The Sot-Weed Factor (101 page)

To Ebenezer's surprise, before the cooper could protest his bewilderment, Joan Toast spoke up for the first time.

" 'Tis vain to threaten him," she said. "He hath no idea what you want, or where to find it.
I
stole those pages, and I mean to keep them."

Burlingame, Nicholson, and Sir Thomas all pleaded with her to surrender the missing passages, or at least to disclose the trick which Captain John Smith had employed to win the day in Virginia; they explained the gravity of the situation on Bloodsworth Island and Henry's strategy to forestall an insurrection -- but to no avail.

"Look at me!" the girl cried bitterly. "Behold the fruits of lustfulness! Swived in my twelfth year, poxed in my twentieth, and dead in my twenty-first! Ravaged, ruined, raped, and betrayed! Woman's lot is wretched enough at best; d'ye think I'll pass on that murtherous receipt to make it worse?"

In vain then did Burlingame vow never to employ Smith's formula for carnal purposes, but only to demonstrate his identity to the Ahatchwhoops.

"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be,"
Joan retorted. "The time will come when ye crave a child by Anna yonder, or some other. . . I shan't e'en make the vile stuff for ye myself!"

"Then it
is
some potion he takes!" cried Henry. "Or is't a sort of plaster?"

Nicholson pounded his stick pn the floor. "We must know, girl! Name thy price for't!"

Joan laughed. "D'ye think to bribe the dead? Nay, sir, the Great Tom Leech bites sore enough, God knows; I'll not give him more teeth than he hath already! But stay --" Her manner suddenly became shrewd, like Sowter's. "I may name my price, ye say?"

"Within reason, of course," the Governor affirmed. "What ye ask must be ours to give."

"Very well, then," Joan declared. "My price is Malden."

"Nay!" Andrew cried.

"Nay, prithee!" pleaded Ebenezer, who until then had found the discussion as embarrassing as had Anna.

" 'Tis a hard price," Burlingame observed, regarding her curiously.

"Not for doing so great a disservice to my sex," Joan replied.

Now even McEvoy was moved to join the chorus of objections. "Whate'er will ye do with this estate, my dear?" he asked gently. " 'Tis of no use to ye now. If there is someone ye wish to provide for, why, peradventure the Governor can make arrangements."

Joan turned her face to him, and her expression softened, if her resolution did not. "Ye know as well as I there's no one, John. Why d'ye ask? Can it be ye've forgot the whoremonger's first principle?" For the benefit of the others she repeated it:
"Ye may ask a whore her price, but not her reasons.
My price is the title to Cooke's Point, forever and aye: ye may take it or leave it."

Nicholson and Burlingame exchanged glances.

"Done," said the Governor. "Draw up the papers, Tom."

"Nay, b'm'faith!" cried Andrew. " 'Tis unlawful! When Smith gave o'er his claim, the title reverted to me!"

"Not at all," said Burlingame. "It reverted to the Province."

"Damn ye, man! Whose side are ye on?"

"On the side of the Province, for the nonce," Henry answered. "Those pages are worth a brace of Maidens."

Andrew threatened to appeal to the Lords Commissioners, but the Governor was not to be intimidated.

"I've seldom stood on firmer ground than this," he declared. "When I move to save the Province ye may appeal to the King himself, for aught ye'll gain by't, and Godspeed. Where are the papers, Mrs. Cooke?"

Not until he heard the unfamiliar mode of address did Ebenezer have the least hint of Joan's motives. Now suddenly, though a hint was all he had, his backbone tingled; his heart glowed.

"Where are thine?" she demanded in reply, nor would she stir until Sir Thomas had conveyed the title to Cooke's Point into her possession. Then she calmly reached into her bodice and withdrew a tightly folded paper which, when she handed it to Burlingame for unfolding, proved to be three missing pages of the
Journall.

" 'Sheart, Eben, look here!" Henry cried. "May he look, Joan?"

" 'Tis not mine to forbid," the girl said glumly, and seemed to relapse into her former apathy.

