The Maidenhead

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Mad Dog had estimated that there were thousands of miles of navigable waterways in the colony and well over a hundred plantations to visit between now and General Assembly time. They were widely scattered along the banks of the James and Chickahominy Rivers, Chesapeake Bay, the Pamunkey and Rappahannock Rivers to the north, and even a few as far north as the Potomac and the Susquehanna.

  Jack bypassed the profitable Varinas tobacco plantation and Falling Brook to put in at Henrico, a little less than an hour’s journey for the Maidenhead. The town’s inhabitants, delighted by a ship’s arrival, turned out at the wharf.

  And he was delighted to learn that the good Reverend Dartmouth was away at the ironworks on Falling Brook. The rector’s house was in little better condition than the others, whose timbers were rotted by the damp. Clarissa greeted him at the door. A white coif covered her golden hair. But not even the somber gray of her dress could detract from her pure beauty.

  There was the instinct for the dramatic about her.

  Was she making an effort to fit in with these backwoods people?

  His eyes roamed her wonderful oval face, remarkable for its classical lines, aquiline nose, violet-colored eyes veiled by long dark brown lashes, and clear-cut mouth. "You haven’t changed since last we met, nigh five months ago."

  Her eyes scanned his attire. “You have."

  She had unwittingly followed his lead. Good. “May I enter, mistress?"

  Her gaze darted beyond him, to Clem, the old cowherder, leading the hamlet’s cows across the muddy green, then to a plump woman pinning a wet apron on a hemp line strung between two hickory trees. The chill wind whipped at her scarlet tippet and batted the white apron back and forth.

  At last, Clarissa's gaze came back to him. Her hands twisted an embroidered, lace-edged handkerchief of lawn. “People will—’’

  “Leave the door open. The afternoon is not so chilly that a few moments of fresh air wouldn’t revive you."

  Without waiting for her reply, he removed his hat and stepped past her. He glanced around. The main room, while as sparse in furnishings as that of Ant Hill, was made more personal with small family portraits that adorned the plastered walls. "Nobility evidently runs in your family.”

  "I suspect the same of yours." Her eyes searched his face, as if seeking confirmation.

  He quashed an impulse to laugh. “But not wealth. My forebears have a tendency to squander their inheritance. By the time I came of age, my inheritance had been wasted by relatives, and I found myself in debtors’ prison.”

  “I suspected that. Somehow I just knew that life had treated you unfairly."

  She was close to the mark, and it made him nervous, made him feel vulnerable. That need to feel important reared its deceiving head. He decided to put his guise to the test. He unrolled the document tucked beneath one arm and passed it to her.

  Rapidly, she scanned the forged letter of introduction from Thomas West.

  “The baron always had faith in my mercantile abilities and arranged to buy my papers from Mad Dog Jones,” he explained with a smoothness that surprised even himself. "He put up the major portion of the capital for this venture."

  Her hands, no longer magnolia-white, rerolled the document. “Thomas was a friend of my father’s."

  He could feel the sweat break out on his palms. "What a small world." He mentally cursed Modesty for her selection of patrons.

  “Indeed." She passed the document back to him. "You know Thomas died en route to Virginia last year?"

  He swallowed hard and studied her face for a sign that she was on to him. Her gaze was guileless.

  "Aye. It was a big setback. Cost me six months of servitude before West’s last instructions caught up with me."

  Timing had always been a factor in his luck. Now was the time! He fished in his string-drawn purse of suede and held out in his palm the object his irate employer had given him with the warning to restore it to its rightful owner. "Your brooch. I found it outside Mad Dog's cabin. I’ve been wanting to return it to you at the earliest moment possible."

  She clapped her hands. "Oh, this was my mother’s! I was heartsick when I lost it!" She threw her arms around him. "Thank you, thank you, Jack!”

  He clapped his arms around her slender waist. His nostrils quivered at the fragrant scent of her hair. He closed his eyes to savor the sweet moment. Aye, timing was with him again!

  "Uhmmm.”

  He spun around. Patrick Dartmouth stood in the doorway.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  What perfect timing, Clarissa thought.

