The Maidenhead (5 page)

After the solders departed, the poor old woman was too petrified to utter another word, which was just as well with Modesty. She needed to think. Her wits had always gotten her through precarious times before. Did she not have a fortnight to assess her situation? Surely she could contrive some way to save her hide.

One thing she did know: Joan of Arc she was not.

Chapter Four

Wild vines and begonias intertwined at the base of large trees, climbed the trunks, and crept along the branches to link with other trees. In the wanderings from tree to tree, the creepers sometimes crossed the arm of a river over which they threw a bridge of flowers.

The land seemed too intoxicating for a puritan. Even the bears became intoxicated on the wild grapes. As for Patrick Dartmouth, he was intoxicated by the frivolous young woman he had taken to wife, the arrogant lady who now rode pillion on his nag, her arms wrapped securely around his middle.

He must be seven kinds of a fool. He had not even intended to buy himself a wife. Fleeing the smoke and smell and noise of daily living in a cramped and oppressively close London, he had arrived in the colony a year ago, just after the first meeting of its self-governing body—a radical deviation from English law.

This year, he had journeyed from upriver Henrico to Jamestown out of curiosity about this General Assembly of representatives called by the governor. He had found himself appointed the chaplain to next year’s incoming governor, Sir Francis Wyatt.

After the General Assembly was over, Patrick had stayed on a few days in order to be there when the
God Sent
arrived with its cargo of brides for sale, and so he’d been there to watch this vision of Aphrodite descend the gangplank.

She had worn an Italian gown, black laced, with a standing band collar and ribbon girdle belt. Like a dunce, he had agreed with the terms set down by Mistress Modesty Brown and obligated himself to a Trappist monk’s lifelong chastity. Anger perched on his shoulder like a deriding demon, but he had only himself to blame.

If he was going to purchase a wife, why had he not selected that gentle and biddable but plain Rose Crankston?

How was he to support a titled lady who was more accustomed to monogrammed silver plate and well-crafted carriages? Even her heavy ornate chest of medieval design, which he had sent on ahead by barge, was filled with silks, furs, and satins.

The gold buckle on his hat was the closest he came to owning anything ornate. That and a handsome chalice of silver, a Communion set valued at fifty pounds, and four divinity books.

Of course, as many ministers did, he could add to his income by being a tutor. With the granting of 10,000 acres for a university at Henrico, he could supplement his income teaching once the construction of the university was finished.

However, that could take years. Henrico consisted of little more than frame houses lining three streets, a storehouse, watchtowers, and huts, not to mention the two most important establishments in the community—the alehouse and his church.

His newly purchased wife interrupted his introspection. "What will become of Modesty Brown? You can’t really believe that she is a witch, can you?"

He pitied the lively, saucy woman. “Witch or not, she has apparently made an implacable enemy of the London Company’s representative by her bartering with the marriage contracts, and that does not help her cause.”

“Richard Radcliff—the man who denounced her as a witch?”

"Aye.”

"The man is a profiteer," Clarissa said. "I’ve heard his name bandied about in London. Can't you do something? She has only ten days more before the General Assembly re-meets."

There it was again, his Maker forcing him to confront injustice. "I informed the council that neither I nor my church would have ought to do with this persecution.”

His old buckskin slogged around a fallen tree that blocked the path. It was an ancient Indian road that was sufficiently inland from the James to facilitate the crossing of the many little creeks. In the spring, spawning shad clogged these tidal streams.

At the noisy approach of Patrick’s saddleback horse, a land turtle plodded off the trail and plowed beneath a paper mulberry’s dead leaves of last autumn.

In response, the Lady Clarissa’s arms tightened around him. “Indians?” she whispered.

He savored the heady sensation of both her embrace and her throaty voice. "No, mistress. Only one of God’s more gentle creatures, a land turtle.”

"What if Indians attack us?” she persisted in a perturbed voice. "You carry no weapon to defend us.”

"I do not believe in killing, mistress.”

"You may be fearless, but what good is your courage while the Indians are taking our scalps?”

Fearless? If the young woman, his wife he reminded himself, but realized the coward who hid in his skin.

His pugnacious father, a captain under Queen Elizabeth, had been created the first Earl of Bridgeshore as a reward for his successful raid of Ruthven. His three eldest sons also followed in his martial footsteps: Percy, who fought in the Dutch wars; Reginald, who sailed with the 1596 Cadiz expedition; and Robert, who led an Italian army into Hungary to thwart the infidel Turk.

As the youngest of four warfaring brothers, Patrick had developed an aversion to the violence of military life. Instead, he had hid in books as an escape. He had pursued an education at Gloucester Hall, earned a master of arts from Oxford, and then enrolled at the Middle Temple.

But when fellow students had gleefully tortured a Jewish mendicant, Patrick's fear of becoming a victim of their violence had kept him from intervening. So he had donned the pious vestments of the clergy to hide his eternal shame and perpetual fear.

“The Powhattans have made an alliance with Sir Yeardley," he said, hoping to put his bride at ease.

She gave a dainty little snort. "Mistress Pierce said that there are still wandering bands of Algonquins who don't believe in a peace treaty. A weapon might at least scare them away.”

"A single weapon?" He had to smile. “‘The world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open.’"

"A minister who speaks lines penned for the theater?” she scoffed, her breath warming the back of his neck.

“Ahhh, but Shakespeare wrote so well, did he not? A verse for every situation and every personality. Even thine own, mistress: ‘Your accent is something finer than you purchase in so removed a dwelling,’ he quoted.

She said nothing, but he felt her stiffen. “Which brings me to question how thee, an aristocrat, came to be bagged with the other maidens of the
God Sent
?"

