Dangerous deceptions, p.26
Dangerous Deceptions, page 26
“I see.” Catherine digested that. “I will certainly try not to displease you, although I believe it natural for a woman to want to protect her unborn child.”
“I especially don’t like those Indian brats in my house.”
Catherine flinched. He was referring to his own son! “Very well. I will give up my school . . . if you will give up trading.”
His face a thundercloud, he sprang to his feet. “How dare you attempt to bully me! You are my wife, and I tell you what to do, Mistress Colton!”
Mere seconds after Noah stormed out of the house, Catherine snatched up an empty basket, which she planned to fill with herbs, and bolted into the woods. Longing for the serenity she always found there, anguished tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried in vain to shake off the sting of Noah’s angry words.
Dear Lord, how had things come to this pass? More and more, she was seeing a dark side of Noah she had never known existed. Why was he so angry with her? The Noah she knew was lighthearted and carefree; a man who bantered and teased and laughed easily. What had changed him? And what could she do to bring back the man she loved and had wished to be with as long as she could remember?
Worrying over her problem, she walked and walked, blindly stepping over fallen logs and ducking through underbrush. At last, she looked up and realized she was not at all certain where her unguided footsteps had taken her. Turning around and around, she saw nothing that looked familiar. In her anguish, she must have wandered further afield than she planned.
Thinking she was heading back the same way she came, she stepped through a particularly thick stand of tall trees and emerged into a small clearing. Straight ahead lay a sparkling pool of clear water. This was not the spring where she and Lanneika came to draw water. She took a few tentative steps forward, her feet sinking into a luxurious carpet of thick green moss. Gazing about, she noted flowering vines wound around the trunks of many of the tall oak trees that sheltered the cove. Sweet-smelling pink and purple blossoms, along with frothy white dogwood, grew in abundance.
Drawing in breath after breath of the heady fragrance, she walked to the edge of the pool and, looking across the glassy expanse, noted tiny bubbles gurgling up at the center. The pool must be the result of an underground spring, alive and breathing here in the forest. She reached to trail one hand in the cool, clear water. Scooping up a handful, she brought the sweet liquid to her face and washed away all traces of her tears.
Straightening, she slowly turned around and around, awed by the silent beauty that surrounded her. She moved towards a tall tree and sank down onto the moss-covered earth before it, her eyes gazing up . . . up . . . upward toward the brilliant specks of sunlight filtering through the treetops. She had never beheld such a beautiful place in all her life.
The day was especially warm, and, although the shade beneath the canopy of thick, green leaves felt refreshing, Catherine began to cast longing glances at the sparkling cool water. As a child, she’d often stripped off her shoes and stockings and waded into the stream that ran through her father’s farm. She smiled now, remembering several times when she and Noah had waded into the running water together. He’d always insisted on holding her hand lest she stumble and be swept away by the swift current lapping over jagged rocks in the middle of the stream.
There were no rocks here and no current. Except for the gurgling center, the water lay like a sheet of clear blue glass. Patches of sunlight through the treetops scattered glittering jewels onto the surface. Catherine drank in the stillness. Sitting beneath the tree, the only sounds she heard were the melodic chirruping of birds. Occasionally one, or a pair, would dart past her, or swoop low over the water, their bright orange beaks disturbing the glassy surface as they dipped low for a drink.
Watching the birds frolic and play brought a smile to her lips. Drawing in deep calming breaths, she relished the sense of peace that soon filled her. She was reminded of the comforting psalm that spoke of the Lord leading one beside still waters. She closed her eyes. In her darkest hours, she must remember to trust that God was taking care of both her and Noah, whether he be a trader or a planter. Her eyes still closed, she murmured a silent prayer of gratitude for being shown the error of her ways and for being reminded to always trust in the care of their Heavenly Father.
