Tidewater Bride

by Laura Frantz

  Selah marked time by Shay’s going. Only a few more days and they’d return to James Towne for ceremonies initiating the exchange. For now, as she stood in their new garden, making rows and hills and watering the precious seed Xander had given them and that which they’d brought, all else faded beneath the glaring Tidewater sun.

  “Mother, should we plant the rose cuttings here or over there?” Selah asked, blinking in the glare, her thoughts mired in moonlight and Xander.

  “Train them up against the kitchen wall.” Candace’s voice reined in her daughter’s woolgathering. “Thankfully, the honeysuckle planted by the last tenant is full of health and vigor.”

  Selah gave an appreciative glance at the luxuriant vine shading the arbor between house and kitchen.

  Hours later, their backs pinched from bending over, the garden was done. Purslane, French beans, lettuces, parsnips, artichokes, maize, and Ustis’s prized potatoes. A lush if late harvest to put away for winter and to share with those in need.

  Ustis returned from the warehouse, his hymn singing heard far down the shore, ahead of supper.

  Selah didn’t miss her mother’s relieved expression. “I was about to ring the bell.”

  “Forgive my tardiness. Business continued brisk till the last and has quite worn me out.” He all but fell into his chair, smiling despite it all. “I see the lines of worry about your face, dear wife. But I assure you I am better than when I left James Towne.”

  “I think we are all better than when we left James Towne. And have better neighbors.”

  Selah did not miss the glance cast her way by not one but both of her parents. Warming like the sassafras tonic she held, she couldn’t help a fleeting smile.

  “I dreamt I heard hoofbeats a few nights ago. Mayhap a midnight visitation of the manly sort?” Ustis inquired, and Candace could not withhold a chuckle. “Does our fair daughter have something to report?”

  Selah set the cup in front of her father. “Only that Master Renick came by, inquiring about your health.”

  “Kind of him.” Candace took a seat nearest her husband. “Did he mention Oceanus’s return?”

  “He did, indeed. Any day now.”

  “How welcome it will be to have him close. We’re so near Rose-n-Vale I expect we shall hear the lad’s voice carry.”

  “A pleasant thought.”

  “I hope he’ll find a playmate in Watseka.” Candace grew grave. “An only child can be quite lonely.”

  “Which reminds me that today the widow from Martin’s Hundred came to buy,” Ustis said. “The one with a great many children. She inquired after you and Selah—and Xander. She said she’d heard he’d helped us move.”

  “Widow Hastings? She is said to favor him.” Candace took a second cup from Selah’s hands. “He certainly has the means to support so large a brood, and Oceanus would have a great many brothers and sisters.”

  Ustis sipped, then winced with distaste. Sassafras was not his favorite. “I’ve lost count of how many children have the Hastingses, yet I fear their great number contributed to their father’s demise.”

  “Ustis!” His droll remarks did not deter Candace’s chastening. “Need I remind you that children are a heritage from the Lord, all eleven of them.”

  “Merciful heavens,” he replied. “Though I do recall a brood of seventeen at Flowerdew Hundred . . .”

  Selah listened, the mere power of suggestion sending her into a swirl of discontent. Little wonder the widow favored Xander. More than the widow, in truth. Withholding a sigh, she went to the door to look for Shay.

  “I doubt he’ll be home till our resident owl begins hooting,” Ustis said of the creature who roosted in a near oak. “Shay is exercised by the notion that gold is to be found hereabouts and is best spotted in the dark.”

  “The fanciful imaginings of a lad,” Candace replied, breaking into soft song. “‘Thy crimson stockings all of silk, with gold all wrought above the knee; Thy pumps as white as was the milk; and yet thou wouldst not love me.’”

  “‘Greensleeves,’” Ustis murmured, closing his eyes.

  Selah walked outside to look for Shay. Foolishly, she’d hoped he’d keep to home, spend his remaining time before the exchange with them. But there was simply no curtailing her brother’s rambles or predicting his wayward timing once he did return home.