First
[read the missing fragment]
he pour'd a deale of water into the dish of floure, and worked the mess to a thick paste with his fingers. Then he set the remainder of the water, in its vessell, next the smalle fyre, w
^ch
the Salvage had been Christian enough to make us, against the cold. Whenas he sawe this water commence to steem and bubble, then drewe he from his pockett (w
^ch
forsooth must needs have been a spacious one!), divers ingredients, and added them to the paste. Of these I c
^d
name but few, forasmuch as I durst not discover to my Captain that my sleep was feign'd; but I did learn later from his boasting that it was a receipt much priz'd for a certain purpose (whereof I was as yet innocent) by the blackamoors of Africka, from whom he had learnt it. To witt: a quantitie of
Tightening Wood
(w
^ch
is to say, the bark of that tree,
Nux vomica,
wherefrom is got the brucine and strychnyne of apothecaries), 2 or 3 small dry'd pimyentoes (that the blackamoors call
Zozos),
a dozen peppercorns, and as many whole cloves, with 1 or 2 beanes of vanilla to give it fragrance. At the same time he boyl'd a second decoction of water mix'd with some dropps of oyl of mallow, to what end I c
^d
not guesse. These severall herbs and spyces, I s
^hd
add, he still carr'd on his person, not alone for their present employment, but as well to season his food, w
^ch
in his yeeres of fighting the Moors he had learnt to savour hott; and for this cause he did prevaile upon the masters of vessells, to fetch him such spyces from there ports of call in the Indies.

When that the paste was done, and the water fast aboyle in both vessells, my Captain busy'd him selfe with cutting the eggplant, and this in a singular wise. For it is the wont of men to lay hold of an Aubergine and slyce across the topp, to the end of making thinne rownd sections. But my Captain, drawing his knife from his waiste, did sever the frute into halves, splitting it lengthwise from top to bottom. Next he scor'd out a deep hollow ditch in either moietie, in such wise, but when the two halves were joyn'd, like halves of an iron-mould, the effect was of a deep cylindrick cavitie in the center, perhaps 3 inches in dyameter, and 7 or 8 in profunditie, for that it was an uncommon large eggplant. All this I did observe with mounting curiositie, yet careful not to discover my pretence of sleep.

The strange brewes having cook'd a certain time, my Captain then remov'd them from the fyre. The first, that had in it all the spyces, he stirr'd and kneaded into the paste, till the whole took on the semblance of a plaister. He next disrob'd him selfe, and before my wondering eyes lay'd hands upon his member, drawing back that part, that the Children of Israel are wont to offer to
Jehovah,
and exposing the carnall
glans.
His codd thus bar'd (w
^ch
poets have liken'd to that Serpent, that did tempt Mother Eve in the Garden), he apply'd thereto the plaister, and lay'd it within the two halves of the eggplant. There it linger'd some minutes, notwithstanding the ordeall must needs have been painfull, for all the spyce & hott things in the receipt. His face did wrythe & twist, as though it were straight into the fyre he had thrust his yard, and whenas he at last remov'd the Aubergine, and wash'd away the plaister with his oyl-of-mallow brewe, I c
^d
observe with ease that his part was burnt in sooth! Moreover, he did seem loath to touch it for feare of the payne thereby occasion'd.

Now albeit this spectacle was far from edifying, to a man of good conscience & morall virtue, I yet must own, I took greate interest in it, both by reason of naturall curiositie, as well as to gage for my selfe the depths of my Captains depravitie. For it is still pleasing, to a Christian man, to suffer him selfe the studie of wickednesse, that he may content him selfe (without sinfull pride) upon the contrast thereof with his owne rectitude. To say naught of that truth, whereto
Augustine
and other Fathers beare witnesse: that true virtue lieth not in innocence, but in full knowledge of the Devils subtile arts. . .

Thus ended the fragment, having brought Sir Henry to his unintended sleep and rude awakening.

"I can do't!" Burlingame murmured. " 'Tis all I need!"

Ebenezer looked away, revolted not only by the narrative but by other, more immediate images. He observed that Anna too, though she had not read the
Journall,
was aware of its significance: her eyes were lowered; her cheeks aflame.

"Well, now," declared the Governor, rising from his place. "I think our business here is done, Tom. Fetch those rascals aboard my ship in the morning and see they're ferried to Pennsylvania."

The others stirred as well.

"La, Master Laureate!" Sowter jeered from across the room. "The party's done, and thou'rt still as penceless as St Giles!"