  “Patrick, dear," she said easily, and picking up her voluminous skirts, circumvented Jack and went to her husband’s side. "Look what our dear friend has returned to me. My brooch! Remember, I lost it. On our trip to Ant Hill."

  Patrick removed his black cloak and buckled hat and hung them on wall pegs before he even bothered to glance at the piece of jewelry in her hand. "It pleases me to see you smiling once more."

  Her husband’s indifference exasperated her. He was never stirred to anger, not even jealousy. He would bore her if she didn’t find his attitudes so quaint. At least he and Nigel could stage a lively debate on the meaning of life.

  What did it take to arouse deep feeling in her husband? Oh, not the passionate conviction of his faith, but the unbridled emotions of the heart. Lust, rage, envy, greed, love?

  Not that she truly wanted love from him. It was the tedium of the hamlet that drove her to do perverse things like toy with her husband’s psyche. She spent her days in toil. Hands that had been meant to play the dulcimer and harpsichord had lost their loveliness from washing, rubbing, and scrubbing. Her scented gloves now bedecked a scarecrow in her herb garden.

  Smiling, she whirled back to Jack. His handsome features wore a wariness that amused her. He was such a trusting soul. He really believed that her kiss of gratitude had been spontaneous. Fortunately for her, she had seen past him to Patrick approaching. “Won’t you stay for dinner? I would adore hearing more about your venture. And about Thomas. He was a most dear man.”

  By now she knew Patrick was aware of her lie about not being able to cook. Luckily for him, she had an affinity for cuisine, for all too often a distressed parishioner would appear at their doorway for spiritual counseling and stay for supper.

  Jack accepted her invitation, and the boiled mutton, hasty pudding, stewed tomatoes, and prunes with cinnamon and ginger tempted the man’s palate, while he related more to her and Patrick about his enterprise. "You see, by taking orders from all the planters, I can buy in quantity and thus obtain a better price for the planter.”

  "Perhaps thee might wish something for the house," Patrick suggested to her. He took a swallow of the mulled apple cider. "A loom? A washtub?"

  "La! You are always so practical." She pushed away her plate and leaned forward. "I would desire a harpsichord." She did not glance at her husband to see his expression. "Of course, such an expensive item is out of the question. In its place I would have a looking glass."

  “A looking glass could never do full justice to your beauty, milady," Jack said.

  At that moment, the ship’s bell rang the hour, and he excused himself from the table, saying, "We sail with the tide on the morrow."

  After Jack was gone, Clarissa began removing the tinware and the salt cellar from the table. "Isn’t Master Holloway charming?” She had forgotten how exciting dinners were at her parents’ table, where notables, literati, and intellectuals had assembled.

  Patrick’s narrow face was set in noncommittal lines. He turned to the mantel for his pipe. "A bit of the gasconade for my taste.”

  She set the tin-glazed plates in the bucket of water she had drawn earlier from the new well. She glanced at her wash-reddened hands and silently despaired. Enough! The dishes could soak. A whimsical notion diverted her attention elsewhere for the moment.

  Removing her taffeta apron, she picked up her embroidery and seated herself on the bannister-back chair. Patrick sat only a
n arm’s length away, facing the hearth’s dancing flames. “You do not like Jack Holloway?”

  Smoke puffed from his pipe as if it were a chimney. “In faith, I do. How could anyone not like the man? Droll, personable, entertaining. Yet, I doubt the man’s honest intentions.”

  Her needle plied rapidly in and out. "How can you say such a thing? ’Twas he who returned my brooch."

  "There is something about him that—’’

  “Aye, there is." She devoted inordinate attention to her cross stitchery. "He is truly a virile man."

  The puffing ceased. After a moment of silence, Patrick asked, “Does thee think so?"

  She had to refrain from gritting her teeth. “Aye." She could think of nothing to add, though.

  “Because of the way he looks at thee?"

  She glanced up, careful to keep her features expressionless. "Looks at me? How is that?"

  He shifted his gaze to the fire. "As though he would like to touch thee.”

  She let a small frown of puzzlement knit her brows. "In what way, husband?”

