A Bride Most Begrudging

by Deeanne Gist

  Her heart fell. Heaven help her, how could she stand this until spring? “Just send me home on the next ship.”

  “We’ve already been through this. Besides, it would be too dangerous. Knowing you, you’d do something dull-witted and then I’d be held responsible.”

  All tender thoughts fled as exasperation surged to replace them. “You take me back, then.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t leave. You’ll have to wait until Josh returns.” He glanced up at the dark sky and she followed his gaze. Gone was the sunset, replaced instead by the iridescence of the moon and stars. He scanned the path ahead of them. “Watch your step. The moon’s shadows can be deceiving.”

  Lifting a corner of her skirt, she nodded, then turned. The night sounds shrouded them as they walked side-by-side to the cottage.

  In the following week, the household fell into a comfortable pattern. Mary rose before dawn to prepare breakfast while Constance saw to Sally. After the men left for the fields, Constance and Sally did simple chores until Mary shooed them off so she could complete the tasks she deemed necessary.

  “Let’s go boo-ee picking!” Sally exclaimed one morning, basket in hand.

  Constance frowned. “I’ve not seen any berries around here. Have you, Mary?”

  “No, mum. There’s sure to be some, though, and I’d be pleased to make you up some flummery.”

  “Have you been berry picking before, Sally?”

  “Yes, with Gamma! I show you.” Sally grasped Constance’s hand, pulling her from the cottage.

  Despite her concern at the twists and turns they took through the forest, they did indeed come across several shrubs covered with very small white berries. Sally picked one, rubbing its waxy coating between her fingers. Constance touched one to her tongue.

  Sally seemed to find that quite amusing. “You don’t eat bay booeez!”

  The child began picking even as she spoke, her confidence such that Constance soon found herself reaching for more. She marveled at the abundance of berries, and the two of them filled the basket with a minimal amount of effort.

  On their way home, they encountered a huge magnolia tree as wide around as Constance was tall. The ground surrounding it lay barren, for the mighty tree’s roots drank up a great deal of the earth’s nourishment and its abundance of intertwining branches and leaves kept any sunlight from filtering through.

  Setting their basket down, Constance walked around the base of the tree, basking in its majesty. Sally followed, balancing herself on one root before hopping to another.

  Constance tipped her head back, experiencing a moment of dizziness as she tried to see all the way to its top. “Imagine, Sally, if this were the paw of some giant creature, its head reaching as high as the heavens, its mouth holding two thousand teeth.”

  “Then we’d be ants.”

  She looked back at Sally. Intrigued, the two squatted down, searching for the insect in question. “Do you see any?”

  Nodding, Sally pointed. “Look! Maybe if we tell them we nice and they tell their ant friends, they won’t sting us no more.”

  Constance chuckled but then froze as just a few feet behind Sally she saw a pair of very brown, very big, very bare feet. She slowly stood and placed herself between Sally and what she now saw was a very-bare-all-over boy of about ten or so years. Thank the good Lord he hadn’t grown into those feet yet.

  He wore not one stitch of clothing and had shaved the entire right side of his head. A crown of spiky black hair ran down the center of his scalp, and straight black hair flowed to his elbow on the left side. He had none of the paint markings on his body that she’d heard so much about, nor did he have the requisite loincloth. Ten years old or not, he was almost as tall as she and the first naked male body she’d ever seen in her life.

  Her face burned as she tried to find a place for her eyes to rest. They honed in on a bow and sack of arrows slung over his shoulder. No sooner had she registered this than he laid them on the ground in front of his feet.

  Well, at least it didn’t appear as if he was going to shoot them, but it didn’t look as if he was going to leave anytime soon either.

  She heard Sally stir behind her. “Sally,” she said with cool authority, “stay right where you are and do not move.”

  All was silent behind her. She didn’t want to risk taking her eyes off of the savage to look at Sally, but a kernel of panic formed at Sally’s immediate acquiescence. “Sally, take hold of my skirt and give it a tug if you understand me.”