Andrew cursed, and Nicholson frowned uncomfortably.

"Thou'rt mistaken, Dick Sowter," Joan said from the couch.

Everyone turned to her at once.

"I've little time to live," she declared, "and a wife's estate passes to her husband when she dies."

Andrew gasped. "I'cod! D'ye hear that, Eben?"

All except Sowter and Smith rejoiced at this disclosure of her motive. Ebenezer rushed to embrace her, and Andrew wept for joy.

"Splendid girl! She is a very saint, Roxanne!"

But Joan turned away her face. "There remains but a single danger, that I can see," she said. "As hath been observed already today, a false marriage such as ours may be disallowed, and my bequests thus contested in the courts -- inasmuch as it hath yet to be consummated."

The company fell silent; the twins drew back aghast.

"Dear Heav'n!" Roxanne whispered, and clutched at Andrew's arm. Burlingame's expression was fascinated.

The cooper laughed harshly. "Oh, my word!
Ah! Ah!
D'ye hear the wench, Sowter? She is the very Whore o' Babylon, and Cooke muyt swive her for's estate! Oh, ha! I'd not touch her with a sot-weed stick!"

"My boy --" Andrew spoke with difficulty to his son. "She hath -- the social malady, don't ye know -- and albeit I love Malden as I love my life, I'd ne'er think ill o' ye --"

"Stay," interrupted Burlingame. "Ye'll take her pox, Eben, but ye'll not die of't, me thinks: belike 'tis a mere dev'lish clap and not the French disease. Marry, lad, inasmuch as Malden hangs in the balance --"

Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis of no importance, Henry. Whate'er she hath, she hath on my account, by reason of our ill-starred love. I little care now for my legacy, save that I must earn it. 'Tis
atonement
I crave: redemption for my sins against the girl, against my father, against Anna, e'en against you, Henry --"

"What sins?" protested Anna, coming to his side. "Of all men on the planet, Eben, thou'rt freest from sin! What else drew Joan half round the globe, do you think, through all those horrors, if not that quality in you that hath ruined me for other men and driven e'en Henry to near distraction --"

She blushed, realizing she had spoken too much. "Thou'rt the very spirit of Innocence," she finished quietly.

"That is the crime I stand indicted for," her brother replied: "the crime of innocence, whereof the Knowledged must bear the burthen. There's the true Original Sin our souls are born in: not that Adam
learned,
but that he
had
to learn -- in short, that he was innocent."

He sat on the edge of the couch and took Joan's hand. "Once before, this girl had shriven me of that sin, and I compounded it by deserting her. Whate'er the outcome, I rejoice at this second chance for absolution."

"Marry!" McEvoy said. "Ye mean to do't?"

"Aye."

Anna threw her arms about his neck and wept. "How I love you! The four of us will live here, and if Henry doth not stay on Bloodsworth Island --" Her voice failed; Burlingame drew her back gently from the couch.

Ebenezer kissed Joan's hand until at last she turned her haggard eyes to him.

"Thou'rt weary, Joan."

She closed her eyes. "Beyond imagining."

He stood up, still holding her hand. "I've not strength enough yet to carry you to our chamber. . ." He looked about awkwardly, his features dancing. All the women were in tears; the men either shook their heads, like McEvoy and the Governor, or winced, like Andrew, or merely frowned a grudging awe, like Smith and Sowter.

"I claim the honor!" Burlingame cried, and the spell was broken. Everyone stirred himself to cover the general embarrassment: Andrew and John McEvoy busied themselves comforting their women; Sir Thomas and the Governor assembled their papers and called for tobacco; Smith and Sowter, accompanied by the sergeant-at-arms, left the room.

Burlingame lifted Joan in his arms. "Good night all!" he called merrily. "Tell cook we'll want a wedding breakfast in the morning, Andrew!" As he headed for the hallway he added with a laugh, "See to what lengths the fallen go, to increase their number! Come along, Anna; this errand wants a chaperon."

Blushing, Anna took Ebenezer's arm, and the twins followed their chuckling tutor up the stairs.

"Ah, well now!" their father's voice cried from the parlor. "We've a deal to drink to, lords and ladies!" And addressing the unseen servant in the kitchen he called "Grace?
Grace!
'Sblood, Grace, fetch us a rundlet!"