Upon opening her eyes, she thought she detected a slight noise, like a twig snapping, coming from . . . she glanced about, she wasn’t certain where the sound came from, but once more, she realized she had no idea where in the woods she had wandered. She cast another longing gaze at the water, but instead of venturing closer, or stripping off her boots and stockings and wading in, she picked up her still-empty basket and exited the clearing the same way she’d come in. Perhaps she’d be able to retrace her footsteps and find her way back home before the sun dipped behind the trees.
With only a few false turns, she finally managed to find her way out of the woods but along the way made mental notes so she might find again what she was already referring to as her Secret Place.
“Where have you been?” Noah demanded when at last she walked up the path to the house, the basket in her hand still empty.
“I went into the woods to dig up some herbs.”
His eyes narrowed as he gazed at her empty basket. “Appears you didn’t find any.”
Catherine thrust her chin up as she skirted past him. “I became a trifle lost, if you must know.”
He followed her into the house. “Argall has called a town meeting for tonight. Seems all of Jamestown is eager to know what transpired with the Indians.”
THE MEETING THAT NIGHT was held in the church sanctuary, but instead of Reverend Buck officiating, Deputy-Governor Argall stood behind the pulpit. Three chairs on the platform behind the podium were each occupied by one of Jamestown’s respected trader-men.
Word of the meeting had quickly spread throughout the tidewater area and nearly every single man, and many women, had gathered to hear what the traders had to say. Both Adam and Jack had ridden into town. Because Catherine saw her brother so infrequently, and because Noah was seated on the platform, she chose to sit beside Adam.
“You look beautiful, Cat.” He smiled. “How are you and Noah getting on?”
“Well enough.” She looked down. “I am glad he is home safe.”
“How long was he away?”
“Close on three weeks.”
“Ah, so ye have a bit of catchin’ up to do.”
A shaky smile wavered across her lips.
The low buzz of several hundred voices talking at once grew silent the moment Deputy-Governor Argall called the meeting to order. After he’d made the announcement they had all come to hear, that Powhatan’s brother Opitchapan was now the new chieftain of the Indian tribes, he turned the meeting over to the traders. One by one they stepped up to deliver short summations of their recent visits with the settler’s closest neighbors, the Indians.
Overall the meeting proved uneventful until after Noah delivered his short talk. Not leaving the podium at once, he instead reached inside his doublet . . . and withdrew a feather.
Catching sight of it, Catherine inhaled a sharp breath, so audible that Adam’s head jerked around.
“Is something amiss?”
Willing her heart to cease its wild pounding, she tightly shook her head.
“I have a few questions to pose to the congregation.” Noah held up the feather. “I assume the majority of you would recognize this as being a mere feather. But . . . upon closer inspection, one would see an odd symbol attached to the base of it. It is this symbol that puzzles me.”
“Why is that?” asked one of the men seated near the front.
“Because in all my years of dealing with the Indians, I have never before seen this particular emblem.”
Noah’s pronouncement was followed by alarmed exclamations from the audience. Many exchanged frightened looks with one another before turning to gaze back up at him.
“Where’d you find it?” asked another man.
Catherine held her breath.
“Near my home.”
Catherine heard a rustling noise as someone in the back stood up.
“I saw somethin’ mighty strange down there t’other day.”
Recognizing Goody Smithfield’s voice, Catherine’s eyes rolled skyward.
“What did you see, Goodwife Smithfield?”
“Well . . . yer wife and her Indian girl was a-plantin’ corn in that little field what fronts the woods when I happened by. Then later, when I looked back down there, I saw a Indian on a huge horse, jes’ sittin’ there watchin’.”
Hushed silence followed before Noah asked, “What color was the horse?”
“White!” Goody Smithfield shouted. “And big! Suddenly, yer wife’s Indian girl run and got up on that horse with the Indian, and I swear, that horse tuk off like lightnin’, like it was flyin’!”
Noisy eruptions and even a few screams from the ladies disrupted the meeting. The exultations grew so loud Deputy-Governor Argall had to step to the podium and call for the colonists, men and women alike, to settle down.
