The Sot-Weed Factor (15 page)

Whatever trepidations or
dank night doubts had lately plagued the Laureate's repose, when the sun rose next morning over London they were burned off with the mist of the Thames. He woke at nine refreshed in body and spirit, and, when he remembered the happenings of the day before and his new office, it was with delight.

"Bertrand! You, Bertrand!" he called, springing from the bed. "Are you there, fellow?"

His man appeared at once from the next room.

"Did you sleep well, sir?"

"Like a silly babe. What a morning! It ravishes me!"

"Methought I heard ye taken with the heaves last night."

" 'Sheart, a sour pint, belike, at Locket's," Ebenezer replied lightly, "or a stein of green ale. Fetch my shirt there, will you? There's a good fellow. Egad, what smells as fresh as new-pressed linen or feels as clean?"

" 'Tis a marvel ye threw it off so. Such a groaning and a hollowing!"

"Indeed?" Ebenezer laughed and began to dress with leisurely care. "Nay, not those; my knit cottons today. Hollowing, you say? Some passing nightmare, I doubt not; I've no memory of't. Nothing to fetch surgeon or priest about."

"Priest, sir!" Bertrand exclaimed with a measure of alarm. " 'Tis true, then, what they say?"

"It may be, or it may not. Who are
they,
and what is their story?"

"Some have it, sir," Bertrand replied glibly, "thou'rt in Lord Baltimore's employ, who all the world knows is a famous Papist, and that 'twas only on your conversion to Rome he gave ye your post."

" 'Dslife!" Ebenezer turned to his man incredulously. "What scurrilous libel! How came you to hear it?"

Bertrand blushed. "Begging your pardon, sir, ye may have marked ere now that albeit I am a bachelor, I am not without interest in the ladies, and that, to speak plainly, I and a certain young serving maid belowstairs have what ye might call --"

"An understanding," Ebenezer suggested impatiently. "Do I know it, you scoundrel? D'you think I've not heard the twain of you clipping and tumbling the nights away in your room, when you thought me asleep? I'faith, 'tis enough to wake the dead! If my poor puking cost you an hour's sleep last night, 'tis not the hundredth part of what I owe you! Is't she told you this tale of a cock and a bull?"

"Aye," admitted Bertrand, "but 'twas not of her making."

"Whence came it, then? Get to the point, man! 'Tis a sorry matter when a poet cannot accept an honor without suffering on the instant the slanders of the envious, or make a harmless trope without his man's crying Popery!"

"I crave your pardon, sir," said Bertrand. " 'Twas no accusation, only concern; I thought it my duty to tell ye what your enemies are saying. The fact is, sir, my Betsy, who is a hot-blooded, affectionate lass, hath the bad luck to be married, and that to a lackluster chilly fellow whose only passions are ambition and miserliness, and who, though he'd like a sturdy son to bring home extra wages, is as sparing with caresses as with coins. Such a money-grubber is he that, after a day's work as a clerk's apprentice in the Customs-House, he labors half the night as a fiddler in Locket's to put by an extra crown, with the excuse 'tis a nest egg against the day she finds herself with child. But 'sblood, 'tis such a tax on his time that he scarce sees her from one day to the next and on his strength that he hath not the wherewithal to roger what time he's with her! It seemed a sinful waste to me to see, on the one hand, poor Betsy alone and all a-fidget for want of husbanding, and on the other her husband Ralph a-hoarding money to no purpose, and so like a proper Samaritan I did what I could for the both of 'em: Ralph fiddled and I diddled."

"How's that, you rascal? The both of 'em! Small favor to the husband, to bless him with horns! What a villainy!"

"Ah, on the contrary, sir, if I may say so, 'twas a double boon I did him, for not only did I plough his field, which else had lain fallow, but seeded it as well, and from every sign 'twill be a bumper crop come fall. Look ye, sir, ere ye judge me a monster; the lad knew naught but toil and thankless drudgery before and took no pleasure in't, save the satisfaction of drawing his wage. He came home to a wife who carped and quarreled for lack o' love and was set to leave him for good, which would've been the death of him. Now he works harder than ever, proud as a peacock he's got a son a-building, and his clerking and fiddling have changed from mere labor to royal sport. As for Betsy, that was wont to nag and bark at him before, she's turned sweet as a sugar-tit and jumps to his every whim and fancy; she would not leave him for the Duke o' York. Man and wife are both the happier for't."