  She pressed her fingers to her lips, pondering that interrupted, would-be kiss, till a sudden rustle in the brush emptied her head of such. Whirling, she stared into the tangle of overgrowth that led deeper into the woods. A deer, perhaps. A wily raccoon. Or one of the dreaded poison snakes so common in Virginia.

  Beset with gooseflesh, she sent up a breathless call to her brother. “Shay, please come home!”

  He appeared soon after, clutching a small lump of ore shot through with glittery specks. “See, I am fine, Sister. No need to worry way out here. I was simply looking for gold and found this. What say you?”

  “Rock crystal? A fetching addition to your collection.”

  With a last look at the secretive woods, Selah followed him inside, shutting the door and barring it soundly behind them.

  Come the Sabbath, the reality of their upriver existence took further hold as they gathered for worship at the edges of Renick land. There, in a comely little glade, stood a church set upon a cobblestone foundation and crowned with a wooden roof and belfry. One of the “chapels of ease,” as the mother country called it, erected in shires far from James Towne. Behind the church was fenced ground where sunlight spread yellow light over too many crosses.

  Xander stood with several men near the open chapel door as congregants from across the shire gathered. Though church attendance was required but once a month, this building looked filled to the brim. Oft settlers came merely to socialize, but who could blame them?

  In moments, Xander greeted the Hopewells, looking pleased they’d come. “Welcome to our parish. You’ll find we stand on no ceremony. Here we have no altar but pulpit, no priest but itinerant preacher. Keith is his name.”

  “If the gospel is preached, all is well, aye?” Ustis took his walking stick from Candace while Shay hobbled his horse. “Such progress since sixteen and seven, when James Towne’s first church was held outside beneath an old sail for an awning!”

  “Surely there’s no prettier place to worship in all of Virginia, or to be laid to rest,” Candace remarked. “I recall you had this chapel’s foundation laid soon after you settled at Rose-n-Vale, or Renick Hundred as it was once called.”

  “It took several years for all the bricks to be had, but ’tis finally finished.” He excused himself as a man sought his attention about some matter inside, leaving Selah slightly openmouthed as she watched him go.

  Shay elbowed her. “Sister, are you struck dumb?”

  Was she? Another window had been flung open, allowing her to see Xander in a new light. “I’m rather surprised to find so comely a chapel in the woods, is all.”

  Congregants moved slowly through the chapel’s open doors, trading sunlight for welcome shade. She did not miss the Sabbath parade of James Towne officials in their finery commanding the foremost pews. Here there were mostly indentures and small planters dressed in their humble best. A few married men with families. A knot of older goodwives. As Selah moved toward the entrance, another startling realization took hold. Might they—the Hopewells—be considered gentry among these people? They were drawing noticeable stares and whispers.

  When she tarried on the step outside, Shay turned toward her. “Sister, will you not enter in?”

  Aye, and repent of thinking Xander a heathen.

  Duly chastened, she bent her head as the bell ceased tolling above them and followed her family to their seats.

  Forgive me, Lord.

  The service opened with a morning prayer and Scripture reading. Most of Virginia’s pulpits were empty, awaiting clerics to be appointed by the Bishop of London. But few men of the cloth wanted so rustic a church.

  “Lay n
ot up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also . . .”

  Selah’s head was bowed, but her gaze strayed to the men’s side. Though she’d heard the scriptural admonishment all her days, the words seemed to leap to new life. Xander seemed turned to stone on the front pew, though a muscle twitched in his bewhiskered cheek.

  Was he . . . convicted?

  Was ambition not her foremost concern about him? Vainglorious pursuits? He was amassing earthly treasure like no one she knew in all Virginia. And forever emboldened to do more with Virginia’s unceasing efforts to prove its worth to the king.

  She looked to her hands folded primly in her lap, her lace cuffs painstakingly made and imported. Was such finery necessary? Did she not take pride in the stares of the plainer goodwives here? Could they who were considered “the better sort” not get by with less? Less tobacco? Less indentures? Less Indian land? Yet still they toiled and spun, all of them . . .

  If she felt even a pinprick of self-righteousness, such was swept away by Keith’s next swordlike thrust.

