Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) Read online

  Roanoke

  The Lost Colony

  Angela Hunt

  Copyright © 1996, 2013 by Angela Hunt

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any other means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission from the publisher.

  Typos in this book may be reported to [email protected].

  ISBN: 061589187X

  ISBN-13: 978-0615891873

  For Him whose grace is greater than our sin

  Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world;

  first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his

  full and excellent brightness.

  —Thomas Adams

  The Names of the 1587 Virginia Colonists

  recorded by John White

  The names of all the men, women and children, which safely arrived in Virginia,

  and remained to inhabite there, 1587.

  Anno regni reginae Elizabethae. 29.

  Households of the Gentry:

  John White, Governor

  Thomas Humfrey, cabin boy

  Roger Bailie, Assistant

  William Clement, servant

  Ananias Dare, Assistant

  Eleanor Dare, wife

  Virginia Dare, daughter

  Agnes Wood, servant

  Christopher Cooper, Assistant

  James Hynde, servant

  Thomas Stevens, Assistant

  John Sampson, Assistant

  John Sampson, Jr.

  Roger Prat, Assistant

  John Prat, son

  George Howe, Assistant

  George Howe, Jr.

  Rev. Thomas Colman

  Jocelyn Colman, wife

  Audrey Tappan, servant

  Households of the Common Folk:

  John Jones

  Jane Jones, wife

  Joan Warren, servant

  Dyonis Harvie

  Margery Harvie, wife

  Sylvie Harvie, infant daughter

  Jane Pierce, servant

  Arnold Archard

  Joyce Archard, wife

  Thomas Archard, son

  Margaret Lawrence, servant

  Ambrose Viccars

  Elizabeth Viccars, wife

  Ambrose Viccars, son

  Emme Merrimoth, servant

  John Chapman

  Alice Chapman, wife

  Jane Mannering, servant

  Edward Powell

  Wenefrid Powell, wife

  William Wythers, nephew

  Tomas Smart, servant

  Henry Payne

  Rose Payne, wife

  Elizabeth Glane, servant

  Unmarried Men:

  William Willes

  John Brooke

  Cutbert White

  John Bright

  Clement Tayler

  William Sole

  John Cotsmur

  Humfrey Newton

  Thomas Gramme

  Nicholas Johnson

  Thomas Warner

  Anthony Cage

  John Tydway

  Edmond English

  Thomas Topan

  Henry Berrye

  Richard Berrye

  John Spendlove

  John Hemmington

  Thomas Butler

  John Burden

  Thomas Ellis, his son Robert Ellis

  William Browne

  Michael Myllet

  Thomas Smith

  Richard Kemme

  Thomas Harris

  Richard Taverner

  John Earnest

  Henry Johnson

  John Starte

  Richard Darige

  William Lucas

  John Wright

  William Dutton

  Morris Allen

  William Waters

  Richard Arthur

  Robert Little

  Hugh Tayler

  Richard Wildye

  Lewes Totton

  Michael Bishop

  Henry Browne

  Mark Bennet

  John Gibbes

  John Stilman

  Robert Wilkinson

  Peter Little

  John Wyles

  Brian Wyles

  George Martyn

  Hugh Pattenson

  Martyn Sutton

  John Farre

  John Bridger

  Griffen Jones

  Richard Shaberdge

  James Lasie

  John Cheven

  Thomas Hewet

  William Berde

  Henry Rufotte

  Richard Tomkins

  Henry Dorrell

  Charles Florrie

  Henry Mylton

  Thomas Harris

  William Nicholes

  Thomas Phevens

  John Borden

  Thomas Scot

  Savages that were in England and returned home into Virginia with them:

  Manteo and Towaye

  ONE

  England, 1587

  The March wind whistled through cracks in the sealed windows of her uncle’s coach and Jocelyn White nestled closer to her father and the warmth of his heavy frieze cloak. “‘Twas lovely for Uncle John to send his carriage for us,” she said, wriggling her gloved fingers to resis

  t the numbing cold. “Though I think the only reason he’s bringing us to Portsmouth is to find a new audience. Does he never tire of talking about his adventures in America?”

  “John does like to talk, but a girl like you shouldn’t judge her elders,” her father replied easily, his voice muffled by the heavy cloak and the wide starched ruff around his neck. His dark eyes twinkled over the crisp collar, but she felt the gentle rebuke behind his words and her heart softened. For years he had done his best to mold her into a gentlewoman, and for all those years she had done all she could to resist him. Motherless since the age of six, she was doubtless responsible for more than a few of the silvery strands in his dark hair.

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said, resting her hand on his arm. “I’m ungrateful, I know. I should be happy that we could leave London at this dreary time of year.”

