The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “We don’t know ’twas Benjamin Long,” Henrietta admitted. “He’d not answer Mother’s questions. But I can’t account for his behavior otherwise—”

  “Of course it was my Benjy,” Mrs. Russecks said. “The dear boy ran off to sea thirty years ago and turned pirate. ’Twas purely out o’ shame he’d not own up to’t.” On this point she was calmly impervious to argument, and despite the staggering unlikelihood of the coincidence, Ebenezer had to admit that he could think of no hypothesis to account more reasonably for Long Ben Avery’s sudden charity. He sat up to embrace them all by turns, and his sister again and again, and then lay back exhausted. His sojourn in Hell, he now learned, had actually lasted four days, during which he had hung in the balance between life and death; McEvoy and Bertrand had also been bedridden from the effects of exposure, though not comatose. The former was now quite recovered, but Bertrand, whom they had not located in the barn until the morning after, was still in grave condition.

  “Thank Heav’n they’re alive!” Ebenezer exclaimed. “What of Father, and Henry Burlingame, and the cooper? Do I hear them belowstairs?” Indeed, from the rooms below came the sound of several men’s voices, apparently in argument.

  “Aye,” Anna said. “The fact is they’re all under house arrest till the matter of our estate is settled! Governor Nicholson is much alarmed about the rebellion and the opium traffic, and hath put Cooke’s Point under a sort of martial law till your recovery. In the meantime, everyone accuses everyone else, and no man knows whose title is valid.” Directly upon their arrival in Anne Arundel Town, she explained, Captain Cairn and they had gone to the Governor’s house, roused him from bed despite the hour, and reported as much as they could piece together of their kidnaping, the activity on Bloodsworth Island, and the vicious enterprise of which Malden had apparently become a regional headquarters. Thanks to the mention of the John Smith papers and Captain Cairn’s reputation as a sober citizen of St. Mary’s, Governor Nicholson had accepted their report at face value: two armed pinnaces had been dispatched in pursuit of Captain Avery’s Phansie, and the President of the Council himself, Sir Thomas Lawrence, had set out with the ladies for Cooke’s Point before dawn, empowered by the Governor to act as his proxy in any matters involving the welfare of the Province.

  “And marry,” Henrietta laughed, “what a jolly time we’ve had since!” Andrew Cooke, she declared, had suffered a series of such great and ambivalent surprises that for a time they had feared for his sanity: to begin with, his joy at finding Ebenezer alive had given way at once to wrath and no small embarrassment—the latter occasioned by his having sworn to all and sundry that “Nicholas Lowe,” who in truth had befriended him a fortnight previously and told him that Ebenezer was dead, was the real Ebenezer Cooke, and that the so-called Laureate of Maryland who had given Cooke’s Point away was a gross impostor. How had his dismay been compounded, then, when in the space of twenty-four hours he had learned that his “son” was apparently a highly placed agent of the Governor’s; that Anna had been captured and freed by the notorious Long Ben Avery; and—perhaps most disconcerting of all—that she had brought with her his old mistress Roxanne Edouard and a young lady alleged to be his natural daughter!

  “Beside these wonders,” Henrietta said, “such trifles as the Bloodsworth insurrection are beneath his attention! Really, Brother Eben, ’tis a droll fellow we have for a father!”

  “Henrietta!” Mrs. Russecks scolded. “Let us hasten to tell Sir Thomas that Mister Cooke is himself again, and will soon be strong enough to speak with him.” She kissed the poet quite maternally. “Thank God for that!”

  Anna was greatly amused. “Henrietta is a marvelous tease,” she said to Ebenezer when they were alone again. “Roxanne hath warned her not to call us brother and sister or speak of Father as her father, but she doth it nonetheless to provoke him.” By Roxanne’s own admission, she said, Andrew had not known when he left her in 1670 that she was carrying his child; she had refrained from telling him lest he marry her under coercion, and so had been doubly embittered when he returned her to her “uncle” in Church Creek. “But ah, he loved her,” Anna declared. “You should have seen him when we came in! So overjoyed to see her, he scarce had eyes for me, yet so ashamed of having left her—i’faith, he was crucified by shame! He ne’er once questioned that Henrietta was his daughter, but for days now hath gone from begging the whole world’s pardon to raging at the lot of us as vultures and thieves, come to do him out of Malden! ’Tis a pitiful sight, Eben: we must forgive him.”

  Anna seemed to have been altered by her late experience: her face was drawn and weary as before, but her voice and manner reflected a new serenity, an acceptance of things difficult to accept—in short, a beatitude, for like Mrs. Russecks she reminded Ebenezer of one to whom a miracle, a vision or mystic grace, has lately been vouchsafed. The memory of their last exchange in the hold of Captain Cairn’s sloop brought the blood to his face; he closed his eyes for shame and gripped her hand. Anna returned the pressure as if she read his thoughts clearly, and went on in her quiet voice to declare that despite Roxanne’s coolness to Andrew’s contrition, and her assertion that Benjamin Long, or Long Ben Avery, was the only man who ever truly won her heart, Henrietta and Anna agreed that she had by no means lost her affection for their father, but was too wise to grant her pardon overhastily.