  “Judge not, that ye be not judged . . . And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

  ’Twas as if heaven itself came down and smote her. She blinked, the board in her own eye a painful distraction. Who was she to know Xander’s heart, his aim? Who was she to task him with being a better father? Could she fault him for working tirelessly? Would she rather he be a sluggard?

  The service came to an end, its brevity blasphemous. Worshipers began filing out into fresh air while Xander lingered, exchanging a few words with those nearest him. Clutching her Book of Common Prayer in a gloved hand, Selah made her way out of doors in no hurry. With work forbidden on the Sabbath, their cooking done the day before, they were free to tarry.

  Ustis took a seat beneath a shady elm while Shay joined other lads his age near a creek. Candace greeted the goodwives, their coiffed heads identical, Widow Brodie among them. Matrons all, few of them Selah’s age or station. She put a hand to her own coif. Her freshly washed hair had taken a sheen of beeswax to settle into braids. Even now a flyaway wisp dangled in her eye. The very one Xander had righted on Cecily’s wedding day. With a whoosh of breath, she sent it out of her line of vision.

  “How is your teething babe today, Goody Phelps?”

  “I vow I spied a savage in our very woods whilst gathering herbals.”

  “My husband lies abed with the sweating sickness.”

  “She is no good wife, selling a firkin of butter with stones in it!”

  As the feminine voices rose and fell, Selah skirted their circle, intent on the fenced graveyard. She’d always regretted that graves be so near places of worship, but the powers that be enforced such, just as they’d declared an annual day of the dead to mark the occasion of the last Indian massacre.

  A robin alighted on a fence’s rough railing, its repeated chirp rising above the hubbub in the churchyard. Somewhat assuaged by its sweet song, Selah counted seventeen gravestones of all sizes. Their world, though not as fragile as when first founded, was still a delicate endeavor.

  Xander missed his hat. He didn’t wear it on the Sabbath but now found his hands idle and empty, his heart overfull, his thoughts distracted. Ustis was telling him about the latest tariffs, usually a riveting topic, but try as he might, Selah kept stealing his attention. He swallowed, trying to track what Ustis was saying, for he really was interested, just not as interested as he was in the man’s daughter.

  Framed by the emerald green of early summer, even with the crosses beyond, Selah lent a grace and peace to the otherwise melancholy scene. Hard to fathom he’d once found her paleness uninteresting, her fine features lacking depth and character. She was as comely a lass as the Almighty ever made.

  She turned around just then, her gaze meeting his across the expanse of ground that separated them. Ustis’s next question failed to take root. Xander’s gaze fell to his leather boots. Everything within him urged some decisive action, some heartfelt declaration. Yet now was not the time to ask to woo the daughter of a man soon to part with his son.

  Besides, he might have misread her, been blinded by his own intentions. Selah, independent minded as she was, might tell him to go to blazes. Might even suspect him of trying to marry her to gain her land dowry.

  “. . . I am prepared to part with my son on the morrow. Is all as it should be regarding the exchange commencing at James Towne?”

  “The exchange . . . aye.” Xander returned to full attention. “At first light, we’ll take the shallop that brought you upriver and return to James Towne. The formalities shouldn’t be complicated, and we’ll be home by dusk, Lord willing.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Ustis replied with a wheeze, getting to his feet.

  Selah crossed the grass, eyes for her father alone, worry tightening her features. Not one word to Xander had she spoken. Might Selah begrudge him separating an ailing father from his son, despite Ustis’s insistence?

  Xander walked behind the stooped figure, ready to step in if he stumbled, as Selah placed her hand on her father’s arm in silent support. Candace and Shay joined them, all assuming a slower pace.

  “Won’t you join us for the Sabbath meal, Xander?” Candace’s gracious invitation was tempting, but he wouldn’t intrude on their remaining time together before Shay departed even if he had no excuse.

  “We’re hosting the preacher today. Another Sabbath, mayhap.”

  His aunt joined them, finally extricating herself from the garrulous goodwives. “Perhaps you Hopewells can join us at Rose-n-Vale next time.”