  She expelled a breath of relief at the answering tug. The boy stepped over his weapon, advancing slowly.

  “You will curb your rebellious behavior. One act of foolishness here in the colonies could result in your death.” Drew’s words rang again in her head. The boy was unarmed at the moment, but even so, she wouldn’t have much of a chance against those young wiry muscles.

  She briefly thought to send Sally racing but didn’t know what the boy’s reaction would be, nor did she know how many others were at this very moment hidden amidst the forestry watching. That, more than anything else, kept her immobile.

  The boy’s face held no expression. No signs of anger, friendship, curiosity, ill will. Nothing.

  He stood before her now, a mere inch or two shorter than she. He moved his arm and she jumped. A flicker of disapproval ran across his face.

  She had to calm down. She would wait until she had an inkling of his intentions, then go from there. Meanwhile, she’d do well to use her age to whatever advantage she could. She lifted her chin a mite and cocked an eyebrow.

  He pushed in her cheek with one callused finger, then continued with his poking on her nose and chin. She decided to poke his cheek, nose, and chin. She’d gotten in no more than one poke when he jerked his head back and swatted her hand, his shock evident.

  She widened her shoulders, stood to her full height and gave him her best glare, right down her nose. He seemed amused at that but disliked it mightily when she swatted his hand away.

  After verbalizing what she assumed was a command, he tugged loose the strings of her cap. Saints that be, she trusted poking each others’ faces was not some kind of mating ritual. No, she must get a hold of herself. He was but ten years. She hoped.

  “Sally, if I tell you to run, then you run as fast as your feet can carry you to...” Where to send her? Supposing other savages were at the cottage or were on their way? “Do you know where your brother and the men work, Sally?”

  “Yes, Sissy.”

  Her seriousness surprised Constance, but she didn’t take time to question her good fortune. “That’s very good. Then, if I tell you to run, you are to fly to Drew and tell him an Indian is with me and Mary might be in trouble. Tug my skirt if you understand.”

  She felt the answering tug. The savage had now pulled the cap from her head. There was no masking his astonishment. He tentatively touched her hair as if it might burn him. Then he spoke to her in an unintelligible tongue while gesturing toward her hair. It was clear he wanted it down.

  Drew’s litany returned with vigor. “You will curb your rebellious behavior.”

  Perhaps cooperation might indeed be the wisest course. She loosened the coiled braid at the back of her head, pulling the plait to rest across her shoulder. The boy sucked in his breath, lifted the end of her braid, and led her like an animal to his sack of arrows.

  Tales the English traders recounted of scalps that hung on lines stretching between two trees assailed her. When the Indian removed one of his arrows, Constance filled her lungs. “Run, Sally, run! Now!”

  She heard the child scrambling away. The boy jerked Constance’s braid, a string of gibberish coming from his mouth. The language might have been foreign to her, but the tone and scowl on his face were universal. Tears sprung to her eyes at the force of his jerk. His eyes shot to Sally before returning to her and voicing his displeasure again.

  When he took to shaking his arrow in her face much like a mother scolding a child, a surge
of anger spurted through her. With Sally gone, it was between the savage and herself. If he thought for one minute she’d meekly let some naked whelp have her scalp or anything else, he was in for a surprise. With a strength borne from fear and backed up with prayer, she shoved the young warrior right off his feet. Unfortunately, he still had hold of her braid. She went right down with him, gasping from the pain.

  He quickly rolled atop her, pinning her arms beneath his knees. She bucked and kicked and squirmed. “Get off me, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen toad! You’ll not get one lock of hair without a fight, the likes of which you’ve never seen before. Now, get thy brown nakedness off me!”

  When she reduced her struggles to catch her breath, she saw that the boy had a huge smile across his face. He said something to her, nodded his head in agreement with himself, and said it again. He then, without a by your leave, lifted her braid, chopped off a good six inches with his arrow, and jumped to his feet.

