Andrew gasped. "I'cod! D'ye hear that, Eben?"
All except Sowter and Smith rejoiced at this disclosure of her motive. Ebenezer rushed to embrace her, and Andrew wept for joy.
"Splendid girl! She is a very saint, Roxanne!"
But Joan turned away her face. "There remains but a single danger, that I can see," she said. "As hath been observed already today, a false marriage such as ours may be disallowed, and my bequests thus contested in the courts — inasmuch as it hath yet to be consummated."
The company fell silent; the twins drew back aghast.
"Dear Heav'n!" Roxanne whispered, and clutched at Andrew's arm. Burlingame's expression was fascinated.
The cooper laughed harshly. "Oh, my word! Ah! Ah! D'ye hear the wench, Sowter? She is the very Whore o' Babylon, and Cooke muyt swive her for's estate! Oh, ha! I'd not touch her with a sot-weed stick!"
"My boy — " Andrew spoke with difficulty to his son. "She hath — the social malady, don't ye know — and albeit I love Malden as I love my life, I'd ne'er think ill o' ye — "
"Stay," interrupted Burlingame. "Ye'll take her pox, Eben, but ye'll not die of't, me thinks: belike 'tis a mere dev'lish clap and not the French disease. Marry, lad, inasmuch as Malden hangs in the balance — "
Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis of no importance, Henry. Whate'er she hath, she hath on my account, by reason of our ill-starred love. I little care now for my legacy, save that I must earn it. 'Tis atonement I crave: redemption for my sins against the girl, against my father, against Anna, e'en against you, Henry — "
"What sins?" protested Anna, coming to his side. "Of all men on the planet, Eben, thou'rt freest from sin! What else drew Joan half round the globe, do you think, through all those horrors, if not that quality in you that hath ruined me for other men and driven e'en Henry to near distraction — "
She blushed, realizing she had spoken too much. "Thou'rt the very spirit of Innocence," she finished quietly.
"That is the crime I stand indicted for," her brother replied: "the crime of innocence, whereof the Knowledged must bear the burthen. There's the true Original Sin our souls are born in: not that Adam learned, but that he had to learn — in short, that he was innocent."
He sat on the edge of the couch and took Joan's hand. "Once before, this girl had shriven me of that sin, and I compounded it by deserting her. Whate'er the outcome, I rejoice at this second chance for absolution."
"Marry!" McEvoy said. "Ye mean to do't?"
"Aye."
Anna threw her arms about his neck and wept. "How I love you! The four of us will live here, and if Henry doth not stay on Bloodsworth Island — " Her voice failed; Burlingame drew her back gently from the couch.
Ebenezer kissed Joan's hand until at last she turned her haggard eyes to him.
"Thou'rt weary, Joan."
She closed her eyes. "Beyond imagining."
He stood up, still holding her hand. "I've not strength enough yet to carry you to our chamber. ." He looked about awkwardly, his features dancing. All the women were in tears; the men either shook their heads, like McEvoy and the Governor, or winced, like Andrew, or merely frowned a grudging awe, like Smith and Sowter.
"I claim the honor!" Burlingame cried, and the spell was broken. Everyone stirred himself to cover the general embarrassment: Andrew and John McEvoy busied themselves comforting their women; Sir Thomas and the Governor assembled their papers and called for tobacco; Smith and Sowter, accompanied by the sergeant-at-arms, left the room.
Burlingame lifted Joan in his arms. "Good night all!" he called merrily. "Tell cook we'll want a wedding breakfast in the morning, Andrew!" As he headed for the hallway he added with a laugh, "See to what lengths the fallen go, to increase their number! Come along, Anna; this errand wants a chaperon."
Blushing, Anna took Ebenezer's arm, and the twins followed their chuckling tutor up the stairs.
"Ah, well now!" their father's voice cried from the parlor. "We've a deal to drink to, lords and ladies!" And addressing the unseen servant in the kitchen he called "Grace? Grace! 'Sblood, Grace, fetch us a rundlet!"
PART IV: THE AUTHOR APOLOGIZES TO HIS READERS; THE LAUREATE COMPOSES HIS EPITAPH
Lest it be objected by a certain stodgy variety of squint-minded antiquarians that he has in this lengthy history played more fast and loose with Clio, the chronicler's muse, than ever Captain John Smith dared, the Author here posits in advance, by way of surety, three blue-chip replies arranged in order of decreasing relevancy. In the first place be it remembered, as Burlingame himself observed, that we all invent our pasts, more or less, as we go along, at the dictates of Whim and Interest; the happenings of former times are a clay in the present moment that will-we, nill-we, the lot of us must sculpt. Thus Being does make Positivists of us all. Moreover, this Clio was already a scarred and crafty trollop when the Author found her; it wants a nice-honed casuist, with her sort, to separate seducer from seduced. But if, despite all, he is convicted at the Public Bar of having forced what slender virtue the strumpet may make claim to, then the Author joins with pleasure the most engaging company imaginable, his fellow fornicators, whose ranks include the noblest in poetry, prose, and politics; condemnation at such a bar, in short, on such a charge, does honor to artist and artifact alike, of the same order of magnitude as election to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum or suppression by the Watch and Ward.
Thus much for the rival claims of Fact and Fancy, which the artist, like Governor Nicholson, may override with fair impunity. However, when the litigants' claims are formal, rather than substantial, they pose a dilemma from which few tale-tellers escape without a goring. Such is the Author's present plight, as he who reads may judge.
The story of Ebenezer Cooke is told; Drama wants no more than his consent to Joan Toast's terms, their sundry implications being clear. All the rest is anticlimax: the stairs that take him up to the bridal-chamber take him down the steep incline of denouement. To the history, on the other hand, there is so much more — all grounded on meager fact and solid fancy — that the Author must risk those rude cornadas to resume it, and trust that the Reader is interested enough in the fate of the twins, their tutor, Bertrand Burton, Slye and Scurry, and the rest, to indulge some pandering to Curiosity at Form's expense. .
Andrew Cooke's conviction (which he voiced innumerable times in the course of that night's rundlet and next morning's wedding breakfast) that the sun had set on their troubles forever and would rise thenceforth not only on a happy and prosperous family, but on a happier and nobler Province as well, was — alas! — by no means entirely borne out by history. Indeed, with the possible exception of William Smith the cooper and Captain Mitchell the opium merchant — both of whom disappeared from Clio's stage not long afterwards, never to be heard from to this day — it cannot be said that the life of any of our characters was markedly blissful; some, to be sure, were rather more serene, but others took more or less turns for the worse, and a few were terminated far before their time.
Tom Tayloe, for example, the corpulent dealer in indentured servants, was released from his own servitude at Malden immediately upon promising to press no charges against McEvoy; one hoped his experience would lead him into a less unsavory trade, but within the week he was peddling redemptioners again all over Talbot County, and a few years later he was throttled to death on Tilghman's Island by one of his investments — a giant Scot with all of McEvoy's passion for liberty and none of his resourcefulness. No more fortunate was Benjamin Spurdance, "the man who had naught to lose": Andrew discovered him in the jail in Annapolis, serving a sentence for petty thievery, and restored him to his former position as overseer of the tobacco-fields on Cooke's Point, but vagrancy and despair had so debilitated him that, the very next winter, an ague robbed him forever of the only thing he had not previously lost.