Tidewater Bride

by Laura Frantz

  Her mother entered in, carrying the finished shroud and a vial of brass pins. Behind her, Widow Brodie held the chin strap used in preparing the body for burial.

  Selah touched the woolen cloth, brought it to her face, and dried her tears. Father . . . Father. There were not words enough for the ashes inside her. All that solaced was the simplest of God’s holy promises.

  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

  Widow Brodie settled on the edge of the bed. “My dear, I sense there is much turmoil inside you, which neither my presence nor consolations can mend. I hope Alexander can set things right concerning Watseka. I pray continually for his speedy return, as I do your return to health.”

  Selah made no reply. She lay back as they went out to prepare her father to lie beneath the heavy ledger stone inscribed to bear witness to his life’s work.

  Here Lyeth the Body of Ustis Hopewell

  One of the Ancient Planters

  Cape Merchant, Virginia Colony

  Aged 64 Years

  Deceased the 19th of August 1634

  The next sweltering day wore on feverishly. Xander was not yet at peace leaving Oceanus again, though he was heartened by how readily the lad took to native life. Mattachanna’s heart would leap for joy to see her son stripped to buckskins and bow and arrow, running free with Shay and the other youth. He took to the water like a river herring and was soon swimming and diving for shellfish. Already his head and shoulders bore the red paint of the Puccoon root.

  By the time he returned home ahead of Christmastide, Oceanus would boast a Powhatan name and speak their tongue. While Xander wanted the son of his heart, his heir, to escape the noose-narrowed English perspective with its damning prejudices and pride, he also wanted him safe from the abominable superstition and mysticism of Powhatan werowances. Free of hatred for the Tassantassas, the English. A tall order for a child of mixed blood.

  That night before he would leave the Powhatans, Oceanus’s voice came to him in the wee small hours, slurred by sleep. “Father . . .”

  “I am right beside you.”

  “I am happy here. But I shall miss you, Father.”

  “And I you.”

  “Sometimes I cannot remember what Mother looked like. I cannot see her in my head. Only in my dreams.”

  “But you feel her in your heart, aye?”

  “In my heart . . .” He yawned and turned over again. “Always.”

  Blinded by tears as much as the heavy darkness around them, Xander drew the boy nearer into the curve of his large frame.

  His desire to hurry and return to Rose-n-Vale ebbed.

  The day of Father’s burial was fraught with wind and heat lightning. The river roiled and tossed, lapping at both shores with foamy spray, the water not tranquil blue but churlish brown. At dawn Selah rose with the rest of the household, intent on taking the shallop to James Towne. But when she stood too suddenly and nearly fainted, her mother was quick to remind her she was unfit to travel and the physic had forbidden it. Widow Brodie would accompany Candace overland in a wagon driven by Rose-n-Vale’s indentures.

  Mindful of the solemnity of the day, Selah sat in the parlor, dozing and reading by turns. The mantel clock seemed to stand still. Widow Brodie had brought her a basket of books—fairy tales and Shakespeare’s sonnets. These she could manage with one hand. Her sewing remained untouched, the garden with its colorful squash and late corn all but abandoned. Gradually the wind waned by suppertime, a meal mostly untouched. When her mother returned at dusk, she said little.

  Selah greeted her with an embrace, alarmed by her washed-out pallor.

  “I am going to retire, Daughter. I’ll share details about your father’s interment later. Please tell Izella I shan’t be having supper.”

  The days following left Selah feeling a prisoner to four walls. Bereft of both Father and Shay, their days assumed a hollow emptiness naught could mend. Visitors had ceased, and Laurent was summoned to another shire to treat an outbreak of some malady there. Izella was at work in the kitchen, and the musketeer was down by the river’s edge. Thus the cage of Selah’s grief cracked open and sent her tiptoeing out of doors while her mother sat napping near a window, her mending in her lap.

  Unable to saddle the mare, she rode without, though it took all her strength to mount the block and gain the horse’s broad back. Winded and in pain, she slowly made her way into the sunlit brilliance of the afternoon toward Rose-n-Vale.

