Cate of the Lost Colony (14 page)

Chapter 23

A Sudden Departure

A
month had passed, then five weeks, and Simon Fernandes still had not left Hatorask. The
Lion
, though anchored out of sight, cast an invisible shadow over the colony. In the hands of the mutinous pilot, the ship was a sign of John White’s failure. It reminded us we had not reached our destination of Chesapeake, and getting there was now beyond our means. Yet while the ship stayed, there was the possibility of escaping the strangeness, hardship, and danger of the New World and returning to what was familiar. Once she sailed, we would be truly alone. And it would no longer be possible to send a letter to Sir Walter.

I still had written no reply to the letter I received aboard the
Lion
. Now I had little time for shaping fine phrases to convey feelings I was not even sure of. I still yearned for him, so I believed. Maybe I only yearned for what was familiar and comfortable simply because it was now lost to me. My thoughts were too confused for words. However, I did write to Emme that I was well, leaving unsaid almost everything that mattered in this new place, because it was simply too much for a single letter. I gave the letter to the boatswain, who promised to deliver it when he reached London.

Fernandes may have been ready to sail away in pursuit of treasure, but both the
Lion
and the flyboat required caulking and repairs. Fernandes also needed wood for fuel and fresh water for the return voyage. But John White would not allow his men to assist the pilot, and the seamen were not welcome at the fort. Whenever they came to the island to cut timber or gather pine resin, fights broke out. Nearly every day malefactors were put in the stocks.

Finally the governor called a meeting of all the colonists. His house being too small, the meeting was held outdoors. He sat at a table with his seven assistants flanking him. There had been nine, but George Howe was dead, and Fernandes was excluded. Manteo, now a lord, was away on some embassy.

The men sat on stools or stood with their arms crossed, the women behind them. Eleanor cradled the sleeping Virginia. Georgie Howe sat on the ground, rocking from side to side in silence.

“What is that cursed ship still doing here?” Ambrose Vickers burst out. “If Fernandes won’t take us to Chesapeake, he should be on his way.”

Ananias nodded and turned to the governor. “Truly, that ship is a beacon to any vessel plying the coast. Fernandes could lead the Spaniards right into this bay.”

John White raised his voice over the grumblers. “Fernandes and I are in disagreement, but he is not a traitor, I’ll warrant you.”

“We might try again to persuade him,” said Roger Bailey. “With arms if necessary.” He looked around to measure his support.

I shook my head in disagreement. The time for taking back the ship had been the moment Fernandes first defied the governor. Now it was too late.

“There will be no bloodshed,” said White firmly. “Going to Chesapeake was always a risk. We would not have had time to prepare for winter. We are here now and must make the best of it.”

“Since Ralegh expected us to settle at Chesapeake, he will send his supply ships there,” said Ananias. “Then what shall we do here?”

White thought for a moment and said, “We have much to accomplish in the next months, but with time we shall be self-sufficient.”

He had not answered Ananias’s question. Several of the men stirred with dissatisfaction.

“We have less than you think, Governor,” said Roger Bailey. “Much of the grain rotted on the voyage, and we have used more of the building materials than we expected. I have been an army quartermaster, and I can tell you our stores will hardly last the winter.”

“How many of us will die then?” asked Ambrose Vickers. “I know I’ll not let my wife and son starve.”

“Or be slain by savages,” said one John Chapman. He was Alice’s husband and an armorer by trade. “I am not the only one who does not trust Manteo. Lord of Roanoke indeed! When he returns it will no doubt be at the head of an army of Indians.”

Alice glared at her husband and I could see there would be an argument between them later.

“The Indians. They came and slew my papa. I saw the arrows in his chest. Oh, my poor papa!” wailed Georgie, his big frame shaking. “They will come back for me next.”

A sense of alarm spread through the crowd as if a hornet buzzed in our midst. Eleanor’s arms tightened around baby Virginia, who awoke and began to cry.

I could barely restrain myself from speaking aloud and murmured to Eleanor, “The governor should stand up to Chapman and Bailey and forbid such talk.”

Eleanor pursed her lips. “It is not a woman’s place to judge a man.”

“Governor, what are you going to do to about the Indians?” Chapman demanded.

“This meeting is adjourned. Go to your houses,” Bailey ordered, though he did not have the authority to do so.

“If there is any trouble, the offender will be arrested,” said the governor. His voice did not carry over the din.

That evening John White consumed his supper in a dismal silence no one in the household dared to break. Afterward he placed his portable desk on his knees and drew a picture of his granddaughter while she slept. He would not even look at Ananias, who remained seated at the table. I took my needle and thread to a ripped seam, wishing I were a man and could speak about government. Hadn’t the queen once said I would make a good councilor? I glanced at Eleanor, hoping she would speak to her father, but she kept her head bent over her own sewing.

