The Sot-Weed Factor (97 page)

"Indeed, that was a splendid day," he agreed. "And we shall have many another, Bertrand, you and I." He assured his man that neither Andrew nor himself felt anything but solicitude for his infirmity, from which they all prayed for his swift recovery. "As for
the
Colonel, he hath cause enough to be wrathful, and Lucy's case is pitiful enough, but Heaven knows they brought it upon themselves! In any case, they shan't lay a hand upon you. Get you well, man, and advise me, or let me freight you back to Betsy Birdsall!"

But the valet was not to be drawn from his mood: he sighed and, rendered incoherent by his fever, spoke unintelligibly of ratafia, Great Bears, and women's wiles. He would express lucidly his chagrin at not having guessed Betsy Birdsall's scheme to save him by unmanning her husband, and almost in the same breath begin to rave about Cibola, the Fortunate Islands, and the Sunken Land of Buss.

"Ye must own," he said slyly at one point, "I had some knack for playing poet. . ."

"No knack, i'faith," Ebenezer wept. "A very genius!"

Bertrand lapsed once more into mild delirium, and at Anna's suggestion the two men left him to be attended by her and Mrs. Russecks. Ebenezer returned to his own room for a short nap, after which, and a heartier refection than his first, he declared himself ready to report if need be to God Himself.

"Then I shall send for Governor Nicholson to come up," replied Burlingame. "He arrived while you slept and hath given everyone the vapors by refusing to hear a word about the estate ere he speaks with you. But I resolved to make him wait till you had done eating."

Despite his apprehension at meeting the Governor, Ebenezer had to smile. "Did I tell you that your brother hath that same maddening habit?"

"Nay, that's marvelous! I cannot wait to end this tiresome business and fly to him!"

On this ambiguous note Henry went belowstairs; he returned very shortly afterwards in the wake of Francis Nicholson, Royal Governor of the Province of Maryland, a man of Burlingame's brief height and robust frame, though a dozen years older and somewhat gone to stomach. He had the plum-velvet breeches, the great French periwig, the fastidious manicure, and the baby-pink face of a dandy; but his great jaw and waspish eyes, the snap of his voice and the brusqueness of his manner, belied all foppery. He strode into the room without asking leave, leaned heavily upon his silver-headed stick, and peered at the patient through his glasses with a mixture of eagerness, curiosity, and skepticism, as if Ebenezer were one of those stranded whales to which his royal commission gave him title, and he was not certain whether the oil would be worth the flensing. Burlingame stood by, amused; Sir Thomas Lawrence, catching up breathlessly to the others, closed the door behind him.

"Good evening to you, Your Excellency," Ebenezer ventured. "I am Ebenezer Cooke."

" 'Sheart, ye had better be!" cried the Governor. His air was curt but not unkind, and he laughed along with the others. "So this is Charles Calvert's laureate, that we hear such a deal about!"

"Nay, Your Excellency, 'twas ne'er an honest title --"

"The Governor will have his jest," interposed Sir Thomas. "Mister Lowe hath apprised us already of the circumstances of your commission, Mister Cooke, and the sundry trials and impostures wherewith it burthened you."

" 'Tis not a bad idea at that," declared Nicholson, "albeit I'll wager old Baltimore did it merely to play at being king. Only give me time to found myself a college in Annapolis -- that's what I call Anna Arundel Town -- just grant me a year to build a school there, and whether these penny-pinching clotpolls like it or no, we'll have ourselves a book or two in Maryland! Aye, and belike a poet may find somewhat to sing about then, eh, Nick?"

"I daresay," Burlingame replied, and added, upon the Governor's further inquiring, that he had established communication with a certain Virginia printer and, in accordance with Nicholson's directive, was endeavoring to hire the fellow away from Governor Andros to set up shop in Maryland. For a time it looked as if Ebenezer had been forgotten, but without transition the Governor turned to him -- indeed, turned
on
him. so formidable was the man's usual expression -- and demanded to hear without ado the details of "this fantastical story of slaves and salvages." His apparent skepticism put the poet off at first -- he commenced the story falteringly and with misgivings, almost doubting its truth himself -- but he soon discovered that the Governor's incredulity was only a mannerism. "Absurd!" Nicholson would scoff on being told that Drepacca was in communication with the northern chiefs, but his pink brow would darken with concern; by the time he called the story of Burlingame's true name and parentage "a bold-arsed fraud and turdsome lie," Ebenezer was able to translate the obscenities accurately to read "the damn'dest miracle I e'er heard tell of!" In short, though he protested his utter disbelief at every pause in the poet's relation, Ebenezer felt confident, as did Burlingame, that he accepted every word of it: not only the grand perils of the Negro-Indian conspiracy and the traffic in whores and narcotics, but also such details as the illicit trade in redemptioners practised by Slye and Scurry, the depredations of Andros's "coast guard" Thomas Pound (upon learning of which he rubbed his hands in delighted anticipation of embarrassing his rival), and the duplicity of the
Poseidon's
Captain Meech -- whom, ironically, Nicholson had recently hired to cruise against illegal traders in the provincial sloop
Speedwell.