TO HIS READERS; THE LAUREATE

COMPOSES HIS EPITAPH

L
est it be objected
by a certain stodgy variety of squint-minded antiquarians that he has in this lengthy history played more fast and loose with Clio, the chronicler's muse, than ever Captain John Smith dared, the Author here posits in advance, by way of surety, three blue-chip replies arranged in order of decreasing relevancy. In the first place be it remembered, as Burlingame himself observed, that we all invent our pasts, more or less, as we go along, at the dictates of Whim and Interest; the happenings of former times are a clay in the present moment that will-we, nill-we, the lot of us must sculpt. Thus Being does make Positivists of us all. Moreover, this Clio was already a scarred and crafty trollop when the Author found her; it wants a nice-honed casuist, with her sort, to separate seducer from seduced. But if, despite all, he is convicted at the Public Bar of having forced what slender virtue the strumpet may make claim to, then the Author joins with pleasure the most engaging company imaginable, his fellow fornicators, whose ranks include the noblest in poetry, prose, and politics; condemnation at such a bar, in short, on such a charge, does honor to artist and artifact alike, of the same order of magnitude as election to the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
or suppression by the Watch and Ward.

Thus much for the rival claims of Fact and Fancy, which the artist, like Governor Nicholson, may override with fair impunity. However, when the litigants' claims are
formal,
rather than
substantial,
they pose a dilemma from which few taletellers escape without a goring. Such is the Author's present plight, as he who reads may judge.

The
story
of Ebenezer Cooke is told; Drama wants no more than his consent to Joan Toast's terms, their sundry implications being clear. All the rest is anticlimax: the stairs that take him up to the bridal-chamber take him down the steep incline of
denouement.
To the
history,
on the other hand, there is so much more -- all grounded on meager fact and solid fancy -- that the Author must risk those rude
cornadas
to resume it, and trust that the Reader is interested enough in the fate of the twins, their tutor, Bertrand Burton, Slye and Scurry, and the rest, to indulge some pandering to Curiosity at Form's expense. . .

Andrew Cooke's conviction (which he voiced innumerable times in the course of that night's rundlet and next morning's wedding breakfast) that the sun had set on their troubles forever and would rise thenceforth not only on a happy and prosperous family, but on a happier and nobler Province as well, was -- alas! -- by no means entirely borne out by history. Indeed, with the possible exception of William Smith the cooper and Captain Mitchell the opium merchant -- both of whom disappeared from Clio's stage not long afterwards, never to be heard from to this day -- it cannot be said that the life of any of our characters was markedly blissful; some, to be sure, were rather more serene, but others took more or less turns for the worse, and a few were terminated far before their time.

Tom Tayloe, for example, the corpulent dealer in indentured servants, was released from his own servitude at Malden immediately upon promising to press no charges against McEvoy; one hoped his experience would lead him into a less unsavory trade, but within the week he was peddling redemptioners again all over Talbot County, and a few years later he was throttled to death on Tilghman's Island by one of his investments -- a giant Scot with all of McEvoy's passion for liberty and none of his resourcefulness. No more fortunate was Benjamin Spurdance, "the man who had naught to lose": Andrew discovered him in the jail in Annapolis, serving a sentence for petty thievery, and restored him to his former position as overseer of the tobacco-fields on Cooke's Point, but vagrancy and despair had so debilitated him that, the very next winter, an ague robbed him forever of the only thing he had not previously lost.

It may be said of Colonel Robotham, who succumbed to a like infirmity in April of 1698, that Life owned him no more years; but who will not regret that his journey ended, not in disgrace -- which, when complete, can be as refreshing as success -- but in embarrassment? A collaborator in the revolution of '89 and a Councilman under both royal governors of Maryland, he and four similarly flexible statesmen fled cravenly to England in 1696, when Nicholson opened his prosecution of their former leader. To add to his humiliation, Lucy never found a husband. Her child, a girl, was born as it had been conceived, out of wedlock, and raised on the Colonel's estate by his widow. Lucy herself fell farther and farther from respectability: abandoning her child, she lived openly in Port Tobacco as the mistress of her seducer, the Reverend Mr. Tubman, until that gentleman and his colleague, the Reverend Peregrine Cony, were suspended by their bishop in 1698 on charges of drunkenness, gambling, and bigamy. Of her life thereafter nothing positive is known, but one is distressed to hear of a young prostitute in Russecks's Tavern (which Mary Mungummory purchased from Roxanne's estate and operated jointly with Harvey Russecks) who achieved some fame among the lower-Dorset trappers by reason of
"a Beare upon her bumm"
-- could it have been a freckled Ursa Major?