  Even from a distance, the main house brought her to tears. Xander’s absence was keenly felt, especially here. Just this morn Mother had prayed again for his return, a new lament in her tone that bespoke a fear something might have befallen him. What would he say when he learned all that had befallen them? Would he suspect Laurent as she did?

  Dashing a hand across her damp cheeks, she rode along the borders of Renick land. Striking was in progress, a great many hands removing the dried leaf onto waiting wagon beds for the sweating and sorting to follow. Riding alone, her arm in a sling, was sure to draw notice or comment. Still, she pressed forward toward Laurent’s newly awarded acreage. Never had she come here. She had no wish to visit it now, yet something drove her past her trepidation.

  Oh, Father, you are not coming back. But Lord willing, I can do something about Watseka.

  The sight of so many Africans clearing the land of trees and stumps to prepare for future planting was a sore sight. Fieldwork never ceased but for the harshest winter snows. In the distance were a few outbuildings and an unfinished barn. ’Twas said Laurent’s previous tobacco in a small plot near James Towne had succumbed to mold, a complete ruination. Was this why he continued to ply his trade as physic?

  Tobacco cultivation, even by a crop master’s exacting standards, was chancy, always one step away from disaster. Many had failed while Xander succeeded, his Trinidad seed well established, his brand with its bow and arrow above a sheaf of tobacco leaves well known. Yet tobacco was not her preoccupation this day.

  Thunder sent a shudder through her. The scent of rain pervaded everything. Lost in thought, she’d failed to heed the weather. She veered into a stand of ash trees, her gaze never settling. Where had Watseka been taken? What if she had been not just taken but killed, her body hidden in the woods and hastily buried? Hatred ran high in Virginia. Selah had tried to shut out the violence of the past, but it was part of their New World tapestry, each bloodred thread vivid and unforgotten. What could she, a lone woman, do?

  Never had a separation seemed more an eternity. She didn’t just miss Xander. She ached for him. Only he could set things right. He had the clout and cunning that she, a wounded woman with little voice, did not. The longer he delayed, the greater the threat to Watseka. To them all.

  As the first warm drops began to fall, so did more tears, intermingling with the rain dripping off her hat brim. Weary of horseback, she slid off the mare and dropped to her knees in the weeds. Too late did she realize she had no mounting block to help her back into the saddle. ’Twould be a long, wet walk home. Cradling her slow-to-heal arm, she prayed yet another broken prayer amid the wood’s noises around her.

  35

  Xander’s return to the white world was far faster without Oceanus. Whereas he’d been cautious with the five-year-old by his side—aye, five, as his birthday had just passed—he now pushed himself to his own seasoned limits. Their parting had gone easier than expected, their goodbyes brief if heartfelt. Xander had swept Oceanus up in a bearish embrace, their first, with none of the awkwardness that had marred their affection before.

  “You must tell my father I am missing him and will be glad to don English garments and return to merchanting.” Shay’s infectious grin warmed Xander like the sun on his back. “And kindly tell my mother I miss her beef steak pie. And Selah her teasing.”

  “I shall.” Xander hoisted his knapsack onto one shoulder, considerably lighter than when he’d come.

  “Have no fear about Oceanus. I will keep special watch over him.
Already he’s taken to their ways faster than I when I first came.”

  Kneeling, Xander prayed over his son just the same. For protection. Favor. Their future reunion. Oceanus and Shay then waved at him till he stepped beyond their sight.

  Though he’d been twice Oceanus’s age when he’d gone to live with the Powhatans, he recalled his own internal shift as his English mind grappled with that of the Naturals, his slow shedding of his regard of them as savage and the English superior. Each had much to learn from the other, if they would. Mayhap then the New World would be less fraught with warfare.

  The day wore on, endless ruminations keeping him company as the landscape changed and challenged him. He slid down a rocky cliffside that nearly poked holes in his moccasins, then paused to drink from a mossy spring. Thirst slaked, he filled his sweat-stained hat to the brim before returning it to his head. The deluge of cold water did him good. To the east, pewter thunderheads amassed like cannonballs, snuffing the sun and promising rain.