  The shock of it held her immobile for no more than ten seconds before she was on her feet, running after him. He’d already grabbed his bow and arrows and was darting off into the forest.

  “Come back here, you cutpurse! Come back here so I can hack off a length of your hair and see how you like it!” The boy was as swift as a rushing river and out of sight before she’d even finished her outburst.

  Grabbing the sudden stitch in her side, she stopped and sucked in gulps of air. Thank heavens she’d sent Sally away. Her rich dark hair would have been much more of a prize for him. As her heartbeat slowed, she rubbed her sore head, then lifted her newly shorn braid.

  How dare that heathen do such a thing. Never had she taken a pair of scissors to her hair. She might not care for it too terribly much, but it had been with her for nineteen years and she’d not planned on giving it up anytime soon.

  Sally is alone in the woods.

  The thought whipped through Constance, sending her heartbeat back up to a horrendous speed. Worse yet, Constance had no idea where the tobacco fields were and therefore, no idea which way Sally had headed. Whirling around, she raced toward home. Drew and several of the men met her before she’d even made it a quarter of the way.

  “Sally?” she cried.

  Scanning the forest around her, Drew slid to a stop. “Sally’s fine. They have left?”

  Relief poured over Constance before being replaced by fury, the likes of which she didn’t even try to suppress. “How should I know? One minute we were relaxing under a magnolia, the next minute some knotty-pated youth was waving an arrow in my face.”

  Drew had the men fan out to check the area while keeping a few to watch his back.

  She lifted up her shortened braid. “Look what that impudent goat did! He whacked off my hair!”

  Drew fingered her hair, but held fast her gaze.

  “And I thought those savages wore clothes! He had not one stitch on. Why, I understood that even the less important ones wore grass and the like, but this one must have been in the lowest of the classes, for he wore not one single blessed thing. He was naked, Drew. Naked. And with Sally right there and he not the least bit concerned about it. What’s the matter with these Indians? Haven’t they heard they’re supposed to cover themselves? Just how backward are these heathens?”

  The men returned with no sign of any Indians. Drew sent them back to the fields, all the while fingering her braid. “He was a youth, then?”

  “Yes, thank God, but he was a sturdy one. When I shoved him down, you’d have thought that little chest of his was made of armor.”

  “You shoved him down?!”

  “Of course! You think I’d let some runny-nosed youngster scalp me without a fight?”

  Cursing under his breath, he quickly surveyed the area again, grabbed her hand, and started jogging home. “We needs must go.”

  She threw a glance behind her. “Are they after us?”

  “I hope not.”

  She put a hand to her head but didn’t slow. “My cap. In the confusion I left it and the basket of berries behind.”

  “Where?”

  “By a big magnolia tree.”

  “We can’t go back now. I’ll fetch them later when I can better ascertain the situation. Now hush and concentrate on the path. I want you not to stumble.”

  They made it home without further incident, but she could plainly see Drew was worried. Mary put a pot of cider on to warm then sifted dirt from some floured corn.

  Sighing, Constance lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, allowed Sally to climb into her lap, then watched Drew pace the cottage floor, musket in hand.

  His face was creased, his mind far away. She tried to catch his attention, but he was having none of it. If he didn’t stop soon, though, she’d become dizzy just from watching.

  Pulling her braid across her shoulder, she unraveled it, wincing at the tenderness in her scalp. Sally placed a thumb in her mouth and snuggled against Constance’s shoulder. Thank goodness the child was safe. Shaken, maybe, but safe.

  Constance combed her fingers through her own hair, swallowing back her tears as she looked at its jagged edges. She could have been killed, so what were a few inches of hair? The tears, however, continued to threaten.

  Drew had stopped his pacing and was watching her.

  She rubbed a lock between two fingers. “The boy had no hair on one side of his head. Is that some sort of punishment they use to control ill-behaved boys?”

