The Sot-Weed Factor Page 5

  At his insistence a devious correspondence was established with his sister through Miss Bromly, Burlingame’s pupil, and after two months Anna contrived to visit them in London, using as excuse the illness of a spinster aunt who lived near Leadenhall. The twins were, as may be imagined, overjoyed to see each other again, for although conversation did not come so readily since Ebenezer’s departure from St. Giles three years before, each still bore, abstractly at least, the greatest affection and regard for the other. Burlingame, too, Anna expressed considerable but properly decorous pleasure in seeing again. She had changed somewhat since Ebenezer had seen her last: her brown hair had lost something of its shine, and her face, while still fair, was leaner and less girlish than he remembered it.

  “My dear Anna!” he said for the fourth or fifth time. “How good it is to hear your voice! Tell me, how did you leave Father? Is he well?”

  Anna shook her head. “Well on the way to Bedlam, I fear, or to driving me there. ’Tis your disappearance, Eben; it angers and frightens him at once. He knows not the cause of’t, or whether to comb the realm for you or disown you. A dozen times daily he demands of me whether I know aught of your whereabouts, or else rails at me for keeping things from him. He is grown hugely suspicious of me, and yet sometimes asks of you so plaintively as to move my tears. He has aged much these past weeks, and though he blows and blusters no less than before, his heart is not in it, and it saps his strength.”

  “Ah, God, it pains me to hear that!”

  “And me,” said Burlingame, “for though old Andrew hath small love for me, I wish him no ill.”

  “I do think,” Anna said to Ebenezer, “that you should strive to establish yourself in some calling, and communicate with him directly you find a place; for despite the abuse he’ll surely heap on you, ’twill ease his soul to learn thou’rt well, and well established.”

  “And ’twould ease mine to ease his,” Ebenezer said.

  “Marry, and yet ’tis your own life!” Burlingame cried impatiently. “Filial love be damned, it galls me sore to see the pair of you o’erawed by the pompous rascal!”

  “Henry!” Anna chided.

  “You must pardon me,” Burlingame said; “I mean no harm by’t. But lookee, Anna, ’tis not alone Andrew’s health that suffers. Thou’rt peaked thyself, and wan, and I mark a sobering of your spirits. You too should flee St. Giles for London, as your aunt’s companion or the like.”

  “Am I wan and solemn?” Anna asked gently. “Haply ’tis mere age, Henry: one-and-twenty is no more a careless child. But prithee ask me not to leave St. Giles; ’tis to ask Father’s death.”

  “Or belike she hath a suitor there,” Ebenezer said to Burlingame. “Is’t not so, Anna?” he teased. “Some rustic swain, perchance, that hath won your heart? One-and-twenty is no child, but ’twere a passing good wife, were’t not? Say, Henry, see the girl blush! Methinks I’ve hit on’t!”

  “ ’Twere a lucky bumpkin, b’m’faith,” Burlingame remarked.

  “Nay,” said Anna, “twit me no more on’t, Brother.”

  She was so plainly overwrought that Ebenezer at once begged her forgiveness for his tease.

  Anna kissed his cheek. “How shall I marry, when the man I love best hath the bad sense to be my brother? What say the books at Cambridge, Eben? Was e’er a maid less lucky?”

  “Nay, i’faith!” laughed Ebenezer. “You’ll live and die a maiden ere you find my like! Yet I commend my friend here to your attention, who though something gone in years yet sings a creditable tenor, and is the devil’s own good fellow!”

  As soon as he spoke it Ebenezer realized the tactlessness of his remark in the light of what Burlingame had told him weeks before of Andrew’s suspicions; both men blushed at once, but Anna saved the situation by kissing Burlingame lightly on the cheek as she had kissed her brother, and saying easily, “ ’Twere no mean catch, if you speak truly. Doth he know his letters?”

  “What matter?” Burlingame asked, joining the raillery. “Whate’er I lack, this fellow here can teach me, or so he vaunts.”

  “ ’Swounds, that reminds me,” Ebenezer said, jumping up, “I must run to Tower Hill this minute, to give young Farmsley his first recorder lesson!” He fetched an alto recorder from the mantelpiece. “Quickly, Henry, how doth one blow the thing?”

