Poison in the Colony Read online

  “Since the wedding in April, there’s been no fighting. Not a single arrow or musket has been fired,” Samuel says. “People are calling it ‘The Peace of Pocahontas.’”

  “Thanks be to God,” my mother says.

  “Have you heard, Governor Dale tried to take another wife?” Samuel asks.

  “That man has no shame,” Mum says.

  Samuel continues. “He sent a messenger to Chief Powhatan to ask for the hand of his eleven-year-old daughter in marriage.”

  Mum raises her eyebrows. “And did Lady Dale send word from England that this would be fine with her?”

  Samuel laughs. “The chief said no, of course. He told the messenger the girl was in a village three days’ walk away. He will keep her well protected, I’m sure.”

  “Good,” my mother says. “Governor Dale is an evil man, with his martial law and whippings and hangings. I wish the Company would send back Captain Smith and send Governor Dale home to England with his tail between his legs.”

  Mum and Samuel continue their gossip and gathering, and I am free to play in the magic of the forest.

  * * *

  . . .

  It is a day without breezes, and mosquitoes buzz around our heads even inside the cottage. Mum and I work together to hang herbs to dry. I tie the strings and she lifts the bunches to hang them on nails set in the rafters.

  There is a knock at the door. It is a gentleman. Mum gives him a curious look. The gentlemen and nobles normally go to the doctor for their healing, while the common folk come to my mother or Jane Wright, the left-handed midwife.

  The gentleman is distraught, his face twisted in fear. It is his wife who is ill—very ill. The doctor has already seen her and given her medicine, but she has not improved. Can my mother help? He is afraid she is dying.

  Mum asks the man what his wife is feeling, and as he speaks, she chooses which plants to bring. “These will help,” she says.

  I go with her and we follow the man to his cottage. Mum has me wait outside. There is a boy, a little older than I, sitting in the dirt in front of the cottage. He is sullen, as fearful as his father. He glares at me. It is the first time I’ve seen this boy.

  * * *

  . . .

  The second time I see the boy, and his father, is a few days later. It is evening. The gentleman pounds on our door and when my father opens it, he grabs my da by his shirt collar.

  “She said she could help!” he cries. “I should have known better than to come to the likes of her. The doctor had given her medicine. She would have gotten better if that woman”—he points a long, accusing finger at my mother—“hadn’t laid her cursed hands on her.”

  My da is trying to close the door on him. The boy is behind his father, staring at me with a hateful look.

  “I will make a report,” the man shouts. Then he narrows his eyes and lowers his voice. “I know who your mother was, Mrs. Laydon.” He turns, grabs his son by the arm, and drags him away.

  Mum collapses into a chair and hangs her head into her hands. “I should have known better than to try to heal a gentleman’s wife,” she says miserably.

  “You could not turn him away,” Da says. He lays a hand on her shoulder.

  I am afraid to ask any questions.

  * * *

  . . .

  My mother and Jane Wright work together in our cottage. It is night, and the candles flicker over their needles as they sew. They, and other women as well, have been assigned to make shirts for the servants of the colony. I am seated at the table with them, practicing my stitches with my own piece of cloth, needle, and thread. Now that I am almost five, it is time I learned to sew. When I hear my mother yelp, I look up.

  “It broke again,” she says. There is a hint of desperation in her voice. “The thread is bad. We won’t have nearly enough to finish.”

  “Mum, use mine.” I hold my little bit of thread out to her.

  She shakes her head. She and Jane are looking at each other.

  “A trap?” Mum asks Jane.

  Jane frowns. She picks at the woven cloth at the bottom of the shirt she is working on and it begins to unravel. The thread that comes free is strong and good. “A trap we might be able to avoid,” she says.

  They work quickly, unraveling the bottoms of the shirts, using the good thread to finish their stitching. They have no choice. There is no other thread.

  I feel their panic and I don’t understand it. I try to rest my cheek against my mother’s arm, but she shrugs me off. I go to bed while they are still working.

  Four

  THERE IS A trial. Under Governor Dale’s martial law, there is no hearing, no jury, just the governor’s decision. And Governor Dale pronounces my mother and Jane Wright guilty of stealing thread from the Company. The shirts they made were shorter than those made by the other women—the women who were given good thread to work with.

  Their punishment? A brutal whipping.

  My father carries my mother home. He is weeping and cursing. He lays her in bed. She is silent.

  I heat water on the fire and, with clean rags, bathe my mother’s cut and bloody back. She lies on her side, flinching as I do my work. Every few minutes her breathing becomes ragged, until finally she cries out, “Get Jane!”

  I look to my father. Surely Jane is in her bed as well. My father nods to me, and I go.

  I find Jane sitting in her cottage, leaning onto the table, the top of her dress down, her head hanging. Her husband stands behind her, washing her wounds. She moans quietly. Her back is just as cut and bloody as my mother’s. I am filled with hatred for Governor Dale.

  “My mother is asking for you,” I say, barely above a whisper.

  “Oh please, no,” Jane says. She tries to stand but groans in pain.

  “You can’t go,” her husband says, and helps her to sit back down.