"And thou'rt the richer by a mistress that costs you not a farthing to keep," Ebenezer added, "and on whom you may get a household of bastards with impunity!"

Bertrand shrugged, adjusting his master's cravat.

"As't happens, yes," he admitted, "though I hear't said that virtue is its own reward."

"Then 'twas this cuckold of a fiddler started the story?" demanded Ebenezer. "I'll take the wretch to court!"

"Nay, 'twas but gossip he passed on to Betsy last night, who passed it on to me this morning. He had it from the drinkers at Locket's, after all the toasting was done and you were gone."

"Unconscionable envy and malice!" Ebenezer cried. "Do you believe it?"

"Marry, sir, 'tis no concern o' mine what persuasion ye follow. I'll confess I wondered, after Betsy told me, whether all thy hollowing and pitching last night was not a free-for-all 'twixt you and your conscience, or some strange Papish ceremony, for I know they've a bag of 'em for every time o' day. B'm'faith, 'twere mere good business, methinks, to take his superstitious vows for him, if that's the condition for the post. Soon or late, we all must strike our bargains with the world. Everything hath its price, and yours was no dear one, inasmuch as neither milord Baltimore nor any other Jesuit can see what's in your heart. All ye need do is say him his hey-nonny-nonnies whenever he's there to hear 'em; as for the rest of the world, 'tis none o' their concern what office ye hold, or what it cost ye, or who got it for ye. Keep mum on't, draw your pay, and let the Pope and the world go hang."

"Lord, hear the cynic!" said Ebenezer. "My word on't, Bertrand, I struck no bargain with Lord Baltimore, nor dickered and haggled any
quid pro quos,
I'm no more Papist this morning than I was last week, and as for salary, my office pays me not a shilling."

" 'Tis the soundest stand to take," Bertrand nodded knowingly, "if any man questions ye."

" 'Tis the simple truth! And so far from keeping my appointment secret, I mean to declare it to all and sundry -- within the bounds of modesty, of course."

"Ah, ye'll regret that!" Bertrand warned. "If ye declare the office, 'tis no use denying ye turned Papist to get it. The world believes what it pleases."

"And doth it relish naught save slander and spite and fantastical allegation?"

" 'Tis not so fantastic a story," Bertrand said, "though mind ye, I don't say 'tis true.
More history's made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills, and proclamations."

"Nay!" Ebenezer protested. "Such libels are but the weapon of the mediocre against the talented. Those fops at Locket's slander me to solace themselves! As for your cynical philosophy, that sees a plot in every preferment, methinks 'tis but mere wishful thinking, the mark of a domestical mind, which attributes to the world at large all the drama and dark excitement that it fails to find in its own activity."

" 'Tis all above me, this philosophy," Bertrand said. "I know only what they say."

"Popery indeed! Dear God, I am ill of London! Fetch my traveling wig, Bertrand; I shan't abide another day in this place!"

"Where will ye go, sir?"

"To Plymouth, by the afternoon coach. See to't my chests and trunks are packed and loaded, will you? 'Sheart, how shall I endure e'en another morning in this vicious city?"

"Plymouth so soon, sir?" asked Bertrand.

"The sooner the better. Have you found a place?"

"I fear not, sir. 'Tis a bad season to seek one, my Betsy says, and 'tis not every place I'd take."

"Ah well, no great matter. These rooms are hired till April's end, and thou'rt free to use 'em. Your wage is paid ahead, and I've another crown for you if my bags are on the Plymouth coach betimes."

"I thank ye, sir. I would ye weren't going, I swear't, but ye may depend on't your gear will be stowed on the coach. Marry, I'll not soon find me a civiler master!"

"Thou'rt a good fellow, Bertrand," Ebenezer smiled. "Were't not for my niggard allowance, I'd freight thee to Maryland with me."

"I'faith, I've no stomach for bears and salvages, sir! An't please ye, I'll stay behind and let my Betsy comfort me for losing ye."

"Then good luck to you," said Ebenezer as he left, "and may your son be a strapping fellow. I shan't return here: I mean to waste the whole morning buying a notebook for my voyage. Haply I'll see you at the posthouse."

"Good day then, sir," Bertrand said, "and fare thee well!"

Irksome as was his false friends' slander, it slipped from Ebenezer's mind once he was out of doors. The day was too fair, his spirits too high, for him to brood much over simple envy. "Leave small thoughts to small minds," said he to himself, and so dismissed the matter.