  “Nay, not quickly: slowly,” Burlingame said. “ ’Twere a grievous error to learn an art too fast. On no account must thy Farmsley blow a note ere he’s spent an hour fondling the instrument, holding it properly, taking it apart and fitting it together. And never, never should the master show off his own ability, lest the student grow discouraged at the distance he must travel. I’ll teach you the left-hand notes tonight, and you can play Les Bouffons for him on the morrow.”

  “Must you go?” Anna asked.

  “Aye, or ’tis stale bread come Sunday, for Henry hath no scholars of his own this week. I shall trust you to his care till I return.”

  Anna remained a week in London, slipping away from her aunt’s bedside as often as possible to visit Ebenezer and Burlingame. At the end of that time, the aunt having recuperated sufficiently to manage for herself, she announced her intention to return to St. Giles, and to Burlingame’s considerable surprise and distress, Ebenezer declared that he was going with her—nor could any amount of expostulation change his mind.

  “ ’Tis no good,” he would say, shaking his head. “I am not a teacher.”

  “Damn me,” Burlingame cried, “if thou’rt not fleeing responsibility!”

  “Nay. If I flee, I flee to it. ’Twas a coward’s act to hide from Father’s wrath. I shall ask his pardon and do whate’er he requires of me.”

  “A pox on his anger! ’Tis not responsibility to him I speak of at all, but responsibility to thyself. ’Twere a noble act, on the fact of’t, to beg his pardon and take your birching like a man, but ’tis no more than an excuse for dropping the reins of your own life. ’Sheart, ’tis a manlier matter to set your goal and swallow the consequences!”

  Ebenezer shook his head. “Put what face you will upon it, Henry, I must go. Can a son stand by and watch his father fret to an early grave?”

  “Think no ill of’t, Henry,” Anna pleaded.

  “Surely you don’t believe it a wise move also?” Burlingame asked incredulously.

  “I cannot judge the wisdom of’t,” Anna replied, “but certain ’twere not a wrong thing to do.”

  “Marry, I have done with the twain of you!” Burlingame cried. “Praise Heav’n I know not my own father, if this be how they shackle one!”

  “I pray Heav’n rather you may someday find him,” Anna said calmly, “or word of him, at least. A man’s father is his link with the past: the bond ’twixt him and the world he’s born to.”

  “Then again I thank Heav’n I’m quit of mine,” said Burlingame. “It leaves me free and unencumbered.”

  “It doth in sooth, Henry,” Anna said with some emotion, “for better or worse.”

  When the time came to leave, Ebenezer asked, “When shall we see you again, Henry? I shall miss you painfully.”

  But Burlingame only shrugged and said, “Stay here now, if’t pain you so.”

  “I shall visit as often as I can.”

  “Nay, risk not your father’s displeasure. Besides, I may be gone.”

  “Gone?” asked Anna, with mild alarm. “Gone whither, Henry?”

  He shrugged again. “There’s naught to keep me here. I care not a fig for any of my pupils, save to pass the time till something else absorbs me.”

  After making their good-byes, which their friend’s bitterness rendered awkward, Ebenezer and Anna hired a carriage to fetch them to St. Giles in the Fields. The little journey, though uneventful, they both enjoyed, for despite the fact that Anna was disturbed to the point of occasional tears over Burlingame’s attitude, and Ebenezer grew more anxious by the mile at the prospect of confronting his father, the carriage-ride was the twins’ first opportunity in some time to converse
privately and at length. When finally they arrived at the Cooke estate they found to their alarm that Andrew had taken to his bed three days before, at the direction of his physician, and was being cared for by Mrs. Twigg, the housekeeper, like an invalid.

  “Dear God!” cried Anna. “And I in London all the while!”

  “ ’Tis no fault of yours, my dear,” said Mrs. Twigg. “He told us not to send for you. Twould do him good to see you, though, I’m certain.”

  “I shall go too,” Ebenezer declared.

  “Nay, not just yet,” Anna said. “Let me see what state he’s in, and how ’twill strike him. ’Twere best to prepare him for it, don’t you think?”

  Ebenezer agreed, somewhat reluctantly, for he feared his courage would fail him should he postpone the move too long. That same day, however, Andrew’s physician paid a call to the estate, and after learning what the situation was and assuring Ebenezer that his father was too weak to make a scene, he took it upon himself to announce to Andrew, as tactfully as possible, that his son had returned.