  “I cannot leave her to die,” Jane says, her voice strong. “Robert, lay that rag on my back for a bandage and help me on with my dress.” She winces as Robert does as she says.

  She picks up her bag—the bag she brings with her to heal the sick and to deliver babies—and I follow her out the door.

  At home my mother is on her feet, her arm draped over my father’s shoulders. My father’s eyes are wild.

  “She’s—it’s not time!” he blurts out.

  “I know, John,” Jane says. Her voice is the one calm thing in the room. “Virginia, you have hot water on the fire? Good. Fill a bowl with it for me and bring me an empty bowl as well.” She begins to take things out of her bag: a packet of herbs, scissors, a small blanket.

  I am confused, but I set to work, finding bowls and hot water. My mother slumps onto the bed and sits for a moment. Then she groans and stands again, clinging to my father.

  “You’re going to be all right, Ann,” Jane says. “I will make sure of it.”

  My mother nods at her friend. Sweat drenches her face. Her eyes have the look of a trapped animal. She cries out. Jane crouches in front of her.

  I take small steps, carefully carrying the bowl of hot water to Jane. When I reach her, what I see in her hands does not make sense. It is a baby that is impossibly small, hardly bigger than Jane’s hand, with the cord still attached to its belly. I blink, not believing. The baby is not breathing or moving. With a rush, I realize this is my baby sister. Born too early. Much too early.

  My mother sobs. “He is a murderer!” she cries.

  My father smooths her hair, tries to comfort her.

  I feel dizzy. I stumble out of the cottage. It is quiet and dark and somehow peaceful outside. Fireflies glitter their lights on and off. In the sky overhead, the stars shine, unchanging. I look up into the night. “Why did Governor Dale do that?” I whisper. “Why did he set a trap for Mum and Jane? Why did he give them bad thread?”

  I close my eyes, hoping that m
y prayer and the knowing will work together to give me an answer. But my mind is as empty as the darkness between the stars.

  * * *

  . . .

  Governor Dale struts through the fort, his deputy at his side. His starched collar holds his head up high as though he is looking down on all of us. In my imagination, I pull an arrow from the quiver on my back and string it tight to my bow. I let it fly. It strikes him in the heart.

  A voice startles me. “There are daggers in your eyes, Virginia.”

  It is Jane Wright. She has caught me in my hateful stare. She bends down and puts a hand on my cheek. “Wish for good things, little one, not bad things. Wish for something good for your mother and for the colony.”

  I look up at her. “I wish for Governor Dale to go back to England.” I say it quietly, so no one else will hear me.

  She smiles and leans in to whisper, “That is a good wish for the colony.”

  Five

  APRIL 1616

  I AM SIX and a half years old. I have been wishing for good things, and some of them have appeared.

  Rebecca and John Rolfe have a baby boy. They have named him Thomas, and we hear that he is walking already. I wished for happiness for Matoaka, and I know that this child must be bringing her joy.

  I have a new baby sister, Alice. Maybe I should have been more specific and told God to send me a brother to please my father even more, but my wishes were for my mother to be healed and joyful again, and for a healthy baby. Alice is still very small. She grasps my finger tightly and kicks her legs. She will have to be strong to survive.

  The gentleman who blamed my mother for his wife’s death has since died as well, and so he has been no more trouble to us. But his son, whose name is Charles, still lives in James Town, boarding with another gentleman’s family. Charles despises me, though about the worst he has done is throw rocks at me, and I am a fast runner, so I can generally avoid being hit.

  I have been wishing for a sweetheart for Samuel, as he is now twenty years old and says he is ready to marry. It seems to me every young girl in the colony flirts with him, tall and handsome as he is. But he is interested in none of them. He keeps saying he’ll see what the next ship brings in, and the next, and the next. I suppose some wishes take longer than others to come true.

  The biggest and best wish of all to come true? A ship arrives. It is the Treasurer, captained by Samuel Argall. After many letters of complaint against Governor Dale sent to London, and his time of service to the colony being over, the Company is replacing him with a new governor, Sir George Yeardley. When the Treasurer sets sail back to England, Governor Dale will be on it. And I will imagine a long, pointy tail tucked between his legs as he boards that ship to leave us forever.

  The Treasurer bobs in the water at the docks on a sunny spring day. The new settlers are allowed off first: gentlemen, servants, wives, and children. They walk down the gangplank looking dazed and curious. Did they expect stone buildings or horses and carriages like I’ve heard they have in England? Are they shocked by the natives who live and work among us, with their dark skin, leather clothing, feathers, and beads? When I see new settlers staring wide-eyed at our settlement, I think about England and how different it must be.

  And on this bright, warm day, I wonder if these people are ready for what is in their future. Are they ready for the steamy heat of summer, clouds of mosquitoes, the summer flux that takes the strength, and the lives, of the hardiest men? Are the laborers ready for the grueling work in the tobacco fields? Are they ready for icy wind whistling through the leaky cottages in winter? Are they ready for the hungry months of March and April, when our stores run dangerously low, our stomachs growl day and night, and we watch the horizon for a ship to come with new stores? I know that no one is allowed to send letters back to England telling the truth about how difficult life is here, and so I wonder if the people coming off the ship have any idea what awaits them.

