"Why, thank Heav'n for that!" Andrew declared, and even contrived a thin smile. " 'Thus far hath the Lord helped us!' Leave me now for the nonce, ere I collapse from very weariness."
Andrew settled back in bed, turned his face to the wall, and said no more.
5: Ebenezer Commences His Second Sojourn in London, and Fares Unspectacularly
Because of the great unrest in the nation at this time, occasioned by the conflict between James II and William of Orange, Ebenezer, at his father's advice, did not return to London until the winter of 1688, by which time William and Mary were securely established on the throne of England. The idle year at St. Giles was, although he had no way of realizing it at the time, perhaps Ebenezer's nearest approach to happiness. He had nothing at all to do except read, walk about the countryside or London-without-the-walls, and talk at length with his sister. Although he could not look to his future with enthusiasm, at least he had not to bear the responsibility of having chosen it himself. In the spring and summer, when the weather turned fine, he grew too restless even to read. He felt full to bursting with ill-defined potentialities. Often he would sit a whole morning in the shade of a pear tree behind the house playing airs on the tenor recorder, whose secret he had learned from Burlingame. He cared for no sports; he wished not even to see anyone, except Anna. The air, drenched with sun and clover, made him volatile. On several occasions he was so full of feeling as to fear he'd swoon if he could not empty himself of it. But often as he tried to set down verses, he could not begin: his fancy would not settle on stances and conceits. He spent the warm months in a kind of nervous exaltation which, while more upsetting than pleasurable at the moment, left a sweet taste in his mouth at day's end. In the evenings, often as not, would watch meteors slide down the sky till he grew dizzy.
And though again he could not know it at the time, this idle season afforded him what was to be his last real communion with his sister for many a year. Even so, it was for the most part inarticulate; somewhere they'd lost the knack of talking closely to each other. Of the things doubtless most important to each they spoke not at all — Ebenezer's failure at Cambridge and his impending journey; Anna's uncertain past connection with Burlingame and her present isolation from and lack of interest in suitors of any sort. But they walked together a great deal, and one hot forenoon in August, as they sat under a sycamore near a rocky little steam-branch that ran through the property, Anna clutched his right arm, pressed her forehead to it, and wept for several minutes. Ebenezer comforted her as best he could without inquiring the reason for her tears: he assumed it was some feeling about their maturity that grieved her. At this time, in their twenty-second year of life, Anna looked somewhat older than her brother.
Andrew, once his son's affairs seemed secure, grew gradually stronger, and by autumn was apparently in excellent health again, though for the rest of his life he looked older than his years. In early November he declared the political situation stable enough to warrant the boy's departure; a week later Ebenezer bade the household good-bye and set out for London.
The first thing he did, after finding lodging for himself in a Pudding Lane boardinghouse, was visit Burlingame's address, to see how his old friend fared. But to his surprise he found the premises occupied by new tenants — a draper and his family — and none of the neighbors knew anything of Henry's whereabouts. That evening, therefore, when he'd seen to the arrangement of his belongings, he went to Locket's, hoping to find there, if not Burlingame himself, at least some of their mutual acquaintances who might have news of him.
He found three of the group to which Burlingame had introduced him. One was Ben Oliver, a great fat poet with beady eyes and black curly hair, a very rakehell, who some said was a Jew. Another was Tom Trent, a short sallow boy from Christ's College, also a poet: he'd been sent to prepare for the ministry, but had so loathed the idea that he caught French pox from a doxy he kept in his quarters by way of contempt for his calling, and was finally dismissed upon his spreading the contagion to his tutor and at least two professors who had befriended him. Since then he'd come to take a great interest in religion: he liked no poets save Dante and Milton, maintained a virtual celibacy, and in his cups was wont to shout verses of Scripture at the company in his great bass voice. The third, Dick Merriweather, was despite his surname a pessimist, ever contemplating suicide, who wrote only elegiac verse on the subject of his own demise. Whatever the disparity in their temperaments, however, the three men lived in the same house and were almost always found together.
