by Angela Hunt
“I think that savage was lying,” Robert Little muttered, turning to recline on his elbows in the sand. “And one of us ought to be watchin’ our backs. What if the Roanoacs come? Can we be forgettin’ the sight of those other men? I believe I’ll never forget—”
“There it is!” Browne cried, leaping up. A blessed, glorious sight passed before their eyes, a magnificent English galleon cutting through the waters off shore, the bright British flag flying from her foremast. “Ahoy!” Browne screamed, his voice muffled by the strong wind.
“Light the fire,” Little called, scrambling toward the brush they had piled against a sand dune. Frantically the men struck the flint over the brush, but the wind snuffed every spark as it hooted and jeered at their efforts.
“Hurry!” Michael Bishop called to his companions, waving his arms uselessly as he jumped up and down on the beach. “She’s moving southward. She’s not stopping!”
The other four men made a wall with their bodies and breathlessly coaxed one spark into a tiny tongue of fire. When at last it rose from a sprig of straw to lick a dried leaf, the men stood back as the wind caught the blaze and set the brush to burning in earnest. But when they turned in triumph toward the sea, the English galleon had disappeared.
With only one anchor and no supplies of fresh water, the Hopewell was forced to head south to pick up stores. Captain Bedford, speaking for the Moonlight, begged to take his “weak and leak” ship back to England. He had lost too many hands to safely continue.
Cocke and White reluctantly agreed that the two ships should part company, and the Moonlight and the prospective colonists aboard her set sail for England. The Hopewell sailed southward for two days, but contrary winds kept her from making good time. On the twenty-eighth of August, Cocke decided to head northward to the Azores for water.
FORTY-TWO
Jocelyn laughed as Regina toddled by holding Mukki’s hand. Her fair-skinned daughter stood out among the young ones of the Indians, but skin color apparently made no difference to the people of the Chawanoac tribe. They accepted Regina as easily as they had accepted Jocelyn, allowing her to work and live and laugh among them without criticism or comment.
‘Tis such an easy, simple life, she thought, watching the women take turns as they stirred the clay cooking pots and helped each other prepare meals. Mayhap these savages are more like Christians than we English are. Is that why Thomas distrusts them so?
She imitated her hosts and squatted by the fire as she considered the notion. ‘Twas perfectly possible that Thomas was jealous of the Indians, for though he preached his gospel continually among the English, the community was still peppered with jealousy, covetousness, greed, and distrust. Here, though, where the people had only creation itself and the natural law of conscience to guide them, selflessness, sharing, and loyalty abounded.
True, they were lost, and she had heard enough stories to know that Indian brutality could be quick, severe, and senseless. But peace reigned in quiet Ohanoak, and for the first time in months, Jocelyn’s conscience cleared, her bitterness eased, and she was able to lift her thoughts above the confusion and frustration she felt whenever she thought about her husband.
She left Regina with the older children and wandered into the quiet hut she shared with Hurit, Chogan, and Mukki. The hearth fire in the center of the hut had been allowed to burn out; the sleeping mats lay neatly rolled in a corner of the house.
Jocelyn sat on a grass mat and placed her head on her knees. “Father God,” she prayed, “you have said that if a man lacks wisdom, he should but ask. Shall the same hold true for a woman? If so, heavenly Father, I pray you to show me what I must do. Shall I remain here among the Indians? I could work here, Father, and show your love consistently, and mayhap win several to the gospel. In the English village I am nothing, only one women among several, a wife scorned by her husband who will certainly not want me to come back . . .”
She waited in silence. Children laughed outside, women called to each other in the rapid Indian tongue, birds twittered overhead in the trees. She felt her eyes grow heavy in the stillness of the afternoon. She must not go to sleep, for there was work to be done . . .
Go back.
Jocelyn jerked her head upright. The voice had spoken in her ear, but she sat alone in the hut. The hairs on her arm lifted. Had God actually spoken?
“Go back?” she whispered, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one had slipped in while her eyes were closed. No one was there. She bowed her head again. “But Thomas will hate me for leaving; he will say I have humiliated him before the entire village.”