"Sweet Mother o' Christ!" he swore at the end. "What a nest o' wolves and vipers I'm sent to govern!" He turned to his lieutenants. "What say ye, gentlemen: shall we make for Barbados and leave this scurfy province to the heathen? And you, you wretch!" He aimed his stick at Burlingame. "You go about posing as a proper Talbot gentleman, and all the while thou'rt a bloody salvage prince! Marry come up! Marry come up!"

Burlingame winked at Ebenezer. For some moments Governor Nicholson paced about the bedroom, stabbing at the floorboards with his stick. At length he stopped and glared at his Council President.

"Well, damn it, Tom, can we prosecute this Coode or not? 'Twill be one rascal the less to deal with, and then we can look to arming the militia." Aside to Ebenezer he confessed, "If the truth is known, we've more balls in our breeches than we have in the bloody armory."

Sir Thomas appealed to Burlingame for a reply and received a tongue-lashing from His Excellency for having to get his answers from "a red-skinned spy."

"We can prosecute whene'er we find him, sir," Burlingame declared, "but we'll need to choose our judges with care, and e'en so there's a chance he'll get off lightly." One portion of the 1691 Assembly Journal, the Province's most damning evidence against Coode and the "Protestant Associators," had yet to be retrieved, he explained; though its relevance to the tale of his own ancestry was presumably slight (it was that portion of Sir Henry Burlingame's
Privie Journall
which dealt, so William Smith had vaguely averred, with the Englishmen's escape from the Emperor Powhatan), its importance as evidence might be very great indeed. " 'Tis in the possession of that loutish cooper belowstairs," he concluded, "who will not part with't for love nor money. Howbeit, we may threaten it loose from him yet, and once I've seen it we shall look for the Reverend General Coode."

"We shall have it, right enough," Nicholson muttered, "ere this day is done. If I'm to be massacred by the heathen, I want to see that rascal Coode in Hell before me."

"There's a more worrisome business," said Burlingame. "You know as well as I that if the Negroes and salvages take a mind to, they can murther every white man in America by spring -- more especially with three or four good generals." It was his intention, he said, to go in any case to Bloodsworth Island as soon as possible and present himself to the Tayac Chicamec and Cohunkowprets; there was every chance that they would doubt his identity, as he had no proof of it, but if by some miracle they should believe him, he would endeavor to depose his brother and set Quassapelagh and Drepacca against each other. Faction and intrigue, he was convinced, were the only weapons that could save the English until their position was stronger in America.

"Ye'll not live past your preamble," Nicholson scoffed. "The brutes are slow, but they're not stupid enough to bow to any Englishman that strolls in and declares he's their king."

"Ah, well, 'tis not a role that
any
Englishman could play. Not that I claim any special talent, sir -- on the contrary, this role wants a most particular
shortcoming,
doth it not, Eben?"

He proceeded to describe quite candidly the congenital infirmity which he had inherited from Sir Henry Burlingame, his grandfather, and which he meant to employ by way of credentials on Bloodsworth Island. The Governor was astonished, sympathetic, and vulgarly amused by turns: he declared that the stratagem would surely fail nonetheless if the Indians had even one self-respecting skeptic in their number -- "D'ye think old Ulysses would have scrupled to eunuch Sinon if he'd judged it to his purpose?" he demanded -- but for the present, at least, he could offer no better proposal. He turned to Ebenezer, all the surliness gone for once from his face and manner, and asked, "Have ye aught else to tell me now, my boy? Ye have not? God bless ye, then, for your courage and reward ye for your trials: if thou'rt half as much a poet as thou'rt a man, ye deserve a better laureateship than Maryland's."

And having extended himself so vulnerably into sentiment, he retreated into character before the poet could find words to express his gratitude. "Now then, Tom, I want every wight and trollop on the premises assembled in the parlor, saving only that one poor devil that's mad with his fever. We'll hold us a fine court-baron here and now, as Charlie Calvert was wont to do when things grew tame, and rule on the patent to this estate ere moonrise."