  “He desires to see you at once,” the physician reported afterwards to Ebenezer.

  “Is he terribly wroth?” Ebenezer asked.

  “I think not. Your sister’s return raised his spirits, and I recalled to him the story of the prodigal son.”

  Ebenezer went upstairs and into his father’s bedchamber, a room he had entered not more than thrice in his life. He found his father anything but the figure he’d feared: lying wigless and thin in bed, he looked nearer seventy than fifty; his cheeks were hollow, his eyes pale; his hair was turning white, his voice querulous. At the sight of him Ebenezer quite forgot a small speech of apology he’d concocted; tears sprang to his eyes, and he knelt beside the bed.

  “Get up, son, get up,” Andrew said with a sigh, “and let me look at ye. ’Tis good to see ye again, I swear it.”

  “Is’t possible thou’rt not enraged?” Ebenezer asked, speaking with difficulty. “My conduct warrants it.”

  “I’faith, I’ve no longer the heart for’t. Thou’rt my son in any case, and my only son, and if I could wish a better, you too might wish a better father. ’Tis no light matter to be a good one.”

  “I owe you much explanation.”

  “Mark the debt canceled,” Andrew said, “for I’ve not the strength for that either. ’Tis the bad child’s grace to repent, and the bad father’s to forgive, and there’s an end on’t. Stay, now, I’ve a deal to say to you and small wind to say it in. In yonder table lies a paper I drafted yesterday, when the world looked somewhat darker than it doth today. Fetch it hither, if’t please ye.”

  Ebenezer did as he was instructed.

  “Now,” said his father, holding the paper away from Ebenezer’s view, “ ’ere I show ye this, say truly: are ye quite ready to have done with flitting hither and yon, and commence to carry a man’s portion like a man? If not, ye may put this back where ye fetched it.”

  “I shall do whate’er you wish, sir,” Ebenezer said soberly.

  “Marry, ’tis almost too much to hope! Mrs. Twigg has oft maintained that English babies ne’er should take French tit, and lays as the root o’ your prodigality the pull and tug of French milk with English blood. Yet I have e’er hoped, and hope still, that soon or late I’ll see ye a man, in sooth an Ebenezer for our house.”

  “Beg pardon, sir! I must own I lose you in this talk of French milk and Ebenezers. Surely my mother wasn’t French?”

  “Nay, nay, thou’rt English sired and English foaled, ye may be certain. Damn that doctor, anyway! Fetch me a pipe and sit ye down, boy, and I shall lay your history open to ye once for all, and the matter I’m most concerned with.”

  “Is’t not unwise to tire yourself?” Ebenezer inquired.

  “La,” Andrew scoffed, “by the same logic ’tis folly to live. Nay, I’ll rest soon enough in the grave.” He raised himself a bit on the bed, accepted a pipe from Ebenezer, and after sampling it with pleasure, commenced his story:

  “ ’Twas in the summer of 1665,” he said, “when I came to London from Maryland to settle some business with the merchant Peter Paggen down by Baynard’s Castle, that I met and married Anne Bowyer of Bassingshawe, your mother. ’Twas a brief wooing, and to escape the great Plague we sailed at once to Maryland on the brig Redoubt, cargoed with dry goods and hardware. We ran into storms from the day we left the Lizard, and headwinds from Flores to the Capes; fourteen weeks we spent a-crossing, and when at last we stepped ashore at St. Mary’s City in December, poor Anne was already three months with child! ’Twas an unhappy circumstance, for you must know that every newcomer to the plantations endures a period of seasoning, some weeks of fitting to the clime, and hardier souls than Anne have succumbed to’t. She was a little woman, and delicate, fitter for the sewing parlor than the ’tween decks: we’d been not a week at St. Mary’s ere a cold she’d got on shipboard turned to a frightful ague. I fetched her o’er the Bay to Malden at once, and the room I’d built for her bridal-chamber became her sick-room—she languished there for the balance of her term, weak and feverish.”

  Ebenezer listened with considerable emotion, but could think of nothing to say. His father drew again on his pipe.