Much more important was the business at hand: choosing and purchasing a notebook. Already his excellent trope of the day before, which he'd wanted to set down for future generations, was gone from his memory; how many others in years gone by had passed briefly through his mind, like lovely women through a room, and gone forever? It must happen no more. Let the poetaster and occasional dabbler-in-letters affect that careless fecundity which sneers at notes and commonplace books: the mature and dedicated artist knows better, hoards every gem he mines from the mother lode of fancy, and at his leisure sifts the diamonds from the lesser stones.

He went to the establishment of one Benjamin Bragg, at the Sign of the Raven in Paternoster Row -- a printer, bookseller, and stationer whom he and many of his companions patronized. The shop was a clearinghouse for literary gossip; Bragg himself -- a waspish, bright-eyed, honey-voiced little man in his forties of whom it was rumored that he was a Sodomite -- knew virtually everyone of literary pretensions in the city, and though he was, after all, but a common tradesman, his favor was much sought after. Ebenezer had been uncomfortable in the place ever since his first introduction to the proprietor and clientele some years before. He had always, until the previous day, been of at least two minds about his own talent, as about everything else -- confident on the one hand (From how many hackle-raising ecstasies! From how many transports of inspiration!) that he was blessed with the greatest gift since blind John Milton's and destined to take literature singlehandedly by the breech and stand it upon its periwig; equally certain, on the other (From how many sloughs of gloom, hours of museless vacancy, downright immobilities!) that he was devoid even of talent, to say nothing of genius; a humbler, a stumbler, a witless poser like many another -- and his visits to Bragg's, whose poised habitues reduced him to mumbling ataxia in half an instant, never failed to convert him to the latter opinion, though in other circumstances he could explain away their cleverness to his advantage. In any case, he was in the habit of disguising his great uneasiness with the mask of diffidence, and Bragg rarely noticed him at all.

It was to his considerable satisfaction, therefore, that when this time he entered the establishment and discreetly asked one of the apprentices to show him some notebooks, Bragg himself dismissed the boy and left the short, wigless customer with whom he'd been gossiping in order to serve him personally.

"Dear Mr. Cooke!" he cried. "You
must
accept my felicitations on your distinction!"

"What? Oh, indeed," Ebenezer smiled modestly. "However did you hear of't so soon?"

"So soon!" Bragg warbled. " 'Tis the talk o' London! I had it yesterday from dear Ben Oliver, and today from a score of others.
Laureate of Maryland!
Tell me," he asked, with careful ingenuousness, "was't by Lord Baltimore's appointment, as some say, or by the King's? Ben Oliver declares 'twas from Baltimore and vows he'll turn Quaker and seek the same of William Penn for Pennsylvania!"

" 'Twas Lord Baltimore honored me," Ebenezer replied coolly, "who, though a Romanist, is as civil a gentleman as any I've met and hath a wondrous ear for verse."

"I am certain of't," Bragg agreed, "though I've ne'er met the man. Prithee, sir, how came he to know your work? We're all of us a-flutter to read you, yet search as I may I can't find a poem of yours in print, nor hath anyone I've asked heard so much as a line of your verse. Marry, I'll confess it: we scarce knew you wrote any!"

"A man may love his house and yet not ride on the ridgepole,"
Ebenezer observed, "and a man may be no less a poet for not declaiming in every inn and ordinary or printing up his creatures to be peddled like chestnuts on London Bridge."

"Well said!" Bragg chortled, clapped his hands, and bounced on his heels. "Oh, pungently put! 'Twill be repeated at every table in Locket's for a fortnight! Ah, 'slife, masterfully put!" He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. "Would you tell me, Mr. Cooke, if't be not too prying a question, whether Lord Baltimore did you this honor in the form of a recommendation for King William and the Governor of Maryland to approve, or whether 'tis still in Baltimore's power to make and fill official posts? There was some debate on the matter here last evening."

"I daresay there was," Ebenezer said. " 'Tis my good fortune I missed it. Is't your suggestion Lord Baltimore would willfully o'erstep his authority and exercise rights he hath no claim to?"

"Oh, Heav'n forbid!" cried Bragg, wide-eyed. " 'Twas a mere civil question, b'm'faith! No slight intended!"

"So be't. Let us have done with questions now, lest I miss the Plymouth coach. Will you show me some notebooks?"

"Indeed, sir, at once! What sort of notebook had you in mind?"