Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) Read online

  Eleanor pulled herself up to sit on the bench next to Jocelyn. “Have you never considered,” she whispered, her voice a husky whisper, “that perchance your father might wish you to go with me? You are seventeen, Jocelyn, and should have been married before this. There are many eligible young men preparing to go to Virginia, and many are eager to take a bride.”

  “To what?” Jocelyn snapped, forgetting herself. “I am not ignorant of Virginia, Eleanor. I have heard of the difficulties faced by Ralph Lane’s men. They were attacked by savages, nearly killed by starvation, shipwrecked and oft abandoned. Go to Virginia? I would as lief go to Spain and serve their Catholic King.”

  “You don’t know what you are saying. Papa has said that this expedition will be different,” Eleanor went on, unruffled. “The first failed because ‘twas a military endeavor, but this, Jocelyn, will be an outpouring of families, men and women and children eager to establish new homes in Virginia. Ananias and I are eager to go. Agnes, my maid, is coming as well, and surely your father would allow you to take Audrey if it would please you. You could stay by my side, cousin, and help me when the baby arrives. After that, you could make a life for yourself, far from that stuffy university where you fill your head with useless books—”

  “Stop.” Jocelyn raised her hand to halt the flow of words, wishing she could politely clap her hands over her ears. Such sincerity shone from Eleanor’s eyes that Jocelyn found it difficult to answer. “I would gladly offer my help for your baby,” she said finally, twisting her hands in her lap. “But marriage? I do not want to be married. I am not ready.”

  “Bah!” Eleanor playfully waved the objection away. “Every girl is ready when the right man comes along. A hundred men will be on our ship, Jocelyn! Many born gentle, and all brave souls. You could have your pick from the lot of them. I believe there are ten, no, twenty who would know how to move your heart if you would but give them the chance to woo you.”

  Jocelyn lowered her eyes. “I cannot go,” she said simply, shaking her head. “Nothing can be done about it, Eleanor. My father is very ill, and perchance dying. If he does not rest, his strength will fail him altogether.”

  Eleanor reached out and squeezed Jocelyn’s hand. “Mayhap God has brought this opportunity to you in his divine wisdom,” she whispered. “If your father dies—”

  “No!” Jocelyn jerked her hand away. “I will stay with him, I will make him rest, and he will not die. He needs me, and as long as I am there to make sure he eats and rests, he will remain strong.”

  Eleanor did not answer for a moment, then her hand moved to shield the slight bulge at the waistline of her gown. “I admire the strength of your love, coz,” she whispered, staring into the fire, “and hope that my child will feel as strongly attached to me when he is grown. Do what you must, and I will pray God to preserve you and your father. But Ananias and I will be departing within two months, and it may be a very long time before you and I meet again. I had so hoped that you would join us—”

  Eleanor’s voice cracked, and Jocelyn felt a wave of compassion flood her heart. Despite Eleanor’s careless confidence, she had to be frightened. She was leaving home, kin, queen—everything she knew and held dear—for the untamed wilderness of Virginia. ‘Twas only natural that she had wanted her closest relative to join her.

  “I am sorry, truly sorry,” Jocelyn whispered, slipping her arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. “I would go with you if not for Papa. I know you must be frightened.”

  Eleanor shook her head, but her eyes remained locked on the fire. Jocelyn embraced her briefly, and felt wet tears upon her cousin’s cheek.

  “I did not know that you were so ill. What does the doctor say?”

  Robert White sat on the narrow bed in the small but tidy chamber; his brother sat on a thread-worn chair facing him. One tiny window allowed only a small stream of light into the room, and the darkness magnified the shadows of Robert White’s face.

  Robert squared his shoulders defensively in response to his brother’s question. “I am not so ill. Perchance I am only growing old.”

  “Nonsense. I have seen dying men, Robert.”

  Robert coughed softly. “A plague on your tactlessness, John! If you are to be a governor, diplomacy is a skill you should develop.”