“Thank you for yer observation, Goodwife Smithfield,” Argall said, “but I daresay there’s no cause for alarm, isn’t that right, Colton?”
Even from where she sat in the audience, Catherine thought her husband’s face had become several shades redder. He knew the identity of the Indian on the white horse, and she knew he would not rest until he’d wrenched a satisfactory explanation from her.
Chapter 26
CATHERINE WAS GLAD Noah exhibited the decency and patience to wait until they returned home before he began to question her.
“Why didn’t you tell me Lanneika was with Phyrahawque? And don’t tell me you haven’t known all along who that savage is! Perhaps you met him in the forest this very afternoon!” he accused. “You have a lot to learn about deception, my dear. You could have at least tucked a few weeds into your basket!”
Listening quietly to his tirade, Catherine removed her bonnet and hung it on a peg. Turning to face him, inspiration struck when she spotted something caught amongst the rushes on the floor. Stooping, she picked up a crusty brown leaf. “What do you call this, Noah?”
His lips pursed irritably. “It’s a leaf, of course. But what does that have to say to . . .”
“How do you suppose it got here?”
His tone sounded impatient. “I suppose it blew in the opened doorway!”
“As could a feather!” she ground out, sailing past him into their bedchamber.
He followed her. “You don’t get off that easy! I demand an explanation from you or I shall . . .”
She whirled to face him. “Or you shall what?” she challenged.
His nostrils flared. “If you’ve been lifting your skirts for that greasy savage, I’ll kill him, and then I’ll kill . . . ”
His threat hung in the air.
“Kill me?” She removed her bodice and hung it on a peg. Reaching behind her back to undo her skirt, she held his steady gaze as she stepped from it.
“You whoring hussy!” He came at her like a man crazed. Grasping her bare arms, he shook her till her teeth rattled. Pressing her against the wall, his face contorted with rage. “You have cuckolded me with an Indian!”
She didn’t struggle. Instead she lifted her chin stubbornly. “I have not betrayed you, Noah. But I wonder what term one uses when a married man beds an Indian maid, or several of them?”
He thrust her from him. “A man has a right to seek whatever pleasure he wishes,” he growled.
Standing with her back to him, she removed her undergarments and drew on her night rail before she turned to face him.
“I have never lain with an Indian, Noah. You are my husband, and you are the only man I wish to lie with.”
She sat down on the bed and although at the moment she did not mean what she said, she thought it best to say it. “Come to bed. You are my husband, and I wish to lie with you.”
Though Catherine was only going through the motions, she did her best to pleasure her husband that night and for several nights following. It occurred to her that with both of her husbands, lovemaking was a rather rushed affair. Victor seemed to have had less experience at it than Noah, but neither man said much before, during or after, when both quickly fell fast asleep. Despite the pleasure she remembered from those first few stolen moments with Noah, all in all she didn’t see much to recommend the experience. Lovemaking seemed designed more to pleasure a man than a woman. Perhaps the pleasure for a woman was meant to come from the babe the act produced. Looking back on that night when Noah left her, even as she so desperately wanted him, now seemed deliberately cruel of him. But now that she knew more of Noah’s true personality, there was much about him that seemed cruel . . . something she would never have thought to be true of him.
The following morning, when her husband announced that he and the other two traders would be leaving on another expedition in a few days’ time, she knew the first moments of relief she’d felt since he’d returned to Jamestown the week previous.
With Noah again gone, she felt especially alone now that Lanneika was no longer coming. The children were also no longer there as Noah had insisted the day before he left that she give up her school and be a proper wife to him. It was just as well, she told herself, for without help from anyone, she had plenty to do every day with the cooking, cleaning, washing, and pulling the hardy weeds that threatened to strangle not only her knee-high corn stalks, but the tender young herbs in her herb garden . . . and the pretty flowers in her window box.