  Ebenezer smiled and shook his head. He was frightfully weak, but he could feel the balm of his good fortune working magically to restore his strength.

  “What of you and Henry, Anna?” he inquired. Anna lowered her eyes. “We have talked,” she said, “—like this, with eyes averted. He was as confounded as Father when I walked in with Roxanne and Henrietta! He rejoiced at our safety and yearns to see you. I told him privily what I could of his father and brothers, and your fears for the safety of the Province; naturally he is ablaze with curiosity and cannot wait to set out for Bloodsworth Island—you know how Henry is—but he won’t go till he talks to you. We’ve promised not to reveal his disguise, you know: even Sir Thomas calls him ‘Mr. Lowe,’ and Father thinks he’s the finest fellow in the Province—he’s supposed to be a friend of yours, that bemoans your loss and agreed to help Father get Malden back. The three of us, I suspect, will be much embarrassed by one another for some time… our situation is so hopeless…” She sniffed back a tear and made her voice more cheerful. “The others are quite delighted with each other, or at least resigned: Henrietta and John, Roxanne and Father; even Bertrand and the Robothams have a sort of truce: the Colonel still vows that Bertrand is you and presses his claim to Malden for fear of scandal, and Lucy, poor thing, hath not got long to her term and trembles at the thought of bearing a bastard. They know very well their claim’s a fraud and they’re as much to blame for’t as Bertrand, but they’re desperate, and Bertrand won’t confess for fear the Colonel will murther him where he lies. ’Tis a splendid comedy.”

  Ebenezer heard the sounds of new excitement downstairs: his recovery had been announced.

  “Tell me about my wife,” he begged, and saw Anna try in vain to dissemble her shock at the deliberately chosen term.

  “She hath not long to live…”

  “Nay!” Ebenezer raised up onto his elbow. “Where is she, Anna?”

  “The sight of you and John McEvoy was too much for her,” Anna said. “She swooned in the vestibule and was fetched off to bed—’twas another grand moment for Father, you can fancy, the day he learned she was your wife (that he himself once paid six pounds to), and another when he learned she wasn’t Susan Warren but the same woman you knew in London! He swears the match is null and void, and rants and rages; but withal he hath not abused her, if only because Henry—”

  “No matter!” Ebenezer insisted; a number of people could be heard ascending the stairs. “Quickly, prithee, Anna! What is her condition?”

  “The swoon was only the last straw on her back,” Anna answered soberly. “Her—her social disease hath not improved, nor hath her nee
d for devilish opium, nor hath her general health, that was long since spent out in the curing-house. Dr. Sowter hath examined her and declares she’s a dying woman.”

  “I’God!” the poet moaned. “I must see her at once! I’ll die before her!” Against Anna’s protests he endeavored to get out of bed, but immediately upon sitting up grew dizzy and fell back on the pillow. “Poor wretch! Poor saintly, martyred wretch!”

  His lamentations were cut short by a commotion of visitors led by Henrietta Russecks. First in were his father and Henry Burlingame.

  “Dear Eben!” Henry cried, hurrying up to grasp both his hands. “What adventures are these you deserted me for?” He raised his head to Andrew, who stood uneasily on the other side of the bed. “Nay, tell me truly, Mr. Cooke: is’t a bad son that saves a province?”

  Ebenezer could only smile: his heart was full of sentiments too strong and various to permit reply. He and his father regarded each other silently and painfully. “I am heartily sorry, Father,” he began after a moment, but his voice was choked at once.

  Andrew laid his left hand on Ebenezer’s brow—the first such solicitude in the poet’s memory. “I told ye once in St. Giles, Eben: to beg forgiveness is the bad son’s privilege, and to grant it the bad father’s duty.” To the room in general he announced, “The lad hath fever yet. State thy business and have done with’t, Sir Thomas.”

  Three other men had come into the room: Richard Sowter, Colonel Robotham, and a courtly, white-wigged gentleman in his fifties who bowed slightly to Andrew and Ebenezer in turn.

  “Thomas Lawrence, sir, of the Governor’s Council,” he said, “and most honored to meet you! Pray forgive me for imposing on your rest and recuperation, so well deserved, but none knows better than yourself how grave and urgent is our business—”

  Ebenezer waved off the apology. “My sister hath apprised me of your errand, for which thank God and Governor Nicholson! Our peril is greater than anyone suspects, sir, and the sooner dealt with, the better for all.”

  “Excellent. Then let me ask you whether you think yourself strong enough to speak this afternoon to Governor Nicholson and myself.”

  “Nicholson!” Sowter exclaimed. “St. Simon’s saw, sirs!” Andrew too, and Colonel Robotham, seemed disquieted by the Council President’s words.

  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 169
1 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.”