Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) (11 page)

“Soft, hold your tongue,” Eleanor advised, recognizing the spare form of the reverend Colman on the deck ahead. “I would speak to this man in private.”

Agnes obediently hung back while Eleanor advanced and tactfully cleared her throat. Turning from the rail, Thomas Colman seemed startled by the sight of the governor’s daughter, but he bowed respectfully.

“I give you good day, Mistress Dare.”

“Well met, Reverend.” She gestured toward the calm sea. “A lovely day, is it not?”

He gave her a wry smile. “I doubt the seamen and the captain would agree with you, madam. A calm sea is not a
sailor’s delight. This mirror-like ocean is the opposite of the stormy sea that caused the seamen to dump the rebellious Jonah, but if there is a sinner aboard—”

Eleanor waved his comments away. “
‘Tis not the sea, but my cousin I have come to discuss with you, Reverend Colman.”

His smile vanished. “Your cousin?”

“Jocelyn White.” When he did not answer, she stepped closer and placed her hands on the railing. “Surely you are aware that she has come to harbor tender feelings toward you. And my father has told my husband and me of your arrangement.”

His dark brow shot up.

“Of course, we agree with Father’s plan,” she added quickly. “You would make a very suitable husband for Jocelyn. You are educated, as is she, you are both devoted to God, and Jocelyn has spent considerable time in your company and found you agreeable.”

“Then she has misled you, madam. She has not spoken to me in several days.”

“I am of the impression that she fears she has insulted or offended you. ‘Tis not that she does not desire your company, for I believe I never saw her so happy as when she was with you, but now she fears you do not desire hers—”

“Truly?” For an instant the veil of reserve lifted from his eyes, but then the corner of his mouth fell and the wry smile curved again into place. “I almost believed you, madam, but surely you are mistaken. I have decided to forego your uncle
’s offer and indenture myself to him in service. Your cousin is too beautiful and refined to be my wife, and I have not the words or the power to win her heart.”

“But you are wrong!” In her eagerness she leaned toward him, and a disapproving snort from Agnes reminded Eleanor that she had nearly overstepped the bounds of propriety. A visibly pregnant woman did not speak to unmarried men unless her maid were present, and she certainly did not share secrets . . .

“I am sure, sir, that if you approach Jocelyn today, you will find her of a willing, even eager, temperament,” Eleanor said, collecting her dignity and reserve. She smiled. “Do not give up hope. If you believe in the God you serve, is it not within his power to grant this favor for you?”

“God does not grant favors,” Colman answered, his dark eyes scanning the calm sea once again. “We do not deserve his
grace. How then could we deserve
favors
?”

Eleanor shrugged lightly as she moved away. “Welladay, sir, what
’s the harm in asking?”

What was the harm in asking? How dare the flippant wench suggest that God could be cajoled! He knew better, having tried long ago to bargain with the angry God who had taken his wife and demanded his son. God was a hard taskmaster, demanding all and giving nothing in this life but the promise of ease in the life to come.

And yet Mistress Dare had come to him with words he had never hoped to hear. Jocelyn White favored him! She—how had the woman phrased it? —”harbored tender feelings for him.” Would that God harbored such feelings for his minister!

Thomas left the rail and gazed distractedly around the deck. There was no private place, no room for quiet musing unless one went to the very belly of the ship where rats and roaches and insects wormed their way into the barrels and casks of next week
’s victuals. Turning as if the hounds of hell nipped at his heels, he sprinted down the companionway through the lower decks until he crouched in the low-ceilinged orlop deck. Here, at least, a man could be alone to think.

As vile bilge water crept up his hose to his knees and soaked his shoes, Thomas Colman considered his options.

One decision, two choices.

Two prizes, two liabilities.

If he refused to pursue Jocelyn White, he would be required to render fifteen years of indentured service to John White. But, as an indentured servant, he would not be able to lead a church. Never again would he have to subject himself to the rigors of spiritual leadership. In time, with the growth of the colony, even the knowledge of his ordination would fade, and he would become Thomas Colman, humble and ordinary servant, instead of Reverend Colman, stern judge and jury. In servitude, Thomas knew, lay the keys to personal freedom.