  "Like ... like...."

  "Aye?" she asked in an innocent tone. She leaned slightly forward, her lips parted.

  There was only the sound of the fire crackling. Patrick's voice cracked with it as he answered, "Touch thy hair.”

  Her hand drifted up to her coif. "But 'tis hidden."

  He, too, leaned forward, loosed the strings tied beneath her chin in a bow, and tugged the coif from her head. Her hair tumbled loose over her left shoulder. She heard his breath suck in. His hazel eyes darkened even further.

  Her throat tightened. Her stitchery lay forgotten. "Do you think he desires only to see my hair?"

  “Nay.” He swallowed. “I think he yearns to run his fingers through thy locks."

  "Show me how," she whispered. Her breathing came shallowly and rapidly.

  He stretched out a trembling hand. Slowly, his long, slender fingers combed through her tresses, beginning at her temple and stroking downward to where they curled over her left breast—and lingered there. “Like frothy butter," he muttered.

  Her breasts rose and fell with her labored breathing. It was as though his fingertips scorched her swollen nipple through the material. Her eyes locked with his. "Where else would he touch?"

  He shot to his feet. "Nowhere, because thee is mine.”

  She closed her eyes. She had not realized how starved she was for a man's touch. Her face upturned, she waited.

  His footsteps moved past her.

  Scarcely believing he could have rejected her, she opened her eyes. The cabin door was open, revealing the night’s frigid darkness.

  And her coif lay abandoned at her feet.

  Chapter Twelve

  From their card house of a cabin, Rose watched in the early dawn's light as her husband in name only trudged in the snow’s drizzle toward his sawmill. Looking like a long-legged heron, Walter picked his way along the cattail-lined shore. His steps left quickly vanishing footprints in the thinly layered snow. She thought it a symbol of how unsubstantial his relationship with her was. Tenuous. Gossamer. Trifling even.

  Three other men, shouldering iron axes and ripsaws, waved at her as they strode off in the opposite direction toward the white-shrouded forest. She worried about them. Winter’s high winds made tree-felling hazardous.

  Construction was almost finished on the sawmill, but as a consequence the improvements on their wattle-and-daub house had been postponed. In inclement weather the roof was a sieve, and the wind whistled through chinks in the walls and the single window’s poorly set shutters.

  Rose hugged her shawl more tightly about her bloated body and turned back to the fireplace. Water dripping from the mortar-gaping bricks hissed in the flames. She walked to the trundle bed where Isaac was curled into a ball beneath the woolen blanket. Bart was built like his father, and his feet, long for a seven-year- old, dangled over the rope bed.

  She tousled Isaac’s rumpled straw-colored hair. "Gruel’s ready to eat."

  "Sleep," he muttered into the crook of his arm.

  "No, not sleep. Study. And you too, Bart."

  Bart burrowed deeper.

  She crossed in ungainly steps to the small green-and-white dome-topped chest which held a few worthless heirlooms, a boxwood comb, and a hornbook she used to teach the boys reading and ciphering. She wished she knew more, but alas, the boys knew almost as much as she. "’Urry up, get dressed, you two lazy dunces! Mid-morning draws nigh."

  One of Bart’s bare feet sought shelter beneath the blanket. She grinned and tugged it off both boys, who wore only flannel nightshirts, disdaining the nightcaps she had made them.

  "Ohhh!” Isaac groaned and blindly groped for the blanket.

  “Fire’s burning low. I’ll get another log. I want you two up and dressed by the time I return.”

  The cold air nipped her cheeks and hands. Feeling as though she waddled like a duck, she started across the yard toward the woodshed. Her labored breathing frosted the air.

  She would be glad when her time was upon her. By her calculations, she was a week past due. At this dawdling pace, her baby would be born on Christmas Day. What with the chicken nesting in the willow cradle Walter had fashioned, their cabin could almost pass for a stable with a manger.

  Tiny icicles fringed the woodshed’s flat roof. The door’s wooden hinges had swollen, and drifted snow sealed the door around its bottom. She had to jerk with both hands to open it.