  What was Selah doing on so contrary a day?

  Thoughts of her quickened his pace. How should he come to her? Just as he was, an unshaven, gut-foundered, overeager rogue? Or by way of Rose-n-Vale and a bath? Impatience and longing discarded the latter. By now, under the watch of McCaskey and his farm managers, Rose-n-Vale’s leaf should have been bound into hands and left to sweat beneath barn eaves, the last step before inspection. Surely all was in hand enough for him to go straight to Selah. He’d prove to her she came first, business second.

  The next morn he sprinted to the grassy glen where he’d pastured Lancelot. So winded his ribs ached, he leaned into an oak, the soughing wind cooling his brow. Well rested and fortified, his horse nickered at the sight of him. And then, ears snapping forward, head lifting, he gave a distraught snort.

  Lightning flared on the horizon, thunder after it. Before Xander could reach him, Lancelot bolted. Biting back an epithet, he watched his hopes gallop away till the animal was but a dot of black on the stormy horizon. Xander trod half a mile more, then the skies tore open and soaked him, the ground beneath his feet no longer dust and brittle leaves but sinking muck.

  It would be a long, hard slog to Rose-n-Vale.

  Candace stood staring at Selah as if she were a ghost. A very sodden one. “Daughter, I was nigh frantic when I awoke and found you gone!”

  “Forgive me, Mother. I didn’t mean to stay away so long.” Selah entered the house and set her dripping hat on the table, not hanging it beside her father’s just inside the door like usual lest she burst into fresh tears. “I’ve been out looking for Watseka. I shan’t rest till I find her.”

  “But your wound.” Her mother’s face seemed to have aged doubly overnight. “The physic fears it might fester.”

  “I would rather it fester than seek his services. ’Twas my wish from the beginning that another be sent for.”

  “Mine as well, yet the Mount Malady physic has not come.”

  “No doubt Laurent has contrived to stop him somehow.”

  “Laurent is too fond of you, I fear.” Candace moved toward a window, near tears herself. “I hear someone coming, and it may be him of whom we speak.”

  Selah removed her muddied shoes and left them behind as she climbed the stairs to her room. Her steps seemed lined with lead, her spirits little better. Was this grief? This bone-deep weariness, this teeth-on-edge existence? Or was it mostly fear for Watseka and the future?

  Her bedchamber was smothering, the curtain motionless. Through the shut window she heard voices alongshore. Laurent’s voice carried the clearest. Soon they would dock. He’d obviously returned from seeing patients downriver. Dread pushed against her like a cold wind, buckling her knees till she sank onto the bed’s corner. She’d not go looking for Watseka again with him so near.

  She began shedding her damp dress with difficulty. Her mother was needed, as she couldn’t manage with one arm. Selah called to her from the landing, and the task was soon completed. When Laurent’s knock sounded, she prepared to face him. How different Xander’s homecoming would be. ’Twas him her heart beat for and her every hope hinged upon.

  Nearly lightning struck, Xander sought cover beneath a rocky overhang once he passed from Powhatan territory to the westernmost land now claimed by the English. Here he waited till the storm had spent its strength. Night was encroaching, drawing a murky curtain over the sodden landscape. Once the thunder rumbled away, he pressed on despite the wet and his weariness, every step engulfed by darkness.

  Something inexplicable thrust him forward beyond his gnawing need to see Selah again. Every delay now scraped at him like the briars he’d pushed through. If only his horse would return. If only he could continue in the moonless dark.

  At last he bedded down, still alert for signs of Lancelot, ready to launch to his feet if he heard the familiar tromping or a neigh. For now, the night insects began a chorus broken only by a whip-poor-will’s soulful song. Soon, this too would be silent as the first frost fell across the land. By then, would Selah be at Rose-n-Vale by his side, awaiting Oceanus’s return?