  “No. The Powhatan men shave the right side of their heads to keep it from becoming entangled with the bowstring when they’re preparing to shoot.”

  “What of the women?”

  “The unmarried girls have the front and sides of their heads shaven but allow the back to grow long. The married women allow all their hair to grow.”

  “Are they pretty?”

  “Beautiful. Of an exquisite and delicate shape. Had they fair skin...well.”

  Constance shifted uneasily on the bed. “Sally wanted to pick bayberries.”

  He took to pacing again. “You should have found plenty. They’re everywhere right now.”

  “What do you use them for?”

  “Candles, soap, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh. Well, Sally handled herself rather remarkably for a moppet of her age.”

  He looked at the child, a suggestion of a smile crossing his lips. “You’ve Grandma to thank for that. She prepared all of us for danger from the moment we learned to talk.”

  “How? How do you teach a three-year-old such a thing?”

  “You’ll have to ask Grandma.”

  He moved to the square hole cut into the cottage’s wall, surveying the area outside. “Constance?”

  “What is it?” She ceased to breathe. “Do you see something?”

  He shook his head. “No, not right now. But I want you to know that having lived here all my life, I speak some of the native tongue. Still, there are various signs the Indians use for those who don’t speak.“ The long barrel of his musket rested against his leg. “When an Indian lays down his weapon, it is an indication of peaceful intentions.”

  She stiffened. “Whacking off someone’s hair is not what I consider peaceful.”

  He glanced at her, then returned his attention to the clearing. “Compared to losing your life, it is. They don’t as a habit, though, chop off braids. I can only hope it’s because he’d never seen red hair before.”

  “It’s auburn.”

  “It’s red and I’m surprised he didn’t kill you for shoving him down. The only explanation I can think of was that he was alone and no one witnessed his dishonor.

  “We’ve had 'friendly’ relations with the Powhatans for twenty years now, but there are several in our settlement, including me, who lost family members in the Massacre of ‘22. It will take many more peaceful years before the trust between the savages and the colonists is fully restored.”

  She stilled. He’d lost someone in the massacre? She pulled Sally closer. Now was most probably not th
e time to ask. “Are you saying I could have started a war because I didn’t willingly give him my hair?”

  “If he had killed you, yes.”

  She sat in shock, thinking of all the lives that could have been affected if the boy had brought another with him or if she’d provoked him beyond what was acceptable. A wave of vulnerability swept through her. “I want to go home. Better I do something dull-witted on a ship than here. That way, I’ve only my own life to answer for.”

  Withdrawing from the window, he moved to retrieve his hat from a peg. “You’ll not be going anywhere, Constance. Now you know relations are supposed to be friendly...unless, of course, they come painted for war or they neglect to lay down their weapons.”

  “What does it mean when they poke your nose, chin, and cheeks?”

  He paused for several moments before a smile tugged at his lips. “I imagine it means he had never seen freckles before.”

  Freckles. A pox on those wretched things. Then a smile hovered on her lips. No wonder the boy was so appalled when she poked his face. “Where are you going?”

  “To get your cap and berries.”

  “All is well, then?”

  From the shelf, he took a small charger filled with gunpowder that was secured to a circle of rope. Slipping it over his head, he opened the door. “I’ll soon find out. Bar the door and window and stay inside until I return.”

  She swiftly moved Sally off her lap, all hints of amusement gone from her face, and barred the door while Mary barred the window.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The noon sun winked off the sea of tobacco, reminding Drew of his boyhood. Back then, he’d shared this task with his father while the tobacco plants towered above his and Josh’s heads. Now, he stood surrounded by servants and the tobacco barely reached his shoulder.

  A gentle breeze ruffled the crop set not in straight neat rows, but planted in what appeared a haphazard fashion, each plant in its own little mound of dirt a few paces apart from the others. The sturdy green plants had been snapped off at the top, allowing the strength of the plant to flow into its long broad leaves.