Go back.
She glanced over her other shoulder; she was still alone. “I will go back, on the morrow—”
Go now. I will give you strength when the time comes.
What time? She shivered and swiveled to face the back of the hut. No human was in the room with her, but the place seemed to tremble visibly with an unseen presence, a power that could not be denied. Go boldly, faithfully, successfully . . .
“I’ll go,” she whispered, then stooped under the passageway to fetch Regina.
FORTY-THREE
When Agnes Wood saw Jocelyn coming through the gates of the palisade, her broad face erupted into a toothy grin. “‘Pon my soul, I thought I’d never see the day ye would come back to us,” she said, clomping toward Jocelyn in man-sized shoes. “But I’m thanking God to see ye, I am. Miss Eleanor’s not well, Miss Jocelyn, and I’d like to take ye to see her—”
“I’ll visit her as soon as I’m able,” Jocelyn said, placing Regina into Agnes’ outstretched arms. “But now I must see my husband.” She glanced around the village, where several other colonists peered up from their work to watch her. She lowered her voice. “Is all well here, Agnes?”
Agnes shrugged, and ran her heavy hand over Regina’s curls. “As well as to be expected, I’m sure. There has been no news from Croatoan since the horror of the slaughter, and most folks are busy about their business. We’ve the harvest to get in, ye know—”
“I know,” Jocelyn answered. She walked forward into the circle of houses, and the sight of her own small home made her pause. “Will you watch Regina for me?” Jocelyn asked, turning to Agnes. “I’d like to talk to Thomas.”
“Aye, with pleasure,” Agnes answered, taking Regina to the house she shared with Eleanor and Ananias.
Jocelyn smoothed her hair, then lifted her chin and walked to her house. You fool, she thought, he’s probably not even here. Since when has Thomas been home in the middle of the afternoon? But the voice had been insistent, and she had hurried home.
She lifted the iron latch on the door and stepped inside. The room was dark, since the shutters were closed, and it took a moment for Jocelyn’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. The board was laden with Thomas’ books, the bench strewn with his papers. A nauseating stench rose from the pot that lay atop the cold and blackened logs in the fire pit.
A groan shattered the stillness of the room, and Jocelyn drew the bed curtains. Drawn up into a dark knot, Thomas laid there, his long arms wrapped around his body and his knees drawn to his chest. “Thomas!” she whispered, drawing closer. “I’ve come home.”
He did not reply, and when she pressed his hand to his stubbled cheek, his skin burned with fever. “Thomas!” she said, shaking him. “Can you hear me?”
Trembling with fever, he groaned in reply. Jocelyn sprinted back through the door for help.
After extracting a bowl of blood from his patient, Doctor Jones said the sickness was probably ague. “These spells,” he said, pointing to Thomas’ fevered trembling, “are brought on by the ague cake. I can feel the swollen organ through the flesh of his abdomen. The disease is oft reported in the summer months in marshy lands.”
“I’faith, I’m glad I came when I did,” Jocelyn whispered as she watched Thomas’ suffering. “What can I do to help him?”
The doctor pulled his mouth in at the corners. “Ague has a hot stage, a cold stage,
and sweating stage,” he said, slowly gathering the bloody tools of his trade into a leather pouch. “Make him as comfortable as possible in each condition.” He stared at Jocelyn in severe concentration. “The minister will doubtless be weak for many months. Are we to assume that you will take care of him, Mistress Colman, or are you planning to rejoin the savages?”
Jocelyn crossed her arms and met his granite gaze. “I will not leave. This is my place.”
The doctor nodded abruptly. “Good. Let me know if his condition worsens. The bleeding today should rid his body of whatever morbific matter is causing this trouble. I’ll come by tomorrow to see if purging will be necessary.”
“Thank-you,” Jocelyn whispered, following the doctor to the door. She fastened the latch after he left and, leaning against the wall, she slowly slid to the floor and curled into a knot. She had managed to keep her wits about her as she ran for the doctor and even as he had drained much of her husband’s lifeblood, but now she allowed herself to bury her head in her hands and weep.