But if he chose not to marry Jocelyn Colman, that lovely voice might never speak to him again. Already he had silenced her by his curt answers. And when she learned from her cousin or her uncle that he had been offered her hand and had refused, mayhap those blue eyes would flash at him in anger instead of affection. She would never again blush at his approach or smile and ask his thoughts or readily interpret the Latin verse he quoted from memory. Her small hand would
never rest in his, the arms that had clung to him in the storm would never seek him again, and those petal-soft lips would be claimed by another man eager for a bride . . .

Abruptly, he shifted in the murky water as a sag-bellied rat skittered across a row of barrels. Why had his traitorous heart softened under the girl
’s influence? In truth, Jocelyn White had bewitched him, or else God had devised the most enticing test ever imagined by the divine mind. Would God dangle this desirable young woman before him merely to keep an errant and rebellious minister in his holy service?

“
‘Tis not fair, God,” Colman muttered, squatting in the filthy water. “‘Tis not fair to the girl, for you know what I am.”

He didn
’t expect an answer and heard none, save the echo of Eleanor Dare’s words:
“She has come to harbor tender feelings toward you.”
If he chose to ignore whatever tender feelings Jocelyn White had developed, was he not committing another wrong? As for his own emotions, he could repress his respect for her intellect, his joy in her company, the pleasure of hearing her speak his name. As a minister he was supposed to sacrifice his personal feelings on the altar of his jealous God, but his newly awakened heart would not let him hurt her . . .

One decision, two choices, each leading to a form of slavery. One leading to a gentleman master, the other master God himself. Service for John White would bring freedom and a life of solitude; service for God would bring the lovely and charming Jocelyn and life at center stage in the rigorous leadership of a church.

He had been a minister, ‘twas nothing but grief and thankless work.

He had been married, but his wife had never looked at him the way Jocelyn White did. And the way she breathed his name stirred his heart in a way the voice of God never had.

Sighing in resignation, Thomas turned and climbed upward.

Ten

J
ohn White reluctantly pulled his eyes from the silent sea as a knock sounded on his cabin door. He had lost himself again in frustration, unable to concentrate on his sketches, his journal, or his plans as the ship bobbed uselessly in the waters of the western ocean as if some great hand held it in place. The vane outside his window hung limply; the sails sagged on the ship’s masts like limp, sad flags, bleached by the relentless sun. Oh, the hours they had wasted! Every day adrift meant they spent much-needed supplies of water, food, and energy for nothing.

“
Enter!” White barked, annoyed that someone had dared disturb his thoughts. Another fight had probably broken out among the impatient and short-tempered colonists. The camaraderie fostered by the storm had vanished during the days of sweltering stillness.

The door opened, and White grunted in surprise when he saw who had knocked.
“Reverend Colman! has the Lord God sent you to chastise us for some secret sin? Is it for some wrong that we sit on a becalmed sea, going nowhere?”

“
I know of no sin,” Colman answered, ducking as he entered through the low doorway. “Except the crime of hesitation. I verily would ask your niece to marry me, Governor White, in your presence. Since you are her guardian now, I assume you would want to have a hand in it.”

White felt his jaw drop.
“You’d ask to marry her now? When the entire ship is short-tempered and nasty? Are you a fool, man?”

“
Mayhap.” Colman’s features were inscrutable, and White could not read his thoughts.

“
So ‘tis all or nothing, eh?” White asked, drumming his fingers on the desk. Either the man had courage, or foolhardiness drove him. Impossible to tell which. But if he would propose marriage without thoroughly having won Jocelyn’s heart, he had either the faith of a saint or a brain thick as a plank.

“
If you would send for her, Governor, I’d like to ask her this very hour. I do not think it fair to prolong this situation further. I would be her husband or your servant, and would know my place now.”

I
’faith, he meant it. “Marry, I’ll send for her,” White answered, ringing the bell for his cabin boy. “Have a seat, Reverend Colman. By all means, let’s settle this matter.”

He crinkled his nose as he looked at the minister
’s garb. Though all on board wore stiff and worn clothing, the minister positively reeked of filth and his hose and shoes were wet with brownish-green slime.

“
Is anything amiss?” Colman asked, noting White’s expression.

White held a finger to the side of his nose.
“If I were planning to ask for a maid’s hand, I believe I’d clean up first.”

“
Mayhap you would,” Colman answered, clapping his hands resolutely on his knees. “But the lady will have me as I am, or she’ll not have me at all.”

“
There is no gainsaying that,” White said, shrugging as the cabin boy entered to take his message.

