"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."