Over the next few days a steady stream of colonists made their way to the minister’s house to offer their prayers for a quick recovery. Beth Glane, a vigilant and persistent presence, came each morning and sat praying in the corner of the room until Jocelyn asked her to leave at sunset.
Jocelyn had the feeling that Beth held an unshakable belief that she was more suited than Jocelyn to the role of a minister’s wife. And because Jocelyn knew Beth had been among those quick to criticize her husband, she was amazed that in the helpless state of illness Thomas had achieved a status akin to sainthood in the pious woman’s eyes.
Though many of the maidservants had taken husbands from the single men, Beth devoutly refused to marry, choosing instead to render her service to Rose and Henry Payne, her master and mistress, and to God. And part of her service to God, she informed Jocelyn one morning, was to minister to the Reverend Thomas Colman.
Jocelyn willingly accepted the villagers’ prayers and gifts of food, for between nursing Thomas and caring for Regina, she had little time to rest. Regina, now a rambunctious two-year-old, demanded her constant attention during the day, and Thomas shivered and moaned as his fever rose throughout the night.
He had not spoken directly to her since she came home, yet his eyes were often open and she frequently spied him looking at her as though he did not know her. More often, though, he tossed in delirium, sweating profusely, and Jocelyn was hard pressed to keep his bedding clean and dry.
One day just before sunset, Thomas moved and mumbled something. Jocelyn rose from the table where she had been feeding Regina and from the dark corner where she sat praying, Beth Glane leaned forward in the vaguest of movements, a shifting of shadows.
“Did you speak, Thomas?” Jocelyn asked, placing her hand on his fevered forehead.
“Anna,” he mumbled, shaking his head from side to side. “Anna—don’t.”
Jocelyn could feel Beth Glane’s triumphant smile and knew the story would be spread throughout the village by morning. Of course I knew that girl was not a fit minister’s wife, she could hear Beth saying. Why, even in his sleep the minister calls out for someone else, a woman called Anna.
“The sun is setting, Miss Glane,” Jocelyn said, pulling the blanket to Thomas’ chin. “Mayhap you should take your leave now.”
Beth said nothing, but slipped from the house, and yet her spiteful presence seemed to linger in the corner she had occupied. Jocelyn sighed, but turned to her daughter and began wipe the remains of pottage from Regina’s chin. “For this God sent me back?” she asked as her daughter smiled innocently. “To nurse a man who cares nothing for me and endure the hateful glances of a woman who would lief take my place?”
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
The words rang in Jocelyn’s memory as she put Regina to bed.
The fever worsened that night, and Thomas writhed in pain. Jocelyn sponged his brow and chest with fresh water, but the damp cloths grew hot within minutes of applying them to his burning, red skin. He spoke often as he tossed, repeating broken phrases about Anna, his guilt, and God.
“What about Anna?” Jocelyn asked, not expecting a reply. She wet his hair and ran her fingers through it to keep the damp tendrils from his face.
“Anna,” he repeated again, moving restlessly under her ministrations. Then: “God forgive me.”
Genuine pathos echoed in his words, and Jocelyn felt a whisper of terror run through her. What happened to Anna? Who was she and what had she to do with Thomas? A sister, mayhap? A friend? A niggling fear rose in her mind: his first wife?
She wanted to hold him, to find the source of his apprehension and smooth it away, but he was too hot to be comforted by her touch and too restless to relax. After sponging his fevered body through the long hours of the night, Jocelyn put her hand on his forehead and sighed deeply to discover his fever had broken. Exhausted, she lay on a blanket on the floor and fell instantly asleep.
“Mistress Colman.”
Someone tugged on her sleeve, and Jocelyn opened her brick-heavy eyelids to see the round face of seven-year-old William Wythers. “Yes, William,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position on the floor. “Is anything amiss?”
“Aunt Wenefrid sent me with this loaf of cornbread,” the boy said, pointing to an oblong bundle in his hand.