At least the Colonel was spared the chore of arranging a second annulment for his daughter, inasmuch as she became a widow before she was a mother. Poor Bertrand, after that final lucid hour with Ebenezer, lapsed first into prolonged delirium, in the course of which he accepted the worship of "Good Saint Drakepecker," held forth as Poet Laureate of Brandon's Isle, and deflowered harems of Betsy Birdsalls and Lucy Robothams; then he sank into a coma, from which Burlingame and a physician strove in vain to rouse him, and three days later died in his bed at Malden. Ebenezer was greatly saddened by his death, not only because he felt some measure of responsibility for it, but also because the ordeals they had survived together had given him a genuine affection for his "adviser"; yet just as scarlet fever may cure a man of the vapors, so his distress as losing Bertrand was eclipsed by the far more grievous loss that followed on its heels: Joan Toast, as everyone expected, succumbed before the year was out -- on the second night in November 1695, to be exact -- but it was neither her opium nor her pox that carried her off. Without them, to be sure, she would have survived; they felled and disarmed her; but the
coup de gr
â
ce
-- by one of those monstrous ironies that earlier had moved Ebenezer to call Life a shameless playwright -- was administered by childbirth! Hear the story:

After that evening which regained Cooke's Point for Ebenezer (and ended our plot) there was a general exodus from Malden. Governor Nicholson, Sir Thomas Lawrence, William Smith, and Richard Sowter sailed for Anne Arundel Town the next day, and the militiamen went their separate ways; Burlingame tarried until he could do no more for Bertrand and then struck out alone on his perilous embassy to Bloodsworth Island, promising to return in the spring and marry Anna -- to which match her father had consented. John McEvoy and Henrietta, on whom Andrew also bestowed his blessing, were married soon after in the parlor at Malden (to the tearful joy of the Parisienne in the kitchen) and sailed for England as soon as Sir Harry's will was probated; moreover, contrary to the general expectation, Roxanne went with them, whether because her old love for Andrew had not got the better of her grievance, or because she deemed herself too old for further involvements or too scarred by her life with the brutish miller, or for some other, less evident reason. Andrew followed them, leaving Malden to the care of his son and Ben Spurdance, and it pleased the twins to conjecture that Roxanne meant to marry their father after all, but not before repaying him in his own coin. However, if Andrew entertained hopes of winning her by siege, they were never realized: on the income from her estate she toured Europe with her daughter and son-in-law. McEvoy went through the motions of studying music with Lotti in Venice, but apparently lost interest in composition; he and Henrietta lived a childless, leisurely life until September of 1715, when they and Roxanne, along with fifty other souls, set out from Piraeus in the ship
Duldoon,
bound for Cadiz, and were never heard from again.

By spring, then, everyone had left except the twins and Joan Toast, and life at Malden settled into a tranquil routine. Ebenezer did indeed contract his wife's malady, which, though virtually incurable, he contrived to hold in check by means of certain herbs and other pharmaceuticals provided him earlier by Burlingame, so that for the time at least he suffered only a mild discomfort; and after the first two weeks Joan's health grew too delicate to permit further physical relations with her husband. The three devoted most of their time to reading, music, and other gentle pursuits. The twins were as close as they had ever been at St. Giles, with the difference that their bond was inarticulate: those dark, unorthodox aspects of their affection which had so alarmed them in the recent past were ignored as if they had never existed; indeed, the simple spectator of their current life might well have inferred that the whole thing was but a creation of Burlingame's fancy, but a more sophisticated observer -- or cynical, if you will -- would raise an eyebrow at the relish with which Ebenezer confessed his earlier doubts of Henry's good will, and the zeal with which he now declared that Burlingame was "more than a friend; more e'en than a brother-in-law-to-be: he is my
brother,
Anna -- aye, and hath been from the first!" And would this same cynic not smile at Anna's timid devotion to the invalid Joan, whom every morning she helped to wash and dress?