"Very well, sir!" replied Sir Thomas. "But I must remind you what Judge Hammaker --"

"My arse to Hammaker, let him take a toast in't!" cried the Governor, and Ebenezer could not help recalling a certain libelous story once told him by Bertrand. "Stir thy stumps, there, Nicholas me lad -- nay, what is't, now?
Henry?
I'Christ, a fit name for a codless Machiavell Ring in the parishioners to be judged, Henry Burlingame: Tom here shall play old Minos, and I'll be Rhadamanthus!"

The Poet Commences His Day in Court

I
nasmuch as the question
of Malden's ownership had been uppermost in everyone's mind for several days at least, it was not long before Governor Nicholson was able to call his extraordinary court to order in the front parlor. All the interested parties were present, including at least one who seemed to wish he was somewhere else: two troopers of the Dorchester County Militia, it was made known, had intercepted William Smith on the beach not far from the house, and the discomfort in his face belied his avowal that he had sought only a breath of fresh air. The two judges established themselves at the green baize table with their backs to the hearth and arranged the others in a large half circle about them; Henry Burlingame was equipped with paper and quill and stationed on Nicholson's left, opposite Sir Thomas, whence he surveyed the assembled company with amusement.

Ebenezer, who had taken the trouble to dress himself for the occasion, sat upon the arm of Anna's chair on the extreme right of the semicircle (as viewed from the judges' position); though he naturally desired that the title of Cooke's Point should be returned to his father, all this past anxiety had been washed out of him by the events and revelations of his recent past: his excitement was that of mere anticipation. In keeping with her new tranquility, Anna had brought a piece of needlework with her, which seemed to absorb her whole attention; one would have thought her altogether uninterested in the disposition of the estate. On her right sat Andrew Cooke, smoking his pipe so fiercely and steadily that the wreathing smoke seemed to come not from his mouth but through his pores. From time to time he cast great frowning glances at his children, as if afraid they might vanish before his eyes or change into someone else; for the rest, he stared impatiently ahead at the table and sipped at a glass of the rum that Nicholson had ordered served around.

Never once did he turn his eyes to the leather couch beside him, where sat Roxanne Russecks, Henrietta, and John McEvoy. There was gossip, Anna had reported to Ebenezer, of a reconciliation between the old lovers. Neither of them would speak of the matter directly -- Roxanne protested her eternal devotion to the memory of Benjamin Long, and Andrew protested his to the memory of Anne Bowyer Cooke -- but the miller's widow, for all her serenity, was uncommonly full of life; her brown eyes flashed and she seemed always to be relishing some private joke. And Andrew, when his daughter had assured him that neither she nor Ebenezer would consider his remarriage an affront to their mother's memory, had been covered with confusion, and advised Anna to look to her own betrothal before arranging his. Ebenezer had not realized thitherto that his father was not so hopelessly ancient after all, but a mere mid-fifty or thereabouts -- no older to Burlingame, for example, than Burlingame was to the twins -- and still quite virile-looking despite his greying beard, his withered arm, and his late ill-health.

Beside Roxanne, in the middle of the group, sat the reunited lovers Henrietta and John McEvoy, about whom there were no rumors at all: they made no secret of their feelings for each other, and everyone assumed that their betrothal would soon be announced. On their right along the other arc sat Richard Sowter, William Smith, Lucy Robotham, and the Colonel, her father, in that order -- rather, all sat except Colonel Robotham, who fussed floridly hither and thither behind the chair in which his daughter scowled with shame. The cooper glowered at his shoes and nodded impatiently from time to time at whatever Sowter whispered him: he would not look at all towards Ebenezer, or towards the militiaman in Scotch cloth, musket at the ready, whom Nicholson had promoted to sergeant-at-arms five minutes previously.

For want of a gavel, the Governor rapped the edge of the table with his stick.

"Very well, dammee, this court-baron is called to order. Our trusted friend Nick Lowe hath devised a clever code for taking down the spoken word, and on the strength of't we here appoint him clerk of this court."

Ebenezer saw a manifold opportunity in the situation. "If't please Your Excellency --" he ventured.

"It doth not," snapped Nicholson. "Ye'll have ample time to speak thy piece anon."