  “My whole house,” he continued, “and I as well, looked for Anne to miscarry, or else deliver the child still-born, by reason of her health. Nonetheless I took it upon myself to seek a wet nurse on the chance it might live, for I knew well poor Anne could ne’er give suck. As’t happened, one day in February I chanced to be standing on the wharf where Cambridge is now, bargaining with some planters, when I heard a great splash in the Choptank behind me, and turned around in time to see a young lady’s head go under the ice.”

  “Mercy!”

  “I was a passing good swimmer in those days, despite my arm, and as no one else seemed inclined to take a cold bath I jumped in after her, periwig and all, and held her up till the others fetched us out. But think ye I got so much as a thankee for my pains? The wench was no sooner herself again than she commenced to bewail her rescue and berate me for not letting her drown. This surprised the lot of us no end, inasmuch as she was a pretty young thing, not above sixteen or seventeen years old.

  “ ‘How is’t ye wish to end what you’ve scarce begun?’ I asked her. ‘Many’s the merry tale hath a bad beginning.’

  “ ‘No matter the cause of’t,’ she replied. ‘In sooth I’ve little to thank ye for; in saving me from a short death by drowning, you but condemn me to a long one by freezing, or a longer by starving.’

  “I was about to press her farther for the cause, but I chanced to observe what I’d not remarked ere then—that though her face and arms were peaked and thin, her belly was a-bloom for fair.

  “ ‘Ah, I see’t now,’ I said. ‘Belike your master had sent ye to feel of the sot-weed, whether ’twas dry enough for casking, and some field-hand rogered ye in the curing-house?’

  “This I said by way of a tease, inasmuch as I guessed by her ragged dress and grimy skin she was a servant girl. She made no answer, but shook her head and wept e’en harder.

  “ ‘Welladay, then,’ I said to her, ‘if not a field-hand, why, the master himself, and if not the curing-house, then the linen closet or the cowshed. Such a belly as thine is not got in church, I swear! And now the planter’s not stayed to lay by his harvest, I’ll wager.’

  “After some farther enquiry the girl owned she had indeed been supping ere the priest said grace, as young folks will; but only once, and this not by force at the hands of a servingman, but rather at the entreaty of a planter’s son who’d sworn his love for her. Nor was’t a mere silly milkmaid’s maidenhead he took, i’faith, for she was Roxanne Edouard, the orphan of the great French gentleman Cecile Edouard of Edouardine, upriver from Cooke’s Point. She’d been reared since her parents’ death by a wealthy uncle in Church Creek, down-county, who was so concerned for her noble blood that he permitted her no suitors from among the young men of the place. ’Twas her bad luck to fall in love with t
he eldest son of her uncle’s neighbor, another planter, and he in turn was so taken with her that he begged her to marry him. She was a dutiful enough child not to wed a young man against the wishes of her guardian, but not so dutiful that she didn’t let him have first go at her anyhow, in the bilge of a piragua out on the river. Afterwards she refused to see him farther, and the young fool was so distressed as to give up his patrimony and go to sea a common sailor, ne’er to be heard from again. Anon she found herself with child, and straightway confessed the whole matter to her uncle, who turned her off the place at once.”

  “How!” Ebenezer cried. “ ’Tis a nice concern he bore her, indeed! Heav’n protect a child from such solicitude! I cannot fathom it!”

  “Nor I,” said Andrew, “but thus it happened, or so I heard it. What’s more, he threatened violence to any who took her in, and so poor Roxanne was soon brought to direst straits. She tried to indent herself as a domestic, though ’twas little she knew of work; but masters had small inclination for a servant who would herself need service ere many months passed. Everyone knew her and her plight, and many a man who’d been turned from her uncle’s door for paying her the merest cordiality before, made her the filthiest proposals now she was down on her luck.”

  “ ’Sheart! Had the wretches no pity for her state?”

  “Nay, e’en here her belly undid her, for so far from discouraging, it seemed rather the more to enflame ’em, the plainer it showed. Have ye not yourself observed—” He glanced at his son. “Nay, no matter. In short, she saw naught ahead save harlotry and disgrace on the one hand, or rape and starvation on the other, and being ashamed of the former and afraid of the latter, she chose a third in lieu of either, which was, to leap into the Choptank.”

  “And, prithee, what did she after you saved her?” Ebenezer asked.