Susan hesitated, and then in the same voice said, "Nay, as I think on't, 'twas his right: he sat at my left in the wagon whilst I told him the tale of my misfortune, and I recall he was obliged to reach over with his far arm to tweak and abuse me."
Ebenezer felt a sudden nausea. "But he was a peasant, for all that," he insisted.
"Not a bit of't. 'Twas clear from his clothes and carriage he was a gentleman of quality, and he said he had arrived that very day from London."
"I'faith," said one of the kitchen-women, "ye'll find no London gentlemen in the curing-house, Susie; ye should have let him swive ye!"
"Nay, God!" Ebenezer cried, so mournfully that the whole company left off their mirth and regarded him with consternation. " 'Tis I he'll swive! That man was Andrew Cooke of Middlesex, my father, come to see how fares his son! The pistol!" He jumped to his feet. "There is no help for't now!"
"Stay!" Smith commanded. "Stop him, Susan!"
" 'Tis the pistol!" the poet cried again, and fled for his chamber before anyone could detain him.
33: The Laureate Departs from His Estate
Such was his agitation that not until he was in his room, still lighted by a candle he had left burning on the writing table, did the Laureate recall that he had no pistol with which to destroy himself, nor even a short-sword — his own having been stolen along with the rest of his costume in the corncrib and never returned to him. He heard the company swarming up the stairs from the parlor, and threw himself in despair upon his bed.
The first to reach his door was Susan; she took one look at him and bade the others stay back.
"We'll wait below," Smith grumbled. "But mind, see to't there's no trouble. I shan't have his idle brains all over my house."
All this the poet heard face down in the quilts. Susan closed the door and sat on the edge of his bed.
"Do ye mean to blow your head off?" she inquired.
" 'Tis the final misfortune." he answered. "I have no pistol, nor means to purchase one. Ye'll not be widowed this evening, so it seems."
"Will your father's wrath be so terrible?"
"I'Christ, 'tis past imagining!" Ebenezer groaned. "Yet e'en were he the very soul of mercy, I am too shamed to face him."
Susan sighed. " 'Twill be passing strange, to be the widow of a man that ne'er hath wifed me."
"Nor ever shall!" Ebenezer sat up angrily. "Much you care, with your curing-house salvages and your opium! Marry you my friend Henry Burlingame, that will wife you with your swine — there's a match!"
"The world is strange and full o' wickedness," Susan murmured.
"So at least is this verminous province, whose delights I was supposed to sing!" He shook his head. "Ah, marry, I have no call to injure you: forgive my words."
" 'Tis a hard fall ye've fallen, but prithee speak no more o' pistols," Susan said. "Flee, if ye must, and start again elsewhere."
"Where flee?" cried Ebenezer. "Better the pistol than another day in Maryland!"
"Back to England, I mean: hide yourself till the fleet sails, and thou'rt quit of your father for good and all."
"Very good," the Laureate said bitterly. "And shall I kiss the captain for my freight?"
"Mr. Cooke!" Susan whispered suddenly. She leaned over him and clutched his shoulders. "Nay: Ebenezer! Husband!"
"What's this? What are you doing?"
"Stay, hear me!" Susan urged. " 'Tis true I'm but a whore and scurvy night-bag, and ruined by ill-usage. 'Tis true ye'd small choice in the wedding of me, and ye've small cause to love me. But I say again 'tis a strange life, and full o' things ye little dream of: not all is as ye think, my dove!"
" 'Sheart!"
"I love ye!" she hissed. "Let's fly together from this sink o' perdition and begin anew in England! There's many a trick a poor man can play in London, and I know the bagful of 'em!"
"But marry," Ebenezer protested, snatching at the gentlest excuse he could think of. "I've not one fare, let alone two!"
Susan was not daunted. " 'Tis a peddlepot ye've wed," she declared. "I'd as well turn my shame to our advantage, to rid us o' Maryland forever."
"What is't you intend?"
"I'll hie me to the curing-house anon, and whore the sum."
Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis a noble plan," he sighed. "Such a whoredom were more a martyrdom, methinks, and merits awe. But I cannot go."
The woman released him. "Not go?"
"Nay, not though I changed my name and face and escaped my father's wrath forever. The living are slaves to memory and conscience, and should we flee together, the first would plague me with thoughts of Father and my sister Anna, while the second — " He paused. "I cannot say it less briefly or cruelly than this: nine months ago I pledged my love to the London girl Joan Toast and offered her my innocence, which she spurned. 'Twas after that I vowed to remain as virginal as a priest and worship the god of poetry. This Joan Toast had a lover, that was her pimp as well, and albeit 'twas on his account my father sent me off to Maryland, and I had every cause to think his mistress loathed me, yet she was ever in my thoughts, and in my most parlous straits thereafter, I never broke my pledge. Think, then, how moved I was to learn that she had followed after me, out of love! I had resolved to wed her, and make her mistress of my estate, and indeed I'd have done no less had all gone well, so much I love her! Now Malden's mine no more, and my Joan is disappeared from sight, and whether 'twas to escape marrying a wretched pauper she flew, or to join her lover McEvoy, still she came hither on my account, as did he. How could I fly with you to London, when I know not how they fare, or whether they live or die?"
Susan commenced weeping. "Am I so horrid beside your Joan? Nay, don't trouble to lie: I know by sight the beauty of her face, and the loathesomeness of mine. Little d'ye dream how jealous I am of her!"
"The world hath used you hardly," Ebenezer said.
"Ye know not half! I am its very sign and emblem!"
"And yet thou'rt generous and valiant, and have saved both Joan Toast and myself from death."
Susan grasped his arm. "What would ye say, if ye learned Joan Toast was in this very house?"
"What!" Ebenezer cried, starting up. "How can that be, and I've not seen her? What is't you say?"
"She is in this house this very moment, and hath been since she fled from Captain Mitchell! Here is proof." She drew from her bosom a necklace of dirty string, on which was threaded the fishbone ring presented to Ebenezer by Quassapelagh, the Anacostin King.
"I'God, the ring I gave you for her fare! Where is she?"
"Stay, Eben," Susan cautioned. "Ye've not heard all ye must before ye see her."
"A fart for't! Don't try to keep me from her!"
" 'Tis by her own instruction," Susan said, and blocked the door to the hallway. "Why is't, d'ye think, she hath not shown herself ere now?"
"Marry, I know not, nor dare I think! But I die to see her!"
" 'Tis only fit, for she hath done no less to see you."
Ebenezer stopped as if smitten by a hammer. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he was obliged to take the nearest seat — which happened to be the one at his writing desk — before he fell.
"Aye, she is dead!" Susan said. "Dead of French pox, opium, and despair! I saw her die, and 'twas not pretty."
"Ah God!" Ebenezer moaned, his features in a turmoil. "Ah God!"
"Ye know already how she was taken with love for ye, and for your innocence, after she had spurned ye in your room; and ye know she turned her back on John McEvoy when he wrote that letter to your father. A dream got hold of her, such as any whore is prone to, to live her life with you in perfect chastity, and it so possessed her that anon she vowed to follow ye to Maryland — the more inasmuch as 'twas on her account ye were sent thither — and she fondly hoped ye'd have her. But she had no money for her freight, and so for all she'd sworn to have no more o' whoring, it seemed she was obliged to swive her fare."