" 'Tis with regard to the clerk," Ebenezer insisted. "In view of the extraordinary complexity of the business at hand, wherein the matter of identities hath such importance, methinks 'twere wise to establish a firm principle at the outset: that no actions be taken by the Court or testimony heard save under the true and bona fide identities of all concerned, lest doubt be cast on the legality of the Court's rulings. To this end I request Your Excellency to appoint and swear the clerk by's actual name."

Anna was understandably alarmed by this proposal, and the others -- especially Andrew -- were perplexed by it; but both Nicholson and Sir Thomas clearly appreciated the poet's strategy of establishing a precedent favorable to his case, and with a little nod Burlingame signaled his approval of Ebenezer's other intention.

"Unquestionably the wisest procedure," Nicholson agreed, and declared to the room: "Be't known that Nicholas Lowe is our good friend's
nom de guerre,
as't were, and we here appoint him clerk o' the court under his true name, Henry Burlingame the Third -- do I have it right, Henry?"

Burlingame affirmed the identification with another nod, but his attention, like the twins', was on Andrew Cooke, who had gone white at mention of the name.

"Marry come up!" laughed McEvoy, unaware of the situation. "Is't really you, Henry? There's no end o' miracles these days! Did ye hear, Henrietta --"

Henrietta hushed him; Andrew had risen stiffly to his feet, glaring at Burlingame.

"As God is my witness!" he began, and was obliged to pause and swallow several times to contain his emotion. "I will see thee in Hell, Henry Burlingame --"

He advanced a step towards the table; Ebenezer moved forward and caught his arm.

"Sit down, Father: you've no just quarrel with Henry, nor ever did have. 'Tis I you must rail at, not Henry and Anna."

Andrew stared at his son's face incredulously, and at the hand that restrained him; but he made no move to go farther.

"Aye, go to, Andrew," said Mrs. Russecks. "Thou'rt the defendant in that affair, not the plaintiff. For that matter, a deceiver hath little ground to complain of deception."

"I quite agree!" said Colonel Robotham, and then cleared his throat uncomfortably under a whimsical look from Burlingame.

Nicholson rapped for order. "Ye may settle your private differences anon," he declared. "Be seated, Mister Cooke."

Andrew did as he was bade; Roxanne leaned over to whisper something in his ear, and Anna patted her brother's hand admiringly. Ebenezer's pulse was still fast, but a wink from Henry Burlingame wanned his heart. A moment later, however, it was his turn to be shaken: the French kitchen woman came to the door with a whispered message, which was relayed to the Governor by the militiamen who blocked her entry; it seemed to consist of two parts, the first of which he acknowledged with a nod, the second with an oath.

"Yell be pleased to know, Madame Russecks," he announced, "thy friend Captain Avery hath given us the slip and is on his way to Philadelphia, where I'm sure he'll find snug harbor and no dearth o' companions."

Roxanne replied that neither her old affection for Long Ben Avery nor her recent obligation to him blinded her to the viciousness of his piracies; she would thank His Excellency to recall that it was she who had reported Avery's whereabouts, and not to embarrass her by insinuations of a relationship that did not exist.

"I quite agree," said Andrew. Ebenezer and Anna exchanged glances of surprise, and the Governor, who seemed impressed by Roxanne's spirit, nodded his apologies.

"I am farther advised that one of our invalids hath requested to join us, and inasmuch as Mr. Burlingame believes her to be a material witness on sundry points, I shall ask him to assist the sergeant-at-arms in fetching her down ere we commence."

Andrew, Roxanne, Henrietta, John McEvoy -- all looked soberly at Ebenezer, whose features the news set into characteristic turmoil. For some moments he feared another onset of immobility, but at sight of Joan, borne in on the arms of her escorts like some wretch fetched fainting from a dungeon, he sprang from the chair arm. "Ah God!"

All the men rose murmuring to their feet; Andrew touched his son's arm and cleared his throat once or twice by way of encouragement. It was indeed a disquieting sight: Joan's face and garments were free of dirt -- Anna and Roxanne had seen to that -- but her face was welted by disease, her teeth were in miserable condition, and her eyes -- those brown eyes that had flashed so excellently in Locket's -- were red and ruined. She was no older than Henrietta Russecks, but her malaise, together with her coarse woolen nightdress and tangled coiffure, made her look like a witch or ancient Bedlamite. McEvoy groaned at the spectacle, Lucy Robotham covered her eyes, Richard Sowter sniffed uncomfortably, and his client refused to look at all. Joan being too infirm to sit erect, she was wrapped in blankets on the couch by Henrietta, whose solicitude suggested that McEvoy had kept no secrets from her.