  She didn’t like going inside the woodshed because of the myriad vermin that crawled everywhere. The English countryside had not been like this. With nostalgia, she recalled mellow sunlight and soft mist and gently rolling hills.

  She left the shed door open for the weak wintery light. Her gaze searched the musty- smelling premises carefully for lurking bugs. Satisfied, she stooped, collected two split logs, and with a low grunt of effort rose to go.

  Sounds other than her own halted her. She turned and peered out the doorway. Two Indian savages were running across the yard toward the cabin. Tomahawks in hand, they kept their bodies lowered in a half-bent posture and moved stealthily.

  There was really no time to think. Rose only knew that she had to draw their attention away from the boys, to do something without bringing the boys to the cabin door. She threw the logs down, and their thudding noise spun the savages in her direction.

  The Indians sprinted toward her with their tomahawks raised for the kill.

  She froze, as stiff as the icicles overhead. Then, frantic with fright, she got out the word, "Friends!" She thought she shouted, but her words came out no louder than a chick’s peep.

  At least the two Indians did not bury their tomahawks in her skull. After an argumentative exchange of words she could not understand, the shorter of the two grabbed her upper arm and shoved her forward, ahead of him.

  She stumbled, caught her balance against the trunk of a nearly denuded oak. Her arms encircled it, as if it were the leg of some giant from whom she was pleading protection.

  The other warrior, who wore a wreath of weasel skins on his naked pate, gestured toward her swollen middle.

  She did not mistake his gesture, that of gutting with the knife. "No!" she gasped.

  The first Indian shook his head and moved his hand up and down, as if signaling patience.

  Once again, she was pushed forward. The two were herding her away from the cabin, across the stubble of winter cornfields and toward the forest. Briers caught at her apron and tore at her skirts. She was shivering, both from fright and from the cold. Her captors were draped in layers of animal skins and seemed not to notice the cold.

  On through the forest they traveled. The Indians laughed when she could not keep up with them and prodded her with the hafts of their weapons. Once, when she fell, the weasel- crowned Indian made as if to lay open her stomach then and there.

  Crying, she scrambled away and pulled herself upright with the help of a densely vine-clad sycamore. She was panting heavily. Th
e Indians watched her, as if gauging her endurance.

  Time. That was what she needed. If she could stay alive until the boys missed her and went for their father, she might be rescued. Might be. She banished the last thought from her mind and with a resolute nod indicated that she was capable of moving on.

  The journey resumed. She had the sense they were moving parallel to the river, though she could neither see nor hear it. If that were so, then they were moving into Powhattan territory.

  The tribes of the Powhattan confederacy were known to be friendlier to the colonists since Master Rolfe had taken the werowance’s daughter for his wife several years earlier. Rose’s hope grew.

  Occasionally a gloomy sun peeked between the sky's gray layers of clouds. Its paltry light was filtered even more by the dense lattice of branches.

  Toward midday, when she thought she could not take another step, her two captors halted. From leather pouches they produced jerky and berries that looked to her like English capers and squatted to partake of the meager fare.

  Nothing was offered to her. She took the opportunity to sit. She explained away the pains that were shooting up her stomach as stitches in her side that came from unaccustomed physical exertion. She concentrated, instead, on how to stay alive.

  What fate awaited her once the savages reached their destination? Should she try to escape before that? Only if an excellent opportunity offered, she decided. Time was still her best ally.

  Too soon the repast was finished, and her captors were prodding her forward again. She was being swallowed up by the wilderness. Brambles scratched her face. On her cheeks, tears of frustration and fear froze in their tracks. Paradoxically, her flesh was feverish. Her eyes felt as if they were burning.

  Just when she was ready to whirl and yell at her captors to go ahead and kill her, they emerged into a clearing that fronted the sluggish James. Eerie vapor rose from the water.

  At the shoreline, the short Indian delved into the brush and tugged forth a canoe. He nudged her into it. The two pushed it through the shallow water until they were knee-deep themselves. Then, with Rose ensconced in the middle, they climbed in and began paddling through the cold mist. Snowflakes melted upon hitting the water but clung momentarily to her lashes.