Jocelyn smoothed her hair into place as she hurried toward her uncle
’s cabin. The boy had said that the governor had urgent business to discuss with her, and Jocelyn could not imagine what urgent business had come up in the middle of the ocean. Perchance he had been reading and wanted to discuss a question of literature with her; mayhap he wanted to share his stories of the savages of Virginia. Mayhap, she thought, a twinge of guilt tweaking her conscience, he had heard that she was downhearted, and sought to lift her spirits.

Whatever his reason for summoning her,
‘twas a pleasure to leave the choking heat of the lower deck and walk out into the sunshine. As the tropical sun beat down from the cloudless sky, the ship baked its occupants. The square openings in the lower deck were blocked by cannons, therefore no breeze could effectively cool the air trapped between decks. The oak planks of the upper deck held such heat that even seamen with toughened bare feet could not walk on them, and the killing heat frayed the nerves of sailor and passenger alike. Everyone on board prayed for a wind, even the gentlest of breezes, to move and transform the living furnace in which they were trapped.

After four weeks at sea, the stench and fumes from filth on the ship had made nearly all the passengers ill, and Jocelyn felt truly sorry for the young boys who slept deep below on the lower decks.
At any given time, nearly half the passengers lay on their stiff, mildewed blankets with headaches, fever, seasickness, or other diseases caused by the poor diet. Lice, borne on the blankets, infested nearly every passenger, and in her melancholy time below deck Jocelyn had spent hours nursing the sick and scraping lice from their bodies with a strap of stiff leather.

The food had gone from bad to worse in the last weeks, and now their rations were very poor and very little.
The blackened water from the barrels squirmed with worms and maggots, and most meals consisted only of the ship’s biscuit, by now an insect-infested lump of flour.

All these privations were bearable, Jocelyn reasoned, but the vermin.
The mere thought of lice made her skin itch, but worse by far were the nests of cockroaches and rats which swarmed over the ship in search of a dry resting place during storms and rain. Just this morning she had tried to clean a rat bite on poor George Howe’s leg, and the boy had buried his face in her skirt and wept for his mother who had remained behind in England.

Yes, whatever her uncle
’s news, ‘twas good indeed to leave her fellow passengers on the lower deck and journey to the relative sanity of her uncle’s small cabin.

“
Come in.” She smiled at the faint note of triumph in her uncle’s voice as she opened the door, but her smile froze at the sight of Thomas Colman in the room. Had he complained about her tactlessness? Had her uncle summoned her only to charge her to leave this man alone?

She felt a blush burn her cheeks and suddenly grew aware of her appearance.
She had not had the opportunity to bathe in four weeks. Her hands were filthy, and she had dampened her skirt to wipe the Howe boy’s infected leg because she had no other cloth available. Her hair hung in disheveled wisps about her face and clung to her perspiring neck.

‘
Twas little comfort that Thomas Colman looked worse than she did. His face was haggard and pale, his eyes dark and focused, his leggings wet and foul.

She felt the chasm between them like an open wound.

“Jocelyn, the Reverend Colman has come to me with an unusual request,” her uncle said, slapping his hand upon his desk.

“
I know what it is, Uncle,” she whispered, lowering her head in shame. Oh, that the floor might give way and swallow her up!

“
You do?” Pleasant surprise rang in his voice. “My dear minister, you have underestimated yourself.” Jocelyn lifted her head in time to see her uncle step from behind the table and clap the minister on the shoulder. “‘Twasn’t so difficult, I’m certain.”

Jocelyn felt the power of Thomas
’ gaze and turned her face to his for the flutter of a moment. The haunted expression in his eyes brought the color rushing to her cheeks and made her feel as though the small cabin whirled madly around her. “Why don’t you say what you came to say?” she whispered, swallowing a hysterical surge of laughter. “Think you that I don’t know why you are here? You want me to avoid your presence and never again speak with you. I have done you wrong, I am ill-bred and tactless, insensitive, cruel beyond belief—”

Her uncle
’s hand lifted and interrupted the flow of her words. “My dear Jocelyn,” he said, his eyes squinting in secret amusement, “I’m sure we have no idea what you are talking about. The reverend minister here wishes to ask you to marry him. He needs a wife, and since you are an intelligent girl, alone, and suited to be the wife of a clergyman, I have given my blessing to this union. All that remains is your consent.”