Not until she was settled on the couch did Joan acknowledge Ebenezer's anguished presence with a stare. "God help and forgive me!" the poet cried. He threw himself to his knees before the couch, pressed her hand to his mouth and wept upon it.

"Order! Order!" commanded Nicholson. "Ye may sit beside your wife if ye choose, Mister Cooke, but well ne'er have done with our business if we don't commence it. Whatever ill the wretch hath done ye, Mrs. Cooke, 'tis plain he's sorry for't. Do ye wish him to change place with Mrs. Russecks or leave ye be?"

"
If wishes were buttercakes, beggars might bite,"
Joan replied, but though the proverb was tart, her voice was weak and hoarse.
"I ne'er fared worse than when I wished for my supper."

"Whate'er ye please, then, Mister Cooke," the Governor said. "But smartly."

Mrs. Russecks drew Ebenezer to the place she had vacated, by Joan's head, and herself took the chair offered her by Andrew Cooke, who regarded his son gravely. Out of range of her eyes, Ebenezer retained Joan's spiritless hand in his own; he could not bear to look at the rest of the company, but to the left of him he heard Anna's needles clicking busily, and the sounds went into him like nails.

"Now," said Nicholson drily, "I trust we may get on with our business. The clerk will please give the oath to Andrew Cooke and commence the record."

"That man shan't swear me," Andrew declared. "I'd as lief take oath from the Devil."

"Any wight that won't stand forward and be sworn," Nicholson threatened, "forfeits his claim to his miserable estate here and now."

Andrew grudgingly took the oath.

"I object, Your Excellency," said Sowter. "The witness failed to raise his right hand."

"Objection be damned!" the Governor answered. "He can no more raise his hand than Henry here his cod, as any but a blackguard or addlepate might see. Now sit ye down, Mister Cooke: inasmuch as the lot of ye have some interest in the case and we've no regular courthouse to hear it in, I here declare this entire parlor to be our witness-box. Ye may answer from your seats."

"But St. Rosalie's kneebones, Your Excellency," Sowter protested. "Who is the accused and who the plaintiff?"

The Governor held a brief conference on this point with Sir Thomas Lawrence, who then announced that, owing to the unusual complexity of the claims and allegations, the proceedings would begin in the form of an inquest, to be turned into a proper trial as soon as issues were clarified.

" 'Tis no more than all of us were wont to do under the Lord Proprietary," he maintained. Sowter made no further objections, even when, as if to tempt him, Nicholson took the extraordinary step of administering the oath to everyone in the room simultaneously, obliging them to join hands in a chain from Burlingame, who held the Bible, and recite in. chorus.

"Now, then, Mister Andrew Cooke --" He consulted a document on the table before him. "Do I understand that on the fifth day of March, in 1662, you acquired this tract of land from one Thomas Manning and Grace his wife for the sum of seven thousand pounds of tobacco, and that subsequently ye raised this house on't?"

Andrew affirmed the particulars of the transaction.

"And is it true that from 1670 till September last this property was managed for ye by one Benjamin Spurdance?"

"Aye."

"Where is this Spurdance?" Nicholson asked Burlingame. "Oughtn't he to be here?"

"We're endeavoring to find him," Henry said. "He seems to have disappeared."

Andrew then testified, in answer to the Governor's inquiries, that on the first of April, at his orders, Ebenezer had embarked from Plymouth to take full charge of the plantation, and that for reasons of convenience he had given his son full power of attorney in all matters pertinent thereto.

"And did he then, in the Circuit Court at Cambridge last September, grant Cooke's Point free and clear to William Smith?"

"Aye and he did, by good St. Wenceslaus," Sowter put in firmly. "Your Excellency hath the paper to prove it."

"He was deceived!" Andrew snouted. "He had no idea 'twas Malden, and what's more he had no authority to dispose of the property!"

"I fail to see why not," Sowter argued. "What matter could be more pertinent to the business of a planter than disposing of his plantation?"

Here Colonel Robotham joined the battle. "This entire question is beside the point, Your Excellency! The wight that granted Cooke's Point to Smith was an arrant impostor, as Mr. Cooke himself hath admitted, and my daughter's claim hath priority in any case -- the
real
Ebenezer Cooke lost the property on a shipboard wager to the Reverend George Tubman in June, and Tubman conveyed the title to my daughter ere ever this other hoax was perpetrated!"

"A bald-arsed lie!" cried Sowter, and Andrew agreed.

Nicholson stood up and pounded his stick on the floor. "That will quite do, dammee! The inquest is finished!"