  “Beshrew diplomacy. There is a time for speaking plainly, and ‘tis now.” He leaned closer and placed his hand on his brother’s knee. “You have a bloody cough. Is it phthisis?”

  “So my doctor says.”

  “How long?”

  “Not very.”

  The two men sat in silence for a moment as John struggled for words. Robert had never been one to ask for or accept sympathy, not even when his young wife died and left him with a daughter to raise alone. And three months ago, at Christmastide, John had heard that Robert lost his teaching position to a witty would-be poet called Shakespeare, but he doubted that Robert had read more than two lines of the condolence message he sent.

  But assistance must be offered. “Can I help?” he asked, fully expecting a proud refusal.

  “Yes,” came the surprising reply. Robert’s hand trembled as it rested on his knee, and his lips quivered as he spoke. “I came here to talk with you about this, John. Something must be done for Jocelyn, and since you are leaving England there is no one else to see to her welfare.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Robert twisted the handkerchief in his hand. “I would like her to go with you to Virginia, so you can act as her guardian. I have set aside a certain sum which should more than adequately pay for her voyage—”

  “Forget the money, Robert. I myself will provide for her.”

  Robert coughed again, then wiped his chin with the bloody handkerchief. His eyes narrowed in pain. “I pray you, keep her safe, John, protect her, for she has been sheltered and knows little of the world—”

  Robert’s voice broke, and John placed his hand upon his brother’s bony shoulder. “If you wish it, Robert, it will be arranged.” He managed a smile. “Safeguarding her will not be easy, for she is a pretty girl and a lady, and the ship will be loaded with unmarried men, most of whom are common folk. But if I assign a man to look after her—”

  “Find her a husband.” Robert barely managed to utter the words before a coughing spell seized him, and John sat helplessly while Robert coughed into his handkerchief for what felt like an eternity. When he could catch his breath, Robert leaned toward his brother, his dark eyes large and fierce with pain. “Find her a husband,” he repeated, his voice a thin whisper in the room.

  John leaned forward. “What sort of husband, Robert? ‘Tis customary for the father to arrange a marriage, so if you wish to do so—”

  “I leave it in your hands,” Robert said, clearing his throat of rumbling phlegm. “Only do not tell Jocelyn anything of this. She won’t want to go, and I fear I will have to resort to subterfuge to bring her onto the ship.” He paused and took a weary, rasping breath. “Find a man who will love her, John, a man who loves God above all. A gentle man, a kind man, and one in whose strength she can rest. She has done too much for me. She deserves a better life than—this.”

  In that moment, John White caught a glimpse of his brother’s future—the expressive, sensitive face would grow pale and shrivel like an old orange, then hands that rested now on his knee would soon be but bone and tough sinew. If nothing were done, Jocelyn would watch her father crumple and die. Her youth and beauty would be spent on his decay . . .

  John clasped his brother’s thin shoulder again. “I will see to it,” he said. “Have no fear, Robert, she will be well wed. And she will prosper in our new City of Raleigh. Lane failed because he affronted the Indians, but we will succeed because we are families. Just like the Indians, we want nothing more than to live and work in peace.”

  Robert’s eyes closed in relief and weariness, and John softened his voice. “But now, brother, take your rest on my mattress. I will wake you before supper.”

  Robert sile
ntly nodded his thanks.

  Audrey Tappan was defrosting her chapped hands by the blazing kitchen fire when she felt a rude nudge on her hip. “Move out of the way, dearie, or I’ll burn ye with this ‘ot soup,” warned Agnes Woods, Eleanor’s former maid and now servant to the Dare family. Audrey had met Agnes at Eleanor’s wedding the previous year, and the powerful woman with the bones of a man had only grown more dour with age. The woman had to be nearly thirty, but any signs of gray in her hair were covered by her cap and her face was too plump for wrinkles. Despite being stern-faced and quick-tongued, Agnes was well beloved by the Dare household.