I took a deep breath. What did I have to lose by speaking up? “Governor, it pained me today to hear how the men spoke against you and Manteo. Would you not be justified in punishing their sedition?”

I heard Ananias’s cup hit the table.

“Cate!” The loud whisper of warning came from Eleanor.

Only John White did not seem surprised. “Everything is new to them, and they are uncertain and afraid,” he said, continuing to draw.

“Then you must reassure them,” I said. “All of us look to you to keep us united in our purpose.”

To my surprise, Eleanor said, “It is Roger Bailey and Ambrose Vickers who lead the malcontents.”

“Silence, wife!” said Ananias.

Eleanor stood up, her needlework falling from her lap. “I would chain them to the bilboes if I were you, Father!” Then she sat back down and began to rock Virginia’s cradle rapidly.

“You might remind them of what you encountered before, and the negotiations that brought you safely through danger,” I suggested.

He seemed to consider my words. “There are new difficulties I did not expect or even imagine,” he said with a sigh. “The native inhabitants have changed toward us.” He closed his drawing table and stood up, signaling that the conversation was ended.

At least he did not chastise me for speaking.

The next day the seven assistants called on the governor. Ananias came down from the roof he was tiling to join them. I retreated outside, lingering by the open window so I could overhear them, as I had often listened at the queen’s door.

Roger Bailey was their spokesman. “Fernandes informs me that he is now prepared to sail,” he said. “One of us must return to England with him to ensure sufficient supplies are dispatched here, not to Chesapeake, before winter.”

“Excellent,” White said. “I will draft a letter to that purpose for Fernandes to carry.”

“You misunderstand, Governor,” said Bailey.

There was a long pause. Then White replied, “Indeed, perhaps we should not trust Fernandes. Roger, you must be the one to convey the letter.”

“John, we have already decided you should undertake this business,” said another of the assistants.

“But I am the governor here!” White’s voice rose. “I am charged with protecting the queen’s subjects. Choose another among yourselves.”

“We have considered the others,” said Bailey. He cleared his throat. “You are the only one who can be trusted to return here.”

I understood the plan. The assistants knew how much the governor loved this New World, almost as much as he loved his daughter and granddaughter. So they would use Eleanor and Virginia as hostages to ensure that he would bring the goods to sustain us all. Moreover, while appearing to entrust a vital task to him, they were in fact ousting him.

“Is it so desolate and disagreeable here that none of you would return?” said White in disbelief. Then his tone became scornful. “I thought my men were made of stronger stuff. Or are you all afraid of Fernandes?”

There was silence. Were the men ashamed? Was even Ananias against his father-in-law?

“You are my councilors only. You may advise me on a course of action, but you may not command me. This decision is mine!” White’s voice was trembling with rage. “I will render it tomorrow. Now I dismiss you all.”

The assistants, including Ananias, left. After a few minutes I slipped into the house again. John White sat at the table staring at his hands. He knew his men had lost confidence in his leadership. I could imagine the lowness in his heart.

“I am sorry, Governor,” I said. There was no use pretending I had not overheard their conversation.

“How can I leave them?” he asked, sounding forlorn.

“Someone must go,” I said. “And no one is more likely than you to move heaven and earth to bring back what we need.”

“My daughter,” he said, his voice faltering.

“I will take care of Eleanor and the baby and see that they come to no harm,” I said. But I wondered how I could keep myself or anyone safe in this unpredictable land.

He nodded gratefully.

“People are fickle,” I said. “When you return, they will welcome you as a hero. Though some of them may have less reason to celebrate if they are hanged for treason.”

He looked at me with a wry smile. “You are wise and well spoken for a woman. The queen should regret sending you away. But I think her loss will someday be judged Virginia’s gain.”

I warmed at this praise, yet I would have traded every word of it to have John White stay at Fort Ralegh.

The next morning, Governor White called all the colonists together and announced he would sail back to England at once. He demanded an inventory, an accounting of the colony’s assets, and a list of its requirements. He ordered his assistants to preserve his maps, papers, books, and drawings, as they were of great value to him and to posterity. By asserting his authority in this way, he was trying to conceal that it had already been taken from him.

“Your welfare has been entrusted to me by God and by England’s queen,” he told the assembly. “And I promise I shall fulfill my duty to every one of you. It is not my desire to return to England. But I have been persuaded by my assistants that I am the best man to convince Sir Walter Ralegh to supply our needs.” He paused before resuming his speech. “There is some urgency, I grant you. And there is danger, for the growing hostility between England and Spain makes sea travel hazardous. Thus I understand why others … declined to make the voyage.”