  Her father wagged a finger at her. “You are forgetting the important things. How many people do we know who have personally visited the camps of the American savages? Who have stood on the shores of that dark land and confronted dangers unknown—”

  A coughing fit cut short his words, and Jocelyn’s blue eyes deepened with concern as her father jerked away and coughed into his handkerchief. When at last his coughing ceased, he took a quick, shallow breath, folded the handkerchief into his palm, and gave her a tentative smile. “Enough talking.” Only a whisper remained of his voice. “We should rest until we reach Portsmouth. I believe John will talk enough for both of us.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes filled with tears, and she made an effort to steady her voice. Robert White did not want pity. “All right, Papa,” she said, pretending to look out the hazy shade covering the window. “But I know Uncle John will try to convince you to join him on this next expedition to Virginia. And since you are scarcely well enough for this journey to Portsmouth, I don’t see how you could even think about going to America.”

  He lifted his hand as if he would argue with her, but another coughing spell seized him. Jocelyn felt her heart tighten with anxiety again as she pretended not to notice that the handkerchief into which her father coughed was stained with blood.

  He had become ill several months before. Many times she had urged him to stay in bed and rest, but Robert White, proud philosopher and scholar, had
refused. “My students are waiting; my books demand my attention,” he had told her one morning as he pushed the breakfast tray she offered out of the way and swung his thin legs over the edge of the bed. “When death comes to me it will find me busy, Jocelyn, unless I am asleep. If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless teach my classes and do my reading today. A faithful Christian life in this world is the best preparation for the next.”

  His coughing filled the carriage now, and Jocelyn clenched her fists under the lap blanket as she obeyed his unspoken wishes and said nothing. The doctors said he ought to remain home and in bed, no matter how badly he wanted to hear his brother’s tales. Why was it so important for them to go to Portsmouth in the dead of winter?

  Since his return from Virginia in the fall of 1586, John White had taken up residence in Portsmouth with his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Ananias Dare. Despite Jocelyn’s reluctance to leave London, she found herself peering through the shades on the carriage as they entered the port city. Much smaller than London, Portsmouth nevertheless exuded an air of self-importance, for Her Majesty’s America-bound ships departed from either Portsmouth or Plymouth.

  While her father lifted the window shade and braved the chilly March air for the sight of an ocean-going galleon on the English Channel, Jocelyn peered through the window that faced the city and wondered what sort of house her cousin Eleanor had chosen for her home. Two years older than Jocelyn, Eleanor was a gentle lady and the daughter of an important man, but at her wedding last year she had seemed as giddy and frivolous as the average maid.

  The cousins had much in common, yet much kept them apart. Both were motherless, both had been reared by their fathers with only a maid for feminine companionship. Eleanor’s father had engaged the dour-faced Agnes Wood to serve and restrain his high-spirited offspring; Jocelyn’s father had hired Audrey Tappan, an Irish maid a year younger than Jocelyn and certainly as pretty. John White had found a chaperon for his daughter; Robert White had sought a friend for his.

  Jocelyn had to smother a grin as she thought of the many times Eleanor had succeeded in vexing Agnes. Vain and pretty, Eleanor was given to harmless flirtations and romantic musings, and the entire family breathed a sigh of relief when she accepted the proposal of Ananias Dare, a modest bricklayer and tiler from Portsmouth. What sort of wife had Eleanor become?

  The coach turned onto a narrow lane muddied by freezing winter rains. After urging the horses through the mud, the driver halted the carriage and jumped down from his perch. He flung the door open and bowed as Robert White struggled to extract himself from the depths of the carriage. Jocelyn helped her father up, then held his elbow as she followed him from the carriage.

  Why, Eleanor’s house was lovely! Ananias Dare must be a prosperous man.

  A stream of mild complaints reached Jocelyn as Audrey dismounted from the top of the carriage, but Jocelyn blocked the girl’s whining from her mind as the door to the house opened and a tall, spare man came out to greet them. “Robert!” John White called, his voice echoing in goodwill. “Thank God you have arrived safely. I wondered if I would ever see your devilishly handsome face again!”

  As her father laughed and embraced his elder brother, Jocelyn stood quietly aside and studied her father and uncle. The two men shared the same pronounced cheekbones, thin, expressive lips, and wide, thoughtful foreheads. Even their eyes were strikingly similar: dark, expressive, intelligent. But there the resemblance ended. The sun had etched John White’s tanned skin with fine lines; the grayish pallor of illness underlined Robert White’s countenance. Of the two, John White was taller and more robust, with a fine, full head of white hair. Robert’s thinning hair hung limply from his skull, and though it had once shone with the same shimmer of sable as Jocelyn’s, illness had dulled it to a muddy gray.

  John White pulled out of the embrace and regarded his brother with a stern expression of disapproval. “I take back my words about your good looks. You look like death, Robert. You should have written me.”

  “Nonsense.” Jocelyn watched her father shake off his brother’s arms and concern with a shrug. “I have a cough. If God wills, I will get better.” He turned to Jocelyn and Audrey. “Go inside, girls, and stay warm. John is sure to have a roaring fire in his hearth, for I see by his bronzed face that he is unaccustomed to our English winter.”

  John opened his arm toward Jocelyn in a gesture of welcome. “Forgive me, Jocelyn dear, how pretty you are! Certainly, go inside and warm yourself. Eleanor is waiting and eager to see you, so go reacquaint yourselves while I have a talk with my brother. I’ve taken a little room in the back of the house until we depart again for Virginia, but I’ll be around to talk to you directly.”