The equinox passed. In April, true to his word, Burlingame appeared at Malden, for all the world an Ahatchwhoop in dress and coiffure, and announced that, thanks to the spectacular effect of the Magic Aubergine (for which, owing to the season, he had substituted an Indian gourd), his expedition had achieved a large measure of success: he was positively enamored of his newfound family and much impressed by Quassapelagh and the able Drepacca -- whose relations, he added, had deteriorated gratifyingly. He felt confident that he could get the better of them, but of his brother he was not so sure: Cohunkowprets, thirsty for blood, had the advantage of copper-colored skin, and the problem of deposing him was complicated by Burlingame's great love for him. His work there, Henry concluded, was not done; he had planted the seeds of faction, but after marrying Anna he would be obliged to return to the Island for the summer, to cultivate them properly.

His appearance disrupted the placid tenor of life at Malden. Anna had grown increasingly nervous with the coming spring, and now she seemed positively on the verge of hysteria: she could not sit still or permit a moment's lull in conversation; her moods were various as the faces of the Chesapeake, and changed more frequently and less predictably; a risque remark -- such as Ebenezer's, that he had seen dried Indian gourds in Spurdance's cabin on the property -- was enough to send her weeping from the room, but on occasion she would tease her brother most unkindly about his infection and speculate, with deplorable bad taste, what effect the eggplant-plaster might have on it. Burlingame observed her behavior with great interest.

"You
do
want to wed me, Anna?" he asked at last.

"Of course!" she insisted. "But I'll own I'd rather wait till the fall, when thou'rt done with the Salvages for ever and aye

Henry smiled at Ebenezer. "As you wish, my love. Then methinks I'll leave tomorrow --
The sooner departed, the sooner returned,
as they say."

To what happened in the interval between this conversation, which took place at breakfast, and Burlingame's departure twenty-four hours later, Ebenezer could scarcely have been oblivious: the very resoluteness with which he banished the thought from his mind (only to have it recur more vividly each time) argues his awareness of the possibility; his sudden need to help Spurdance oversee the afternoon's planting argues his approval of the prospect; and his inability to sleep that night, even with cotton in his ears and the pillow over his head, argues his suspicion of the fact. Anna kept to her room next morning, and the poet was obliged to bid his friend goodbye for the two of them.

"The fall seems terribly distant," he observed at the last.

Henry smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Not to the fallen," he replied.
"Adieu,
my friend: methinks that prophecy of Pope Clement's will come to pass."

These were his final words to the poet, not only for the day and season, but forever. Later that day Anna declared her fear that Burlingame would remain with the Ahatchwhoops all his life, and
much
later -- in 1724 -- she confessed that she had sent him away herself in order to be, literally and exclusively, her brother's keeper. In any event, unless a certain fancy of Ebenezer's later years was actually the truth, they never saw or heard from their friend again. Whether owing to his efforts or not, the great insurrection did not materialize, though by 1696 it seemed so imminent that Nicholson raised the penalties for sedition almost monthly: even the loyal Piscataways, who had fed the very first settlers in 1634, were so inflamed -- some said by Governor Andros of Virginia -- that they abandoned their towns in southern Maryland, removed to the western mountains with their emperor (Ochotomaquath), and either starved, they being farmers rather than hunters, or were assimilated into northern groups. The great Five Nations, thanks to the efforts of Monsieur Casteene, General Frontenac, and perhaps Drepacca as well, were wooed away entirely from the English to the French, and the massacres of Schenectady and Albany would almost surely have been multiplied throughout the English provinces had the grand conspirators on Bloodsworth Island not been divided. The fact that Nicholson never mustered a force to attack the Island itself suggests both communication with and great faith in Henry Burlingame; by the end of the century the place was an uninhabited marsh, as it is today. One supposes that the Ahatchwhoops, under whatever leadership, migrated northward into Pennsylvania like the Nanticokes, and were in time subsumed into the Five Nations. On the ultimate fate of Quassapelagh, Drepacca, Cohunkowprets, and Burlingame, History is silent.