The colonists glanced from one assistant to the next, wondering who had shown fear. Bailey and Ananias looked uncomfortable.

“Know, all of you,” the governor said, “I will not rest until I return, for my sole purpose will be the relief of this colony.” His voice broke, then gathered strength again. “I have decreed that in my absence, my seven assistants will govern with equal voices, and all matters are to be decided by the greater number of them.”

I thought that unlikely. Some voices, like Roger Bailey’s, were always louder than others.

“Let there be no dissension, but only a unity of purpose and goodwill among you,” he concluded.

It was a worthy speech. Some of the women dabbed their eyes. I clapped my hands and others joined in. A few people smiled, showing a forced cheerfulness. But the malcontents could not remain silent.

“When will we go to Chesapeake and settle?” called Ambrose Vickers. “We cannot trust the savages around here.”

John White replied with vehemence. “I said before, this is not the time. You have only the pinnace, which is too small to carry much. If you divide yourselves to make the journey in stages, or go by land, you increase the danger to everyone. I will return with ships and men and arms. In the spring we will move to Chesapeake.” He stared down the line of the men standing to his right. “This is my decision, to which my assistants have consented.”

But by the warning tone of his voice, I suspected that the men were hardly of one mind.

The governor’s household was also divided. Eleanor wept and begged her father not to go, to send another man, and to stand up to the scheming Roger Bailey. John White pleaded with her to be brave, and anyone with a heart would have wept to hear them. I held little Virginia and wiped my tears on her dress. She was not even mine, and still I could not imagine parting from her. Poor John White! When Ananias returned, Eleanor released her fury on him, saying he had betrayed her father and thus was no longer welcome in her bed. He shouted at her but managed to refrain from striking her. Then he left the house to lodge elsewhere.

Retreating to a corner of the tempest-tossed house, I wrote a hasty letter to Sir Walter, my words flowing like water over a broken dam. The time was short, for Fernandes would sail with the morning tide. I gave the letter to John White to deliver and thanked him for his kindness to me. His face was grooved with sadness.

That night three of the assistants rowed the governor to where the
Lion
and the flyboat were anchored. Our little household was headless, the colony leaderless. And I was mindful of a suppressed longing my pen had reawakened, the desire for Sir Walter’s familiar voice and his touch.

Chapter 24

From the Papers of Sir Walter Ralegh

Memorandum

8 August 1587. There is a new favorite at court—the Earl of Essex, Leicester’s stepson. Leicester, grown too old for the queen’s love, slips the boy into his place, knowing she will not be able to resist the hot-blooded pup. He is barely able to grow a beard and skilled at nothing but playing cards.

2 September. Essex dared to thumb his nose at me. I seized his collar and promised to answer the insult later.

18 September. The queen was entertaining her knavish boy in her chamber when I heard shouting and a crash from within. I flung open the door and entered the chamber with a sergeant behind me. “I cannot serve a mistress who would be in awe of such a man,” Essex was saying. He held a broken wine vessel, its contents spilled over the queen’s dressing gown.

Seeing me, he said in a tone of contempt, “Speak of the devil, and he comes!” Then he put his hand to his sword hilt, and I arrested him by the arms.

“It is treason to draw in the the presence of the sovereign,” I said.

“Let me go, ape! My lady, order him to release me,” the arrogant youth commanded.

“Nay, hold him still,” she said to me, much angered. Then to the boy: “You speak and act too boldly for a subject of mine.” She struck him across the face with her fan, leaving a red welt. “Let this be a lesson to you. You rise by falling.”

She pointed to the ground and he duly fell to his knees. Then she laughed, saying to me, “Let him go and leave us alone.”

Essex is fortunate that Elizabeth is smitten. For less offense than his, many a luckless creature has been sent to the Tower.

21 October. With the prospect of a Spanish invasion growing more likely, the queen has appointed me to raise armies and strengthen the coastal defenses of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset. She also tasks me with converting merchant vessels for the use of the navy and enforcing the Privy Council’s ban on shipping from all ports.

Thus I am released from guarding her private person, that I may guard her public body—the realm of England. This is a duty that befits a man of action.

20 November 1587. Received a most unexpected visitor today—a sea-roughened, bone-thin John White. The news from Virginia is dismal: my colonists left at Roanoke Island, the need for supplies immediate, and the governor forced to seek relief himself, his voyage so fraught with misfortunes that he was at sea for months and returned home more dead than alive.

What ill luck attends this venture! I explained to White that the threat of war, the ban on shipping, and my own lack of funds prevented me from sending a relief ship.

White was not sympathetic. “I came through that battlefield alive. Surely Her Majesty can spare a thirty-ton bark. Remind her that the lives of her subjects are at stake, even women and children.” Here his voice faltered. “They have consented to live in her new colony despite the dangers. They must not be abandoned there.” His eyes, deep in his weathered face, shone with weary desperation.