She consulted Goody Smithfield as to exactly when to plant beans and squash beneath her cornstalks, and, when told that any day now would be fine, she busied herself with that chore.
One day she decided it was again time to remove the soiled rushes on the floor and replace them with fresh-smelling straw. In the process, she came across a dozen or so more of the blue glass beads she’d dropped the day she stumbled and fell from the rickety ladder. She gathered up the beads and placed them in the center of the board table. If Lanneika did return one day, she would give them to her.
Another day, on her way back from the spring, she met up with Goody Smithfield. Catherine lowered the heavy wooden yoke resting on her shoulders to speak with the woman, who seemed excited about something.
“Ship’s comin’! Ship’s comin’! M’ husband said he seen two barks on the horizon! A hundred hungry settlers’ll be descendin’ on us any day now!”
Catherine smiled at the woman. “That is exciting news. Most like, they’ll all be needing homes, too.”
“Oh, my yes! M’ husband and I always takes some in. You and yer man should too. You’ve got plenty o’ room at yer place.”
“Indeed we do,” Catherine murmured, turning to go.
“I mean to make soap tomorrow,” Goodwife Smithfield called after her. “If’n ye’d like ta’ help, I can share with ye.”
“Thank you. My supply is about gone.”
“Mine, too!” The older woman laughed gaily. “Which is why my apron is such a sight!”
The more Catherine thought about inviting a couple to share their home, the more she liked the idea. Additional people in the house would serve more than the obvious purpose, which was to provide shelter to those who had none. It might also make Noah less likely to vent his wrath upon her over some trifling matter, plus another woman would be a great help to her. Surely Noah would not object since he was so seldom here.
When he was home, he would enjoy having another man to converse with, which might also restore his good humor. She also expected Noah would be eager to purchase one or two indentured contracts, since it would net him more land. The bondservants, she reasoned, could stay in a hastily constructed bark hut on the land. Noah could put the men to work clearing an acre in order to be ready to plant their first tobacco crop come next spring.
Once again, all would be well between them. Of late, she’d wished she had Noah’s little daughter to take care of, thereby completing their family, but since he’d only mentioned his baby that one time, she never brought the matter up again.
Recently, however, she had begun to suspect she might be with child. Her moon cycle, as Lanneika called it, had been interrupted, so there was a good chance she was, although she felt exceptionally well every day with no sickness whatever. She hoped the news would please Noah, despite his remark that he cared little for children, or for a woman carrying one.
Still, the thought pleased her, and she felt in an exceptionally good humor that afternoon as she set about clearing the second bedchamber in readiness for the new family. The items that Noah did not often use, she would store in the loft. The rest she’d find space for in the common room. With her school closed now, she decided they could give away the extra board tables to new settlers who didn’t yet have furniture or they could break them down and stand them up in the shed. That would free up plenty of space for Noah’s bulky breastplate, musket, helmet, and other things in an unused corner of the common room.
Humming to herself, she made several trips back and forth between the two rooms, carrying items of his clothing to hang on empty pegs lining the wall in their bedchamber. He’d worn his armor and carried his musket, so that meant she now only had to find room for his bow and quiver of arrows, which he seldom used. In fact, she hadn’t seen him so much as pick up either since they married. Deciding to take them to the loft, she slung the quiver over her back as she’d seen the Indians do, and headed up the ladder, one hand tightly grasping the bow, the other clinging to the sturdy rail of the ladder.
Once above stairs, she glanced about in search of a place to put them. Spotting an empty corner, she headed that direction but had to bend over to move a small keg. When she bent over, all the arrows tumbled out of the quiver, falling helter-skelter to the floor. Smiling at her own clumsiness, she squatted down to gather up the arrows and put them back in the quiver, feather-end up as they’d been before, but suddenly, something odd caught her eye. Picking up several arrows, one after another, she noted that nearly every last arrow in Noah’s collection had a different-sized arrowhead.