  John White threw a protective arm around his brother and led him away. “Are you absolutely determined to go?” Jocelyn heard her father ask as they walked toward the rear of the house.

  “Nothing can deter me. Did I not tell you in my letter? Eleanor and Ananias are coming, too, to live with me in Virginia. Two hundred colonists, Robert, and this time we cannot fail.”

  “Jocelyn!” In a flurry of satin and lace, Eleanor appeared in the hall and hugged her cousin earnestly. “I was so delighted to hear you were coming! Such news I have to tell!”

  “I hate to disappoint you, cousin, but I believe I already know your news,” Jocelyn replied as the two pulled apart. “I overheard Uncle John telling my father that you and Ananias are planning to go to Virginia.”

  Eleanor laughed gaily and pinched Jocelyn’s cheek. “‘Tis only half my news, little one. There’s more to tell. But first, give Audrey your cloak and come nearer the fire. There’s a good girl, Audrey, you’ll find Agnes in the kitchen. Jocelyn, come here and let me have a look at you.”

  Audrey took Jocelyn’s cloak and left for the kitchen while Jocelyn pirouetted neatly before Eleanor, who laughed again and clapped her hands in delight. “How very pretty you are, Jocelyn! Your hair is quite lovely, and that gown! I’d give anything to visit a London sempstress before we depart for Virginia.”

  “Whatever for?” Jocelyn asked, sinking onto a bench near the fire. “I believe the savages of Virginia won’t know a ruff from a frill.”

  “Oh, my dear, but our fellow passengers will,” Eleanor answered, sinking onto a low stool. “And Ananias is to be made one of the gentry, have you heard? He’s one of the thirteen assistants for the new colony. So I’m to be a gentleman’s wife as well as a gentleman’s daughter.”

  Jocelyn smiled in silent congratulations and knew that Eleanor had to be relieved at this turn of events. Jocelyn herself had been surprised when John White had agreed to marry his daughter to an untitled bricklayer, for the gentry and middling folk did not usually mingle, let alone marry. But Eleanor had boldly announced that she and Ananias the bricklayer had fallen in love . . . whatever that meant.

  Eleanor murmured something about fetching tea, and left Jocelyn alone for a moment. Jocelyn took advantage of the silence to remove her gloves and hold her chilled hands before the warmth of the fire. The house appeared tidy and prosperous, and the blazing fire bore eloquent testimony to Ananias’ success, for wood was very expensive.

  In a moment Eleanor returned and twirled delicately beside the hearth, the hem of her skirt billowing about her dainty slippers. “I suppose I should let you have a look at me and see if you can guess my news,” she said, smiling impishly. “Look, cousin, and see what a difference marriage makes.”

  She twirled again, slowly this time, and Jocelyn studied her carefully. Eleanor seemed as giddy as ever, but her style in clothing was definitely more matronly. She wore an expensive-looking gown of watchet and rose-colored camlet lined with white silk and embroidered generously with sprays of tiny blue flowers. Double epaulets graced the shoulders over long, thickly quilted sleeves, and a starched, lace-edged ruff set off her face and delicate features. A long rope of pearls hung from her neck and a blue feather fan dangled gracefully from the belt at her waist. For all he
r complaints about being far from a London sempstress, Eleanor certainly dressed the part of a fine lady.

  Jocelyn felt a small dart of jealousy. Though her own simple green taffeta gown was elegant and attractive, ‘twas far from new or stylish. Once her father had spoiled her with new dresses, furs, and jewelry, but due to his illness, in the last few months her father had not been able to fulfill his duties at the school where he taught. There had been no money for visits to the sempstress, and Jocelyn had quietly sold her few jewels to pay household expenses.

  “Well?” Eleanor’s tone changed from wheedling to demanding. “Can you guess my secret?”

  “You have commandeered the queen’s sempstress.”

  “You are being silly. Try again.”

  Jocelyn shrugged. “You have married a rich man.”

  “Not really.” Eleanor giggled, then rushed forward and knelt on the ground at Jocelyn’s feet, clasping her hands tightly over her cousin’s. Her eyes were surprisingly clear and direct. “I am going to have a child. In August, if God wills. Mark me, coz: Not only are Ananias and I going to Virginia, but our child will be born there.”

  Jocelyn took a quick breath of utter astonishment. “You would travel to Virginia in such a condition?”

  “Yes.” Eleanor’s sweet face showed no signs of concern. “Papa has said the journey will be difficult, but we should make good time and establish the City of Raleigh well before June. In less than four months . . .” Eleanor’s voice trailed away as she considered happy thoughts.

  “You will be—” Jocelyn offered, uncomfortable discussing such a delicate subject, “—very large with child.”

  Eleanor smiled and her eyes misted. “Yes. But Papa will be with me, and Ananias will not leave my side. And Papa has promised that I will receive the best of care and attention. And if you will come, too, dear cousin. . .”

  Jocelyn laughed and pushed Eleanor’s outstretched hands away. “I’faith, I go? To Virginia? Dear coz, have you lost your mind? My father is ill, and he is in no condition to venture on such a journey.”