“Thank you, William,” Jocelyn said, struggling to keep her eyes open. She glanced up at the bed. Thomas slept deeply, his arms flung across the mattress, his face pale. The bright red flush of fever had vanished.
“Aunt Wenefrid,” William persisted, not leaving, “would have me ask if there is anything I can do to help you.”
“No,” Jocelyn replied automatically, then she spied Regina standing upright in her trunk. The baby, at least, had slept well, and was ready to be fed and entertained.
“Well, mayhap there is one thing,” Jocelyn said, smiling at the eager boy. “Regina loves to play, and she needs her breakfast. Do you think your Aunt Wenefrid would mind feeding another baby this morning?”
“No,” William said, his eyes bright. “Can I take her home?”
“Yes, and thank you,” Jocelyn said.
She watched as William carefully lifted Regina from her trunk, then held the baby’s hand as she toddled double-time to William’s longer steps. Jocelyn felt her heart soften when William reached out to touch Regina’s auburn curls.
“She’s beautiful,” he said gallantly, still holding her baby hand in his. “Much more beautiful than my aunt’s new baby.”
“Thank you for saying so,” Jocelyn said. “But I wouldn’t say anything about that to your Aunt Wenefrid. I’m leaving her in your care until I come to fetch her.”
“I’ll take care of her,” William promised, herding Regina through the doorway. Jocelyn lay back down on the floor and was asleep again before the door had closed.
FORTY-FOUR
In the islands of the Azores, John White discovered that Abraham Cocke was unwilling to return south to Croatoan Island. Once again, privateering and the temptation of treasure distracted the captain’s interest from the planters in Virginia. After four weeks of chasing treasure ships to no avail, on the first of October 1590, the Hopewell turned for England.
John White made a last entry in his journal:
On Sunday the twenty-fourth, we came in safety, God be thanked, to anchor at Plymouth.
FORTY-FIVE
Audrey Bailie smoothed her new buckskin skirt and adjusted her bodice, a worn garment that would not last many more months. From across the room, her husband took a long look at her legs and smiled appreciatively. “You are a sight in that skirt,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be wearing it to church, if you take my meaning.”
“I’faith, I’m not that thick,” Audrey said, laughing. “I wouldn’t even wear it to the minister’s house, except that I hear he doesn’t notice who visits. And if he doesn’t know who’s standing over him, he’s not lief to know what a body’
s wearing, is he now?”
She gave her husband a smile and slipped out of the house. Now that the harvest was nearly done, Roger had promised to build her a kitchen, an entirely separate room from their bedchamber, and Audrey was thrilled by the thought of living in the biggest house in the village. Let Eleanor Dare and Rose Payne pride themselves on their status as gentlewomen, Audrey Bailie would show them what a wise marriage and a doting husband could do for a woman’s status.
The clearing in the center of the village stood empty at this mid-morning hour, for most of the women were busy in the fields and most of the men had gone to their duties on the river or in the forest. A group of men came out of the storehouse, however, and Audrey recognized the hoarse voice of William Clement. Ducking quickly behind the shadow of the Jones’ house, she pulled a tortoise-shell comb from the leather bag at her waist and pulled it through her hair in quick strokes. There. A girl didn’t have to look like a hurried housewife if she didn’t want to.
She lifted her chin and stepped back into the clearing. If she could reach Jocelyn’s house without attracting attention . . . but she had no such luck.
“Hey, Audrey, me love, where are ye goin’ in such a hurry?” William called, pulling himself away from the men as they dispersed to their work.
“Can ye be thinkin’ that I should take the time to talk with ye?” she said, pouting prettily. “After I saw ye yesternoon walking close to Jane Pierce?”
“Aw, Jane’s as good as married to William Browne,” Clement answered, leaning against the wall of a nearby house to block Audrey’s path. “And her eyes don’t sparkle as devilishly as yours do, girl.”
Audrey drew in her cheeks and pretended to be angry. “I believe I don’t know what to think of ye, William,” she said, planting her arms akimbo on her hips. “Ye ask me to marry ye, and then tell me to marry Roger. Ye pledge your loyalty to me, then sport with the other women—”