  With a few last words that he’d see them in the morning, he turned to go.

  “Soon we shall have a few more seated around our own table,” his aunt said as he helped her into a pony cart.

  More than the Hopewells, aye. A stranger of a nurse. A stranger of a son. The prospect lent to his loose ends the nearer he drew to the unknown date of their arrival. Uncomfortable as he was making small talk, shepherding children, and entertaining guests, how would he manage? Though his aunt was elated at having more than Ruby and Jett for company, he held fast to the habit of answering to no one, of working through meals and into the night if warranted. The world as he knew it would soon change. Again.

  Lord, help Thou me.

  20

  Truly, heartfelt conversations required no words.

  Pondering it, Selah left the churchyard to walk home as Xander and his aunt went another direction. Only Father rode, the two-mile stretch too much in his recovering state. He plodded along on his old gelding, an amiable creature that preferred a slow walk. They all kept a companionable silence, and Selah looked back but once.

  As did Xander.

  The smile she couldn’t hide she felt to her toes. Proof she wasn’t conjuring castles in the air. Were they not going to extraordinary lengths to hide their unprofessed feelings while forgetting their eyes had a language all their own?

  Dismay and delight did a bittersweet dance inside her. Dismay that she could be so easily swayed by the bearded tobacco lord whose work habits and earthly strivings she disdained. Delight that love, even unconfessed, might have come to them at last, triumphing over the struggles and heartaches of years.

  Shay trailed behind with her, a telling light in his eyes. “Sister, why are you whistling? ’Tis unbecoming of a lady, some say.”

  The next morn, brazen sunlight beat down upon James Towne as two hundred or more English and Naturals assembled on the grassy common. Xander’s smallest shallop was but one of many, the Powhatans’ vessels foremost and far more colorful. Selah saw Cecily and others she knew at a distance, but with the crowds so thick, a fleeting glance was all that could be had.

  �
��So, my beloved son, are you prepared for this momentous day?” Ustis’s voice held a beat of regret, at least to Selah, as they took their places near the English officials.

  “Aye, Father. I shall do you proud.” Shay’s gaze ricocheted to Candace. “Mother, are you ready for Watseka?”

  “Indeed. We must have someone to replace you, even if she wears a skirt.”

  Shay laughed, no skittishness written upon his boyish features. “I shall miss you all. But when I return, I shall fill your empty ears with adventures!”

  A hush came over the assembly as a procession of Powhatans came up from the shore. Every eye seemed riveted to Chief Opechancanough, who rarely left his own territory. Formidable and half a foot taller than the tallest colonist, he was marvelously made, covered by a cloak of feathers that fell to his knees. His sharp features were paint blackened and slashed red with puccoon, a valuable plant gotten farther south. His aging face held a thousand stories.

  All that Mattachanna had once confided returned to Selah now. Hard to fathom that this man, the emperor of the Powhatan nation, was Mattachanna’s kin. Perhaps he wouldn’t look so fearsome if not flanked by so many werowances and weroansquas, those favored attendants with special standing. If fear could be felt, it was here, weighting so many solemn white faces in the chief’s presence.

  A silent prayer rose from Selah’s chary heart. For Shay’s and the other children’s protection. For peace. For the success of this exchange that seemed so fraught with risk.

  At the crux of the ceremonies was Xander, first to greet the dark delegation as head interpreter. Once the Naturals assembled, his English words, when translated, were still cloaked in native imagery.

  “We desire to open a path between nations, to remove the brush and briars, to enact a peace that will last as long as the sun provides warmth, the trees give shade, and the rivers run with water.”

  Beside Governor Harvey’s stiff self-importance, Xander’s apparent ease and eloquence were jarring. Selah felt naught but shame as the officials oozed an unseemly arrogance, which had surely sent her father upriver as much as James Towne’s marshes and miasmas. Unlike them, Xander showed no impatience for the long speeches or the elaborate gift giving, nor the sun’s heat as it climbed overhead. Beside him was Meihtawk, an especially welcome sight, who came regularly to their shore.