Then he told me of the killing of George Howe, the shifting loyalties of the natives, and wondered whether even Manteo could succeed in reconciling them to us.

“But the most pressing need is for food,” he said. “In the month I was there, the Indians would not meet with us or trade for food. They know there is not enough for them and for us.” He rubbed his forehead as if it pained him. “Moreover, we may have planted too late to reap before the winter. My family may be starving even now.”

To hide the regret that swept me, I began to arrange the weapons in their racks. I thought of all those who had sailed seeking the chance to become wealthy in a new world. I told myself they had chosen the journey, its risks as well as its rewards. But my Catherine had not chosen her fate. She was banished to Virginia because of me. Now what undeserved miseries does she endure?

“How fares your ward, the Lady Catherine?” I asked.

“She is useful to my daughter and beloved of her and the child,” said White, smiling for the first time. “She has no fear or hatred of the natives, unlike many of the colonists. I was pleased to see how she welcomed the Croatoan women, giving them pieces of lace with which to adorn themselves.” He paused, reflecting. “Truly, if she were a man, I would wish her to be one of my assistants.”

So speaking, John White made me see my witty and lovely C.A., a pale rose among the tawny savages. I must find a way to succor her and the others.

“I cannot permit the colony to fail after so much has been invested,” I said. “Let me speak to Her Majesty and summon you after.”

As he left, White placed a letter in my hand. I knew at once it was from C.A. The page was crinkled as if it had gotten wet and the ink had run in places. I put my lips to the letter and thought it tasted of salt. The spray of the sea? Tears? I hoped to read, at long last, a protestation of love or a declaration of sorrow at our separation. Perhaps a poem to prove her affections.

Oh, the letter did strike me strongly, though in a most unexpected way.

Dear Sir Walter,

I have often composed in my mind the phrases in which I would praise this New World. But there is little to be written in favor of seasickness, the hellish climate, and other discomforts. Nor have I any matter for a sonnet, but enough for an elegy upon poor George Howe, deprived of his life by sixteen arrows and several blows of a club. But I must keep to my point.

My purpose here is to inform you of injustices committed upon the bearer of this letter, John White. It is bold of me, a maid of honor now disgraced, to appeal on behalf of a gentleman and bolder still to charge others with wrongdoing. But I have the liberty of one who has nothing to lose, and so I presume upon our past affections and your present influence with the queen.

First, Capt. Fernandes has defied the authority of our governor. I and many others witnessed his brazen refusal to carry us to Chesapeake. The reason he gave—that the season was too far advanced—was contradicted by the five weeks he remained at anchor offshore. In my judgment, Fernandes is a traitor determined to ruin this colony. Some even think he is a secret papist in league with Spain.

Simon Fernandes, whom I have trusted on so many voyages—a mutineer loyal to Spain? He is Portuguese and thus an enemy of Spain. He is no more a papist than Walsingham. Indeed, Fernandes has been Walsingham’s man ever since W. saved him from hanging once. Can it be that Walsingham uses Fernandes to ruin my colony? To kill my fame and all my credit?

Seeking more evidence I read further, but found little satisfaction.

Second, in the matter of our governor’s departure, it is evident his assistants have conspired to remove him from his office that they might rule instead. To preserve the appearance of concord, the governor has consented to this second mutiny. In my judgment Simon Fernandes, Roger Bailey, and Ananias Dare ought to be hanged and the others thrown into the Tower.

John White may have his faults as a governor, but they do not proceed from a lack of kindness. Those who usurp his power seek only their own good, and they act from ignorance and ill will that will surely lead to war with the native peoples.

Because I have been mistreated by those I had reason to believe cared for me, it pains me to see Gov. White betrayed. I beg you: do what is necessary to restore just rule to your Virginia.

Come yourself and govern this colony that hungers for leadership and this heart of mine starving for lack of love’s food. Or we shall all be lost.

Yours, Catherine Archer

Truly, it cannot be tolerated when the governed decide to rule themselves and throw off their governor. It must be the savagery of that place that makes men descend from their civil upbringing to a beastly state in which the strong devour the weak. I should have made a statesman—not a painter—their governor. But no other man of merit and experience would consent to return there.

Shipping bans and Spanish pirates be damned! I will go to Virginia myself and teach them all what it means to obey. My iron hand once put down the Irish rebels and it shall be raised again over these wayward subjects. As for my duties of fortifying the coast, my deputy can perform them as well as I can.

For my Catherine calls me, and I will answer. No royal threat or command must hinder me from the embrace of my fair, my own, my sweet Virginia.