  “A wee bit pushy, aren’t ye?” Audrey remarked mildly as she stepped out of the way. “Are you as brash with your mistress?”

  “‘Bout as cheeky as ye are with yours,” Agnes answered, placing a heavy iron pot into the fire. She straightened and grimaced over her flushed cheeks. “I saw ye alighting from the carriage, and ‘eard your complainin’. I might be cozy in my mistress’s confidence, but ye won’t ‘ear me complainin’ within ‘er ‘earing, that’s for certain.”

  Audrey shrugged and held her hands up to the fire again. “Sure, and don’t I know I’ve heard enough complaining from ye. I believe ye could wear a body out with your tongue, but Miss Jocelyn doesn’t mind me. We’re friends, we are.”

  “So ye say.” Agnes turned to the chopping board where a handful of onions awaited her knife. “Just how friendly are ye and your mistress?”

  “Friendly enough. I’ve been with her for nearly four years now, since I was twelve.”

  “And are ye thinking of going with ‘er to Virginia?”

  Audrey forgot about warming her hands and turned to gape at the older woman. “Och, and where’d you hear an eejit thing like that? Virginia? Miss Jocelyn’s not going there.”

  Agnes lowered her voice and winked conspiratorially. “Aye, I overheard Master John talking to Master Robert ‘bout taking Miss Jocelyn to Virginia. Seems they want her to find a ‘usband.”

  “‘Tis not so,” Audrey answered, but her brain hummed with the idea. Virginia! Such stories she had heard, about Indians who ran through the forest half-clothed with long hair streaming down their backs. Virginia was Paradise, people said, but one had to endure the very devil himself to thrive there. Mayhap no one could. Mayhap no one was meant to, but if Miss Jocelyn was truly thinking about going to Virginia, ‘twas time to start praying that she’d change her mind.

  “Ye’d better be packing your own trunk,” Agnes said, chopping the onions with relish. “Mine are packed with wot little I ‘ave. The ship sails from the port ‘ere in about a month, Master John says, and will arrive in Virginia before summer.”

  “Virginia!” Audrey sank onto a stool in amazement, then turned wide eyes to Agnes: “But I know Miss Jocelyn. Her father’s ill, and she won’t leave him.”

  “I tell ye, the plans ‘ave been laid,” Agnes said, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge. “Pack your bag, write your mummy and daddy, and tell them goodbye. You are as bound for Virginia as I am, or else you’d better find a new master and mistress.”

  “Och, I could never leave Miss Jocelyn,” Audrey murmured, her head still crowded with the image of a longhaired and dark-eyed savage. “But—Virginia!”

  “‘Tis not all bad news, dearie.” Agnes winked at the younger girl and rapped the knife on the table. “Master John says there are over a hundred unmarried men goin’ and not many maids. Be glad, girl, for you’ll catch a ‘usband easily, and I’ll be right behind you with my own if God is willin’. Serving women like us would never get married if we stayed ‘ere, but in Virginia there’s no gainsaying that we’ll be wanted as wives.”

  “Imagine that,” Audrey finished numbly. “But I believe I’d rather be single and alive in London than married and—goodness me, I can’t say it.”

  “Boiled by the savages?” Agnes volunteered, tossing the onions into the kettle hanging over the fire.

  “That thought did get into me head,” Audrey admitted.

  TWO

  The lights of London houses made yellow rectangles on the thin snow that had fallen in their absence, and Jocelyn smiled with relief when the carriage driver pulled up outside her own small house. She helped her father from the coach and held his arm as they went inside while Audrey thanked and dismissed the driver. After leading her exhausted father to his room, Jocelyn made her way to the hall and removed her traveling veil. As she unfastened her cloak, the slightly perfumed fragrance of the pine boughs that had adorned Eleanor’s house rose to remind her again of Eleanor’s parting plea to join them in Virginia.

  Jocelyn’s farewell to Eleanor had been bittersweet. Her happiness for her cousin’s prosperity and great expectations was tempered by the knowledge that her uncle and cousin were leaving for another world. ‘Twas too much to comprehend. If her father died after her relatives departed, she would truly be alone in England.

