to Anna, life lingered also, and while his wife lived he did not abandon the hope, not of winning her forgiveness, to which he felt no title, but of demonstrating in her presence the extent of his wretchedness at having deserted her. In the meantime he summoned McEvoy, who after commiserating with him for Joan's condition, shaking his head at the miraculous coincidence of Long Ben Avery's identity (which he said quite substantiated Ebenezer's charge that Life is a shameless playwright), and rejoicing at the ladies' safety, assisted the poet down the hall to the chamber he shared with Bertrand Burton.

"The poor wretch bolted, don't ye know, for fear Colonel Robotham and your father would have his arse, and what with Joan swooned away in the vestibule, and yourself froze up like marble, and all the stir and commotion, they ne'er found him till morning, near dead of cold. E'en so they meant to put him with the servants, but Mister Lowe and I persuaded 'em to bed him with me. I fear the cold hath got to him, poor devil."

They found the valet awake, but far from healthy. His cheeks, though fanned with fever to an unnatural red, were pinched and drawn; his nose was more sharp than ever, and angled like a Semite's at the bridge; his eyes, round as always, and protruding, looked lusterless past his beak like a sick owl's eyes. Just as Burlingame had hurried forward to Ebenezer's bedside, so now the poet hastened to his valet's.

"Poor fellow! You ought ne'er to have left us!"

Bertrand smiled wryly. "I ought ne'er to have left Pudding Lane, sir," he said, his voice half croak and half whisper. "Your servingman had better face his Ralph Birdsalls than play at Laureates and Advisers, whate'er his gifts. Hadn't we a lark, though, the day we were Drakepecker's gods and thought we'd found the golden city?"

Ebenezer wanted to protest that his servant was talking like a doomed man, but he checked himself lest the figure be read for a prophecy.