Silence. The wind quickened and sucked down the forest-banked shore. At last she replied. "I was born bored. Mine was the ennui of a jaded princess. So for diversion I took up writing pornography.” She paused, evidently waiting for his response.

He was shocked. He fought to control his judgmental feelings. “And for that thee was forced to flee England?”

“Oh, not for that,” she said airily. "My writings left nothing sacred. Orgies, licentious ministers, saturnalias. It was when I wrote an archbishop into a
menage à trois
role that I was forced to flee.”

Oh God, help him. He had let his carnal side gain control of his spiritual nature. Now he must make the best of his situation. He felt like a man on spring ice. He managed to say nonchalantly, “I would be most interested in reading your work."

She was silent again. He could almost hear her ruminating. Woodpeckers, cardinals, and mockingbirds warbled while he waited for her next revelation.

“Since you brought up the matter of work," she said, “I think you should know that I don't. Work, that is. I cannot cook, weave, spin, rend lard, dip candles, make butter, scour—”

His mouth carved out a rueful smile. "There is no doubt but that I have bought a wife in name only."

"After a couple of years, you may decide you have erred. You may even choose to divorce me.”

"Mistress," he said grimly, keeping his eye on the trail ahead, "I have erred in many things. I have succumbed to the allure of lechery, the protection of falsehood, the relief of profanity. But if I have any virtue, it is this—I am steadfast. I am committed to our marriage."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Persimmons, a fruit new to Rose, grew like ropes of onions. The countless streams, the limitless land, the abundance of game—she found it difficult to believe there had ever been starvation. But Walter Bannock swore that in the winter of 1609, the colonists had fed on corpses.

“Land, water, wood," Walter was saying as he flicked the whip over the ox that pulled their cart. "Everything that England is lack—lacking. Its forests have vanished into pl—planks for ships. That’s why I chose Henrico as a site for my sawmill. While all of England is still saw— sawing wood by hand, I can build one driven by waterpower! What with the university being built there—"

"The boys?" she asked. She was more concerned with how his sons would accept her. She truly hoped she could make them understand she wasn’t trying to take their mother's place.

"They're staying with John Rolfe’s wi—wife.

You’ll like Falling Brook. The house isn’t much. Abandoned by an iron—ironworker who returned to England. But close enough to Henrico to get supplies. Only a mile or so away.”

“But how far is Ant Hill from Falling Brook?" Her husband’s mustache dipped at either end with his grimace. “Jones’s place is four—four miles farther, just before the falls.”

“You don’t approve of Master Jones?"

“I don’t know him that well. He went native. Keeps to himself. Tis your mi—mission I don’t approve of."

Lightly, timidly, she touched Walter’s knee. "Modesty Brown meant well, husband. I can’t let her down. All that I need do is deliver her message to Master Jones.”

He glanced down at her hand, and she quickly withdrew it. There she went again, always trying to please. As a child, it had been her father. She had felt sorry for him, the way her mother was always nagging him about how unambitious he was. Her mother had been born high enough to climb higher—and hadn’t.

Then Rose had wanted to please Henry, a yeoman’s son, who had seemed to be interested in her. Her hand drifted to her rounding stomach. When out of gratitude she had given herself to Henry, he had lost interest.

“Of course, owning a sawmill can be risky,” Walter said, reverting to his passion. "An iced-over stream could cl—close it down in winter, the easiest time to haul logs from the for—forest.”

She listened dutifully.

"A spring freshet might wash out the retaining dam and wreck the water—waterwheel. A summer drought could keep the machinery idle. And then there’s the ri—ripsaw blade and the up-and-down steel-edged saw to con—contend with."

Her glance took in his missing finger. "I had not thought about how dangerous operating a sawmill could be, Walter."

His words might twist in his mouth when he grew excited. Some might find him dull. But that was because they could not see his stalwart spirit. Hadn't he proved it by marrying her?

Yet would he ever come to love her?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Yew filthy old bawd," Modesty screeched at one woman who was trying to constrain her twisting, turning, and dodging. Jamestown’s goodwives were escorting her back across the green to the pillory.

The Jamestown gaol had been a loathsome cell. For two weeks Modesty had been chained to an Indian woman imprisoned for prostitution for the third time. The two women had not had privacy to do what nature required, nor fresh air in the windowless gaol to relieve the stench of their own excrement. Their legs had been in one bolt and they had been bound to a post with an ox chain.

In the past fortnight. Modesty had had plenty of time to learn Algonquin phrases from the Chesapeake Indian woman, whose name was Palantochas.
Ka ka torawincs yowo
—what call you this?;
Pokatawer
—fire;
mockasins
—shoes;
tomahacks
—axes; and
Casacunnakack, peya quagh acquintan uttasantasough
—In how many days will there come hither any more English ships?

The arrival of which would mean more customers for the industrious Palantochas.

In turn, the squat but chipper Indian maiden had learned some English phrases from Modesty, mostly ones of profanity that she had picked up along the Thames docks. "Yew arse rug! Yew bloody meat monger! Yew puck fist!”

Even now, Modesty was making liberal use of her English swear words, because her two female captors were shoving her along faster than she could walk, what with the irons.

Left on long enough the irons would rot the flesh. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen to her. Surely the irons would be removed by the time she was brought before the General Assembly. Already, she could see the councilmen and the burgesses arriving from the outlying areas, even though, according to Palantochas, it wasn’t yet the noon hour.

Two soldiers in quilted coats and with baldrics worn over their shoulders to support their swords took over for the Company women. Quickly and efficiently, they installed Modesty in the pillory, her head and hands poking through its wooden slots. By now a crowd was gathering to watch.

Then a stout woman approached the pillory with a razor's long, glinting blade. Great fear stole the breath out of Modesty. What had she ever done to these people to be so punished?