  After the passengers have disembarked, men work to unload supplies from the ship: barrels of barley and peas and salt pork, crates of squawking chickens, hogs that snort as they are led down the gangplanks to land. As soon as the ship is unloaded, barrels and crates of things we have been producing are loaded into the hold: pitch, tar, sassafras, clapboard, sturgeon, and tobacco. Lots and lots of tobacco.

  John Rolfe was the first to come up with the idea of growing tobacco here to sell in England. The Virginia Company of London is all for it because they’re finally making a profit from James Town. But we have heard that King James thinks that tobacco is horrible stuff and says it is “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.”

  The Treasurer sits at dock for a few days, and during this time an exciting new rumor begins to spread through James Town: When she sets sail, the Treasurer will carry John, Rebecca, and Thomas Rolfe for a visit to England.

  I realize the rumor must be true when Rebecca’s sister, Mattachanna, and her husband, the priest Tomocomo, come to James Town. They will be going too, along with a group of servants from the Powhatan tribe.

  On the day the ship is to set sail, the Rolfe family arrives from Henrico. Rebecca holds little Thomas. He looks so much like her! She smiles and greets Matta-channa and Tomocomo. It seems like everyone in James Town goes out to see the ship off.

  There are so many people, all pressing to get close to the travelers, that I don’t even try to say goodbye. I stand with my father and mother. Alice sleeps in my mother’s arms, despite all the noise and shouting. I watch as Rebecca walks up the gangplank, then turns to take one more look at her homeland. I can’t tell if she is happy or sad—she is too far away.

  “She’s determined to find out if Captain Smith is alive or dead, you know.” It is Samuel, come to join us, talking to my father.

  “I hear she’ll meet King James himself,” my father says.

  Samuel laughs. “I should have told her to bring a perfumed handkerchief to hold against her nose when she meets that smelly old fellow.”

  My father laughs, too. Everyone knows King James believes that bathing causes the plague, and so he only takes a bath once a year.

  Rebecca walks the last few steps up the gangplank and onto the ship. She looks back at all of us, the sun on her face. Suddenly the knowing washes over me, dizzying, certain, horrible: she will never return. She will die in England. Soon.

  “Oh no!” I cry out.

  Samuel, my father, and my mother all turn to me. Samuel is frowning. He must know it is the knowing, and he is reminding me to say nothing.

  “What is it, Virginia?” my mother demands. My baby sister has slept through all the other shouting, but my voice has awakened her and she begins to fuss.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” I try to think of something to say.

  Samuel glares at me. Then he rescues me. “I know, Ginny,” he says comfortingly. “I forgot to give her a gift for her journey, too. But she will be back in a year and we can both give her gifts to welcome her.” He grabs my hand. “Come on, now, and help me with my mending like you’ve been promising, before I have to get to the fields.”

  He pulls me away from my parents, away from the crowd. When I look back, Rebecca has disappeared and I know she must have climbed down into the ’tween deck, where she and the other passengers will spend the voyage.

  When we are out of earshot, he stops and faces me. “Is it about Matoaka?” he asks.

  I nod and my eyes well up with tears. “She’s never coming back,” I whisper. “She will die before a year is over.”

  Samuel clenches his jaw. “They should have let her stay here,” he says. “This is where she belongs.”

  “Did she want to go?” I ask.

  “Nothing is her choice, Ginny,” he says. “She is still a prisoner in so many ways. Governor Dale says she will go, and so she must go. He wants to show her off—the Indi
an princess converted to Christianity.”

  “But . . .” He has not answered my question. “Did she want to go?”

  Samuel gives me a slight smile. “She says it will be an adventure, and that as long as little Thomas is with her, she will be happy.”

  I breathe out a sigh. “I hope she sees lots of wonderful things in the time she has left,” I say.

  As I walk home, I wonder about the knowing. I wonder why sometimes I can choose to use it, through touch or through a sort of inner listening. I wonder why, at other times, it comes like a bird swooping down from the sky, unexpected. And I wonder why Samuel is so adamant that I never tell another living soul about it.

  Six

  APRIL 1617

  I AM SEVEN and a half years old. My mother sends me to the river to dig for mussels, and so I am one of the first to see it: a ship on the horizon. Soon there are calls throughout the fort: “Ship ashore! Ship ashore!”

  People come wandering toward the docks. We are all running low on our food stores, and so there are high hopes for what this ship might bring. We are also expecting the return of Captain Argall, who is to take over as governor. Even my mother comes to the docks, with little Alice toddling along, holding her hand.

  I go to Alice and scoop her up. “See, it’s a ship,” I say. “A big boat.”

  “Ba,” says Alice.

  “It’ll have peas and beans for you to eat. And barley, lots of barley,” I tell her.

  “Ba,” she says.

  Suddenly, someone shouts, “It is the Treasurer! It must be John Rolfe and Rebecca and Thomas coming home!”

  People begin to chatter with excitement:

  “They met the king!”

  “They must have been invited to balls and plays and masques.”