"I'God, 'tis Eben Cooke the scholar!" cried Ben upon seeing him. "Have a bottle with us, fellow, and teach us the Truth!"
"We thought you dead," said Dick.
Tom Trent said nothing: he was unmoved by greetings and farewells.
Ebenezer returned their greetings, drank a drink with them, and, after explaining his return to London, inquired after Burlingame.
"We've seen none of him for a year," Ben said. "He left us shortly after you did, and I'd have said the twain of you were off together on some lark."
"I recall hearing he'd gone to sea again," Dick Merriweather said. "Belike he's at the bottom of't now, or swimming in the belly of a whale."
"Stay," said Ben. "Now I think on't, didn't I have it from Tom here 'twas Trinity College Henry went back to, to earn his baccalaureate?"
" 'Twas what I had from Joan Toast, that had it from Henry the last night ere he left," Tom said indifferently. "I'll own I pay scant heed to gossip of goings and comings, and 'tis not impossible I misheard her."
"Who is this Joan Toast then, pray, and where might I find her?" asked Ebenezer.
"No need to seek her," Ben laughed; "she's but a merry whore of the place, and you may ask what you will of her anon, when she comes in to find a bedfellow."
Ebenezer waited until the girl arrived, and learned only that Burlingame had spoken of his intention to ransack the libraries of Cambridge for a fortnight — for what purpose she did not know, nor did any amount of inquiry around the winehouse shed more light on his intentions or present whereabouts. During the next week Ebenezer lost no opportunity to ask after his friend, but when it became clear that no clues were to be found, he reluctantly abandoned his efforts, wrote Anna a distressed note informing her of the news, and in the following months and years came almost to forget Henry's existence — though to be sure, he felt the loss acutely whenever the name occurred to him.
Meanwhile, he presented himself at the establishment of the merchant Peter Paggen, and, on producing letters from his father, was set to totting up accounts with the junior apprentices at a little desk among many others in a large room. It was understood that if he applied himself diligently and showed some ability in his work, he would be promoted after a week or so to a post from which he could observe to better advantage the workings of the plantation trade (Mr. Paggen had extensive dealings in Maryland and Virginia). Unfortunately, this promotion was never granted him. For one thing, no matter how hard he tried, Ebenezer could not concentrate his attention on the accounts. He would begin to add a column of totally meaningless figures and realize five minutes later that he'd been staring at a wen on the neck of the boy in front of him, or rehearsing in his mind a real or imaginary conversation between himself and Burlingame, or drawing mazes on a bit of scratch-paper. For the same reason, though he had by no means the troublemaker's temperament, his untamable fancy more than once led him to be charged with irresponsibility: one day, for example, scarcely conscious of what he was about, he involved himself entirely in a game with a small black ant that had wandered across the page. The rule of the game, which he invested with the inexorability of natural law, was that every time the ant trod unwittingly upon a 3 or a 9, Ebenezer would close his eyes and tap the page thrice, smartly and randomly, with the point of his quill. Although his role of Deus civi Natura precluded mercy, his sentiments were unequivocally on the side of the ant: with an effort that brought sweat to his brow he tried by force of thought to steer the hapless creature from dangerous numbers; he opened his eyes after every series of taps, half afraid to look at the paper. The game was profoundly exciting. After some ten or fifteen minutes the ant had the bad luck to be struck by a drop of ink not a half inch from the 9 that had triggered the bombardment: flailing blindly, he inked a tiny trail straight back to the 9 again, and this time, after being bracketed by the first two taps, he was smitten squarely with the third. Ebenezer looked down to find him curled and dying in the loop of the digit. Tears of compassion, tempered with vast understanding and acceptance of the totality of life and the unalterable laws of the universe, welled in his eyes; his genital stiffened. At last the ant expired. Suddenly self-conscious, Ebenezer glanced around to see whether anyone had noticed him, and everyone in the room laughed aloud: they had witnessed the whole performance. From that day on they regarded him as more or less mad instead of simply odd; luckily for Ebenezer, however, they believed him to have some special connection with their employer Mr. Paggen, and so made little of the incident except among themselves.