  All the time they’d lost through misunderstanding and pride . . . Did she now wait for him with the same yearning, the same half-wild eagerness, anticipating a life together that had till now been denied them?

  He’d long carried one recollection of her like an old cameo in his pocket. She’d been but a bashful girl. Upon his return from living among the Naturals years before, he’d come into their store, buckskinned and befeathered. She’d mistaken him for an Indian, so long he’d been with them. How dumbfounded she’d been to hear his Scots lilt, her pale brows peaked over rounded eyes, cheeks red as a Pippin apple. Betimes she wore that same flush now.

  Selah, I am coming.

  On the borders of the westernmost English settlement, Xander breathed in air that was no longer pure but singed his lungs. At first it was only a searing trace. But half a mile more left him fighting for a clean breath. There, in the foothills that afforded a windswept view of east-lying lands—Renick land—his ongoing fear materialized.

  Fire.

  Though he’d not stopped since first light, all exhaustion deserted him. Abandoning everything weighting him save his essentials, he began a long sprint toward the flaming horizon.

  O merciful God.

  His barns. The year’s harvest.

  Smoke, thick and pluming, was almost fragrant, redolent of prime curing tobacco. Enough leaf to fill thousands of exported hogsheads to England. To settle the debts owed his creditors. To ensure the plantation’s workings for another year. To fund the passage of more indentures.

  Gone.

  The leather fire buckets in the main house and all the dependencies were little more than a few drops amid such a firestorm. By now every hand he had would be working to stop the blaze from spreading, if it could be stopped.

  Xander ran on toward the worst of the danger, unsure of what awaited him, praying his aunt and everyone within his care was unscathed.

  How odd that even in the midst of death, the natural rhythms of life never lessened. One must eat, sleep, pray. Yet so oft of late Selah and her mother had little appetite, sleep allowed them no escape, and their prayers seemed to reach no higher than the ceiling.

  Increasingly Selah sought the sanctuary of her room. But here were shadows too. An artificial flower she’d made with Watseka lay atop her dresser, the red paper folds resembling a Rose-n-Vale rose. The window was open, an everlasting reproach. Though she’d shut the door to Shay’s bedchamber across the landing, she could not do the same to hers with Watseka still missing.

  Lord, be with her. Comfort her. Lead us to her.

  A flutter of the curtain caught her eye. In that instant came a sparrow’s insistent chirp. Selah all but held her breath. The sparrow chirped again, perhaps looking to land on Watseka’s small shoulder. The bittersweet sound brought Selah’s hand to her mouth to hold back a sob.

  Something more than the bird drew her to the window. The sky, blue as a
robin’s egg only a quarter of an hour before, was now besmirched. How had she not noticed the acrid air? Her gaze sharpened and turned to disbelief, all her heartache engulfed by a pluming wall of gray coming from the direction of Rose-n-Vale.

  “Fire!” Her feet made a great commotion on the stairs as she hurried down them and all but burst into the parlor. “I fear for Rose-n-Vale.”

  Candace emerged from her bedchamber, blinking sleep from her eyes.

  “Mother, can you not smell it?”

  Without waiting for her answer, Selah ran toward the stable to fetch the old mare. Behind her, Izella was already at the well, filling buckets in case the fire came near. The musketeer joined her, searching the sky with slack-jawed wonder. He said not a word as Selah rode west.

  36

  Xander had not expected to encounter Selah amid so much smoke and danger. Renick land was indeed aflame, but just how badly was hard to decipher. Every indenture he had was on his feet, even those he’d left ill, trying to fight the fire with whatever means were at their disposal. When they saw him, he read visible relief on their faces. But there was little he could do against such a hellish wall, where the heat and smoke and wind overcame anything in its path within seconds.

  Mounting a pastured horse, he rode by fiery tobacco barns that billowed and threw heat so far it seemed to sear him as he passed. He continued toward the main house to ascertain that his aunt and servants there were unharmed. A bucket brigade had formed at the well, indentures watering the lawn lest cinders threaten the main house. Some men had climbed ladders to the roof, giving it a thorough soaking despite the danger to themselves.