For old times' sake, Bertrand went on, he had bought dinner at Vansweringen's for Miss Robotham, whose father was in St. Mary's to sit with the Council, and when she removed her coat to eat he had observed, to his surprise, that she was pregnant. Upon his interrogating her (Ebenezer winced at the thought) she burst into fresh tears and confessed that on reaching Maryland she had been deceived into marrying the Reverend Mr. George Tubman, the same whose speculative talents had impoverished half the Poseidon's passengers, and had been by him impregnated in the rectory of Port Tobacco parish, only to learn not long after that their marriage was illegal, the Reverend Mr. Tubman having neglected to divorce his first wife in London. Colonel Robotham had arranged at once for annulment of the marriage and had further applied to the Bishop for proceedings of suspension against both Tubman and the Reverend Mr. Peregrine Cony, who he averred had knowingly licensed his colleague's bigamous union, but the Colonel's influence in the Province had as yet been unable to provide another husband for Lucy or retard the growing signs of her condition, which along with the reputation she had got for promiscuity had all but removed her from the gentlemen's list of eligible maidens.
"I saw then the reason for her joy at finding me alive," the valet said, "and I made a great show of sympathy, albeit I'd not have married her as Bertrand Burton, much less as Eben Cooke! A house already made, as the saying goes, but a wife to make. Yet I kept my feelings hid, nor showed by word or deed that I had grasped her scurvy trick. On the contrary, I played the gallant Laureate with right good will, the better to learn what else the wench had up her sleeve."
"And so resume where you had left off on the Poseidon, I doubt not."
Bertrand raised his finger. "I'll not deny we had some sport ere the day was done," he said righteously. "I had been the De'il's own time 'twixt drinks, as't were and longed to see again that famous emblem Lucy boasts. 'Tis all in freckles, b'm'faith, and — "
"I know, I know," Ebenezer said impatiently. " 'Tis the likeness of Ursa Major, and the rest."
Bertrand clucked his tongue before the memory. "Besides, there is an uncommon pleasure in lasses lately got with child — "
"Nay, i'God, you sicken me!"
"In any case," the valet finished with a shrug, "I reasoned 'twas no more than the doxy's due, that had done ye out o' your money with her crooked odds and wagers."
"I say!" cried Ebenezer. "Speaking of wagers — "
"Say no more," Bertrand interrupted with a smile. "The selfsame query was on my mind from the instant I beheld her, and directly the time befitted, I asked her straight who had won that last monster of a ship's pool, wherein I'd wagered the whole o' Cooke's Point to regain the money I had lost before. At first she'd not reply, but when I offer'd her my belt athwart her hams — as I was wont to swat sweet Betsy what times she'd tease — why, then I wrung the truth from her, which was, that she herself, by collusion with Tubman and that whoreson Captain Meech, had won the prize!"
"I' Christ!"
The winnings, Bertrand went on, had then been divided between the three partners, and Tubman had increased his share by the impregnation and marriage (respectively, it now turned out) of Miss Robotham. As soon as the conveyances of property were effected he had disclosed the bigamous nature of the match, hoping thereby to rid himself of the girl; but he had reckoned without the ire of his new father-in-law, who had promptly exposed the business and taken the legal action mentioned earlier.
"But what of the property?" Ebenezer demanded. "Doth Tubman hold title to it yet?"
The valet smiled. "To the most he did, at the time I speak of, and to the most he doth yet, for aught I know to the contrary. But aside from my own wager, all his winnings were in cash or chattels, such as horses, pirogues, and hogsheads o' sot-weed. Cooke's Point was the only proper estate he won — "
"God curse you for wagering it!"
Bertrand raised his eyebrows. "Haply 'twas not such a folly after all, sir. The wretch had ne'er before won such a prize, and more especially as he thought us murthered by the pirates, he was afraid to press his claim, for fear the courts would learn the evil of his ways."
" 'Twould but improve his chances if they did," Ebenezer said, but there was relief in his tone. "An honest wight fares ill in a Maryland court. Go on."
In consequence, Bertrand declared, the Reverend Mr. Tubman had contented himself with what winnings he could collect as gentleman's debts from the bettors themselves, out of court, and in an effort to appease Colonel Robotham's wrath on the occasion of the annulment, had reconveyed to Lucy his note of title to Cooke's Point, not many days prior to her encounter with the note's original author.
"She was as doubtful as Tubman how the courts might rule on't," said the valet. " 'Twas her hope I'd make over the deed to her as a gentleman ought, particularly in the light of her condition, but when I gave no signs of such intent, she could no more than weep and threaten."
His next move, he explained, had been to send the other servant back to Captain Mitchell as Timothy had directed and make plans to ferry himself and his freight to Malden. However, reckoning that his master would allow for unforeseen delays and complications in securing and transporting the trunk, he had lingered another day in St. Mary's as the guest of Colonel Robotham, and another and another after that, loath to relinquish the charms of office and Lucy's desperate favors. During this period his host and mistress had alternately cajoled and threatened him: their primary goal was to unite by marriage the house of Cooke and Robotham, and solve thereby all their problems with one stroke; alternatively they vowed to carry the matter into court, despite the uncertain legality of their claim, in hopes that with Cooke's Point for dowry even a pregnant tart could find a willing spouse of decent lineage. But since neither party could bargain from a position of clear strength, the argument was confined to subtle hints and equivocal negations, and Bertrand, having dispatched the trunk some days before, had enjoyed a week of such leisurely diversions and delights as most valets taste only in their dreams.
At week's end, however, he had heard from an unimpeachable barman in Vansweringen's that a man called Eben Cooke, on the Eastern Shore, had signed over his whole estate to a common cooper — whether in some saintly spirit of justice, in satisfaction of some dark and sinister obligation or merely in error was much debated — and that, the conveyance being apparently legal, Cooke himself had fallen mortally ill and was being cared for on his lost estate, in return for marrying the cooper's whore of a daughter.
"This news near felled me," the valet said. "No man doubted I was really Eben Cooke — for ye must grant, sir, whate'er thy principles, I've a knack for playing poet — but they expected me to fly to Dorset at once and turn both the cooper and the rascally impostor out. What's more, 'twas terrible to hear what had befallen ye, and more terrible yet to think of ye lying at death's door, as't were, and obliged to marry some unwashed coney of a serving maid — "
Ebenezer held up his hand. "Forego thy wondrous pity," he said. "I'm sure it soured your dinner at the Colonel's and made you a zestless lover for Miss Lucy."
"It did no less," Bertrand admitted. "Though of course I durst not give the slightest outward sign of't."
"Of course not."
Instead, declared Bertrand, he had confessed to Colonel Robotham that the same traitors to the King who had arranged to have him kidnaped and murdered by pirates were attempting to work his ruin in the Province, lest by the power of his pen he expose their seditious plots to the light of day. It was in anticipation of their schemes that he had sent his man before him to reconnoiter in the guise of Laureate — that same amanuensis who had served him thus, unasked, on earlier occasions — little dreaming that the stratagem would so misfire. The Colonel then, eager to oblige his guest in any way he could, offered to intercede at once with Governor Nicholson, who had a perfect hatred even of debate, to say nothing of insurrection; but Bertrand proposed a quite different plan of attack, so agreeable to the Robothams that as one they laid down their euchre-hands and tearfully embraced him.