Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) (28 page)

Eleanor pressed her lips together. ‘Twas nothing she could say to him when he was in such a mood.

“Well,” he snapped, tossing his cloak to her. “Aren
’t you going to inquire where I’ve been?”

“
‘Tis obvious you’ve been hunting,” she answered, hanging his cloak on a peg.

“Are you certain?” he taunted, standing his musket near the door. “How do you know I wasn
’t with one of the servant girls? Aren’t you going to send your spies among the villagers to establish how I spent my afternoon?”

Eleanor turned and lowered her voice, mindful of Jocelyn in the attic. “Soft, Ananias, I have forgiven you, have I not said so? You gave me your word that it would not happen again, and I have chosen to trust you.”

“Then why do you look at me like that every time I come in late?”

“How do I look at you?” She found herself hissing.

“Like I’m an adulterer! If you are still upset about the child in England—”

“I
’m not upset. I just wish you’d told me before we married.” She lowered her voice and sat on her stool near the fire. “‘Tis an awful surprise, to hear that your husband’s got a child hidden out in the country. What was I supposed to think? I couldn’t help wondering how many others can call you papa—”

His jaw clenched. “I
’ve done nothing since we married, Eleanor. I’ve not been unfaithful to you.”

“A husband can be unfaithful in more than one way.” She bit her lip, instantly regretting her words. “I trust you, Ananias, the past is past, so pray let the matter lie.”

“Yet you look at me with hate in your eyes.”

She sighed and leaned her head on her hand. “I look at you with less than love because I am tired. Your guilt drives you to believe otherwise.”

“My guilt?” Ananias thrust his hands on his hips. “First you, and then the minister. Every eye in the colony turns on me with suspicion.”

Eleanor felt her heart beat faster. “They don
’t know—”

“No.” Ananias waved away her concerns. “They think I am a heathen, an apostate, an ungodly leader because I would have led them to neglect their duties to God. If not for that cursed Thomas Colman—”

“Pray hold your tongue!” Eleanor lifted her eyes to the ceiling and pointed upward. “My cousin is in the attic with the baby.”

“Think you that I care?” Ananias snorted, falling onto a stool by the fire. “He is a cursed minister, and
‘tis time Jocelyn learned the truth. He would not have married her—”

Eleanor reached out and grabbed his arm. “Ananias, please!”

He thrust her off with a powerful push and stood beneath the opening to the attic. “He would not have married Jocelyn at all if not for our governor’s arrangement,” he called up the stairs. “A poor man, Thomas Colman was, without the money for passage. Rather than sell himself into indentured service, the honorable John White arranged for the minister to marry his niece.”

“Ananias!” Eleanor screamed in fury, her patience gone.

The muscles in Ananias’ face tightened into a mask of rage, but he continued. “That cursed minister
bought
his way into this family! The governor himself would wash his hands of the entire affair if he were here!”

Eleanor trembled, resisting the urge to fly at him, then he yanked his cloak from the wall and slammed the door as he stormed into the night.

Eleanor fell onto her bed, shaking beyond control. What he had done was monstrously cruel, with Jocelyn so vulnerable. She did not have to look up to know that Jocelyn’s pale face peered down from the attic. “A pox upon him!” Eleanor whispered, clenching her fists. “He didn’t mean it, coz; he was angry.”
Please believe me.

She heard the swish of Jocelyn
’s garments upon the stairs, then, stone-faced, Jocelyn slipped her cloak over her shoulders. “The baby is asleep,” she whispered, tying the ribbon of her cloak. “She will sleep till the morrow, I think.”

Jocelyn turned toward the door, and Eleanor rose up and caught her hand. The younger girl
’s eyes shone like a wounded animal’s.

Eleanor tried to inject confidence into her voice. “In truth, Ananias does not know what of what he speaks. Whatever you have heard here today,
‘tis best forgotten.”

Jocelyn stared blankly past her, then turned again for the door. “I give you good day, coz. Sleep well.”

Jocelyn did not say a word to Thomas during supper, and he seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice her silence. Audrey shot Jocelyn a questioning glance once, but after Thomas had climbed up to his attic and the women had settled downstairs, Audrey fell asleep without any discussion of the chilly supper.

But Jocelyn could not sleep. The initial shock of the afternoon
’s revelation had worn off, and Jocelyn slumped into morose musings as she lay in the darkness. The heaviness in her chest felt like a millstone, the thickness of her belly a terrible burden. No wonder the baby seemed a horror to him. He had not married her out of affection or even friendship—Thomas Colman had proposed marriage to avoid servitude!

The truth stung like salt upon an open wound. She had believed, given the advance of their friendship upon the ship, that he at least considered her an equal, someone with whom he might build a passable marriage. She had known he did not love her, but she had thought he enjoyed her company.

But it had all been a pretense, an act. The most holy and reverend Thomas Colman had married her only to keep his own life free from the bonds of her uncle’s service.

She had thought her husband a great and selfless man.

In truth he was a selfish opportunist. In truth—she shuddered—he had taken her into his arms not out of love, but for the basest reasons imaginable. No wonder he had been reviled by her pregnancy. The entire world would know that the minister who proclaimed holiness was anything but holy and pure.

How could she live with this knowledge? What, if anything, should she tell the community? The colonists were giving their time to build the church at his insistence when they should have been gathering food and skins for the winter. Mayhap he intended to move to the church himself. Mayhap the colony should have listened to Ananias.

The life within her stirred, and Jocelyn’s hand automatically sheltered her unborn child. Exposing her husband would bring the greatest humiliation she had ever known. To admit she had been duped, bought, bartered like a cheap necklace—’twould be too much to bear. And the child—what would the others think of the child she carried?

