Letters

You cannot not have heard, even in your upland, inland retreat, what the Baltimore and Washington newspapers have been full of: A. B. Cook’s “accidental” death at Fort McHenry the morning after our wedding there; the “accidental” deaths two days later of Reg Prinz and three others on Bloodsworth Island when that navy drone aircraft crashed into Barataria Lodge; the discovery yesterday of the motor yacht Baratarian: abandoned, half swamped, adrift in the Atlantic just off the Virginia Capes, her captain, her owner, and her owner’s “nephew” all missing and presumed “accidentally” lost at sea.

Her owner? Baron André Castine of Castines Hundred, Ontario! His “nephew”? Henry Cook Burlingame VII!

My son Henri.

Where will these accidents end? To what “final frame” must I see things through? (In case you’ve wondered: my husband and I have reviewed the several hazards of pregnancy at my age and have discussed, and rejected, therapeutic abortion.) And where do I begin, who ought by rights to be destroyed by that final news item above, but who find myself, Magda-like, unaccountably, it would seem almost reprehensibly, serene?

I shall begin where last I ended: leaving the Menschhaus that mild Saturday forenoon sennight since, our wedding day — when so many now dead were yet alive! The postman strolled up just as we left, took my letter to you, and handed Angie the mail: condolences for Magda, mostly, which she refused to open till another day; a few worrisome bills; my copy of the lease on this apartment, which I had renewed… and the letter from you addressed to Mr & Mrs Ambrose Mensch, which Mister fished out and tucked away in his coat before I saw it, intending a later surprise. Following Carl and Connie’s van, we crossed Choptank River and Chesapeake Bay, both as alive with bright hulls and sails as a Dufy watercolour, and shortly before noon arrived at Fort McHenry, showing our Frames

passes to the park guards for admittance.

The “bombardment” was already in progress. From the parking lot (where with a twinge of guilt, among other emotions, I espied Drew Mack’s Volvo wagon) we saw smoke bombs, some gaily coloured, and heard a cannonading that Angie clung to me in alarm at. Lots of local media folk about, freely filming and being filmed, taping and being taped. Prinz himself descended from the ramparts to greet us, newly eyeglassed, smiling, mild — all quarrels apparently put by! He distinctly said hello to Angela! Put a sympathetic hand on Magda’s shoulder for one eloquent instant! Astonished me by bussing my cheek, and to bride and groom delivered himself of not one but two more or less complete English sentences:

1. Cook’s on the boat.

2. Lunch aboard.

The action — rather, the inaction — Ambrose explained to us as we went up through the milling curious to the ramparts and down to where Baratarian was tied up. It represented that frustrating day 155 years before when the McHenry garrison had had to take their punishment without reply, Admiral Cochrane’s gun and rocket ships firing from beyond the fort’s cannon range. The entire British fleet was being played incongruously by the frigate Constellation (a controversial bit of casting among patriotic Baltimoreans), towed from her berth to anchor in midharbour, and surrounded by a flotilla of pleasure craft as well as by the docks and towers of the city. Puffs of smoke and appropriate boom-booms issued desultorily from her ports, followed by smoke canisters all about us. Baratarian likewise flew the Union Jack and sported her new name-boards (Surprize),

but had suspended bombardment to host our prenuptial luncheon.

I looked about and was relieved not to see among the festive “garrison” Drew Mack or his young companion of the day before. The company in general were picnicking among the bastions, barracks, and redoubts or out on the star-shaped ramparts; the shipboard fete was restricted to the eight of us in the Menschhaus party (Ambrose & myself, Magda & Angie, Carl & Connie & their steadies), our remarkably pacific Director, the MSU chaplain, Bruce & Brice (who made a working lunch of it, as did Buck, the hired skipper), and our host.

I.e., A. B. Cook VI, done up again as his ancestor, who piped us aboard with a bosun’s whistle and added his hearty, faintly patchouli-fragrant kisses to our best man’s. Angie giggled at his outfit; he charmed her by wielding her Easter egg as if it were an admiral’s glass. No Jane Mack? I wondered aloud and innocently. Were the yacht’s owners never aboard? You understand that I still knew, of Jane’s engagement, no more than that it was for some reason a romantic little mystery. Even after the Burning of Washington I knew her fiancé’s nom d’amour only: “Lord Baltimore.” I was not to learn his real name till that night.