She felt a curious, tingling shock at the words, and turned to Thomas Colman in total incredulity.
His dark eyes studied her with quiet intensity, like a cat watching a bird. He voiced no disagreement with her uncle’s words, but how could he possibly want her, a thoughtless girl, for his wife? Surely he didn’t, unless—

He needed a wife.
Her uncle had just said as much. Thomas Colman would be the functioning minister in the City of Raleigh, responsible for the spiritual life of each colonist, a man who had to be well above reproach and slander. A married man would fare better in such a position, and since she was the only available gentlewoman on the ship, he had thought to marry her. Simple enough. Mayhap his perfunctory interest in her of days past was merely an experiment to see if he could bear her company.

She felt both men watching her, and she turned reflexively to the small window to guard her all-too-open countenance.
Could she marry a man who wanted a wife merely to share the burden of the ministry? A man who still mourned his one true love, a man whose imprisoned heart would never be opened to her?

“
Father God,” she murmured, her eyes on the silent sea. “Can I marry a man who loves another?”

Yes, the answer rang in her heart.
She could marry him. For whether or not she wanted to admit it, she had come to love him. If she did not love him, his grief would not wound her, his broken heart would not touch hers. And if his love remains removed from her, perchance she could at least have his friendship and his respect.

“
I can love enough for both of us,” she whispered to the sea.

“
What say you, Jocelyn?” For the first time, Thomas spoke, and she thought she heard a trace of anxiety in his voice. Did she—could she—truly mean anything to him? If but a seed of affection for her resided in his heart, perhaps it could grow into something that resembled the love he had borne for his deceased wife . . .

“
Yes,” she answered, turning to him. “I will marry you, Reverend Colman.” Hesitantly, she offered her hand, and, after bowing respectfully, he took it without ever looking into her eyes.

“
Well, then,” her uncle said, beaming in a self-satisfied smile. “Let’s be done with it.” As he searched among his books, Jocelyn felt the heavy strength of Thomas’ hand around hers and knew that she had chosen rightly. The same arms that had sheltered her during the storm would hold her throughout life, whether in duty or love, it mattered not . . . for now.

“
Ah, here ‘tis.” John White triumphantly flourished his copy of the
Book of Common Prayer.
“Who marries a minister when the minister’s at sea? The governor, in truth, that’s who,” he said, chuckling as he opened the book. “Mark me, my friends, you’ll be as married by these vows as by any in a church.”

He gave Jocelyn a loving kiss on the forehead before he began to read the marriage service, but Jocelyn scarcely heard his words.
Her eyes turned to the sea again, and her father’s face seemed to appear in every gentle ruffle of the waves, his voice echoed in the ceremonial tones of her uncle as he read. “Boldly, faithfully, successfully,” her father’s words rang in her memory. “Boldly go, faithfully serve, successfully live . . .”

“
Jocelyn White, will you be married to this man?”

Startled, she turned her face from the window.
“I will.”

“Thomas Colman, will you be married to this woman?”

“
Yes, I will.” Thomas did not look at her as he spoke.

“
Then in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I pronounce that you are husband and wife this day.” Her uncle snapped the prayer book shut and folded his hands behind his back. “I believe ‘tis proper to have a ring, reverend sir. Have you anything that will suffice?”

Thomas gave her a quick, denying glance, and Jocelyn pulled her right hand from his grasp.
“I have this,” she said, removing the ring that had not left her finger since her father placed it there. She pressed it into Thomas’ palm.

“
Place it on the fourth finger of her left hand, for there it will lie closest to her heart,” White instructed.

Thomas fumbled with the ring for a moment, gave Jocelyn an embarrassed smile, and slipped it onto the proper finger.
For an instant they stood awkward and still, then John White’s rough voice boomed. “I’faith, are you waitin’ for my permission? Kiss your bride, son.”

Thomas stepped forward, lowered his dark head to hers, and Jocelyn’s heart pounded as her husband’s lips made whisper-light contact with her own. She wished for a moment that he would linger, hold her, speak her name, but a breeze blew through the small window and the vane outside the window creaked. John White parted them as he rushed toward the deck. “Praise God, the wind blows!” he cried, flinging the door open.

The freshening wind brought the ship to life.
As the sails cracked and flapped as the breeze tugged at the canvas, seamen and colonists alike broke out of their lethargy and moved toward the deck. Before their eyes the sheets blew out and bellied taut, pulling the ship westward toward Virginia.