No wonder he had been repulsed by the news of her pregnancy. An honest marriage, with children, was the last thing he wanted.

Why, God, have you led me to this man?
her heart cried silently as she gazed up at the ceiling.
How much more pain and sacrifice will you demand of me? I was certain I followed your will by marrying Thomas, and yet he does not love me, he does not love the baby I carry. I married him because my father wanted me to go to Virginia; I married him because I believed you were speaking through my uncle John. I thought I could love enough for both of us, for I have your own love in my heart, but why is it so difficult? I want to trust you, I want to believe that Thomas will change, but the darkness in him is great and my candle is so small . . .

Huddling in the darkness, Jocelyn bit her clenched fist. Sobs threatened to erupt from within her as she grappled with her thoughts. For the sake of the child, she could not publicly denounce him. The others would have to decide for themselves whether to follow the minister or Ananias, but she could not ruin the life of her baby before the child had even seen the light of day. After all, marriages were arranged every day, and there was no shame in the truth that her uncle had apparently chosen Thomas Colman as her husband. The terms of the matrimonial agreement were no one else
’s concern. Surely the colonists had more pressing needs to consider.

No one else need know what she had learned in Eleanor
’s house, but she knew she had to confront Thomas with the truth. And after that, she would trust God to show her what to do.

Jocelyn waited until Audrey had left to fetch water the next morning before lifting her eyes to look at her husband. He sat at the board, his eyes on his bowl of breakfast pottage, and actually jumped when she said his name.

“Pray do not frighten me,” he said, giving her an abashed smile. “I was thinking about my sermon.”

“I know.” She regarded him impassively, having spent all her tears during the night. Knowing full well that her words had the power to drive all thoughts of a sermon from his mind, she spoke up: “Did you think you could forever hide the truth, Thomas? Ananias told me yesterday about the terms of our marriage. You had no money for the voyage, and agreed to marry me rather than become my uncle
’s servant.”

Thomas stopped chewing for a moment, then he put down his biscuit and cleared his throat. “Ananias was wrong to tell you that, Jocelyn.”

“Do you deny it?”

“No. It is true.” She felt her last hope slip away. Some resilient part of her had clung to the thought that perhaps Ananias had lied in a fit of anger and jealousy, but Thomas confirmed the story without flinching.

“So, in truth, you married me to free yourself.”

“There
’s no gainsaying that, but ‘tis not the entire story.” He leaned forward and for a moment she thought he would take her hand, but he made a fist and blinked nervously. “I struck the bargain with your uncle, but decided not to marry you after we were on board.”

Her temper flared. “Was I so horrible?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But I knew you uncle wanted us to marry, so I—”

“You had him ask me to marry you. And I agreed, and we were married, and you
’ve regretted it ever since.”

A wall seemed to come up behind his eyes. “I have had my regrets.”

Jocelyn felt a rock fall through her heart. Silently she slipped from her stool and tied her cloak around her shoulders. Despite his repeated pleas, she left the house and walked through the village.

Nothing mattered except her escape. In a day, perhaps two, she would think clearly, but nothing seemed clear now. She was beyond all pain expect a harrowing headache that pounded her temples, and she ignored the shouted greetings from other women and walked straight toward the beach.

She would leave Roanoke. She would leave Virginia, if she could. Perhaps a Spanish vessel would sail by; she would climb aboard with no qualms whatsoever and sail wherever it chose to take her. She would wander into an Indian camp, sit by the fire and never rise again, not even if they cut her throat.

She was eighteen, and filled with such pain that not even death could frighten her.

She walked for three hours down the beach. When the southern beach curved into the west, she paused. There was no place to go. Nothing lay before her but sand, surf, and December’s bitter howling wind. No boat to take her south to Croatoan or west to the mainland. No worried husband searching for her. No father to take her home.

She wrung her hands, not knowing where to go, and felt the cold hardness of her father
’s ring around her finger. Boldly, faithfully, successful, bah! ‘Twas all a monstrous joke. She had tried to live for God, to be a good wife, to work hard in the colony, and for what? Despite her efforts, she was cowardly, faithless, and a miserable failure. She wasn’t pretty enough to hold her husband’s interest. She wasn’t even godly enough to earn his respect.

A thick stand of forest stood a distance behind the beach, and Jocelyn turned toward the woods, wanting to lose herself. When at last the trees surrounded her in a sanctuary of silence, she walked until she was exhausted, then lay down upon a wide, flat rock and slid into a thin sleep.

She dreamed easily of home, of England and her father, of books and a crackling fire and her father’s merry voice as he sang and they danced in the small hall of their cozy house. The fire crackled louder and louder, but gave no heat, and suddenly she woke and remembered where she was.

Her eyes flew open in time to see a nearby crow flap into flight. The crackling sounds had certainly come from him. She closed her eyes in relief, then felt tiny tremor of fear that had nothing to do with the darkness of the forest. The wind hooted around her, a breeze lifted her hair from her brow. When she opened her eyes again, a savage boy stood in front of her.

All lingering wisps of sleep vanished as she pushed herself up to look at him. The boy wore a stenciled breechcloth, and his face and chest were painted in bright designs of red and black. A deerskin hung around his shoulders, and his glossy ebony hair had been pulled back and braided with many feathers. He held a bow into which an arrow had been mounted, but he made no move to raise the bow or disturb her. His bright eyes were wide with youthful curiosity. Jocelyn judged him to be about nine years old.

After her initial alarm had passed, she made an effort to smile. “Hello,” she whispered, and the boy took a step backward. So he was wary of her, a helpless pregnant woman! She tempered her smile and struggled to remember the few Indian words her uncle had taught her. “Hau,” she said, slowly nodding.