  The click of the door latch broke the silence in the hall. Audrey tossed off her bonnet and fell onto her cot, too tired to remove her cloak. Jocelyn let her sleep and moved through the house in the pattern she had established long ago: hang up the cloaks, check the fire, fetch a log. She mumbled under her breath at the thought of having to step out again into the numbing cold, then the touch of a hand on her shoulder made her gasp in surprise.

  Her father stood behind her, weariness etched into every line on his face. “Don’t go out, my dear. I’ll bring in a log.”

  “No, Papa,” she answered, sorry that she’d complained. “You should be in bed. ‘Tis no trouble for me. Just lie down and rest, and I’ll have a fire soon, then something warm for you to drink. Eleanor gave me a small bag of tea before we left—”

  “Sit down, Jocelyn, never mind the fire. I want to talk to you.”

  She had not heard her father speak so firmly in years. Reflexively, she sat on a stool while her father stood before her. Had she done something wrong?

  Her father forced a smile to his tired face, but the effort could not lift the lines of weariness and exhaustion that surrounded his eyes. “I have spoken with your uncle,” he said, folding his hands across his chest. “We both agree ‘tis best if you accompany Eleanor to Virginia.”

  So that was it. This firm determination was only for her benefit. Well, she could be resolute, too.

  “No, Papa, I will not go,” she said, lifting her chin stubbornly. She met his eyes and smiled. “Think you that I could leave you behind? I would rather remain here.”

  “This is not a choice, Jocelyn Marie. This is my wish. I command you to go with your uncle.”

  “This choice is not yours to make, Papa,” she said, knowing she walked on the dangerous ground between rebellion and the independence he had always encouraged her to exhibit.

  “Children, obey your parents in the Lord—” he began, wagging his finger at her.

  “Honor thy father and mother, Papa,” she answered. “Love thy neighbor as thyself. In honor prefer one another. And, little children, let us not love in words, but in deed and in truth.”

  He let his hand fall to his side, defeated. “I should know better than to throw the Scriptures at you,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting in a weary smile. “Whatever possessed me to allow my daughter to read? She now knows more than I do myself—”

  “Pray do not tell me to go away,” she whispered, lifting her eyes to the ceiling so she would not have to look at the pain in his face. “You are all I have in the world, Papa, and I cannot leave you.”

  “If I insist?” His voice cracked, and Jocelyn knew he found it hard to command such a difficult decision. He had reared her to think for herself, to weigh right and wrong in the balance of truth and God’s Word.

  She lowered her eyes squarely into his. “I do not wish to go to Virginia. I will stay here in England with you.”

  He raised his hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “If I cannot command you, daughter, can I—” he coughed slightly. “Can I beg
you? Will you go, so my mind and heart may rest in peace?”

  Mayhap ‘twas his choice of words that provoked the image, but she suddenly knew with pulse-pounding surety that he would die. He no longer had the strength to fight his illness or even command her obedience, and now her proud and intelligent father had been reduced to begging his stubborn daughter so he could die at peace, with no worries about her future. Uncle John wanted her to go to Virginia, her father wished it, Eleanor wanted Jocelyn by her side, perchance God himself wanted Jocelyn to make the voyage . . .

  No! She could not do this thing.

  “I could not bear to leave you, Papa,” she said, catching his fevered hands tightly in hers. “Pray don’t ask me again. This thing you ask is impossible, and I have told Eleanor so. My place is here, with you, until you are better.”

  “I will not get better.” His words were a rasp from a torn soul. Though she knew they were true, still Jocelyn hated hearing them.

  “I will not leave you.”

  Despite the cold ashes in the fireplace, the room seemed to grow warmer as her father looked down at her. “‘Tis settled then,” he said, his eyes large and luminous. A secret lurked behind his dark pupils—what?

  But he only smiled and whispered: “You are a good daughter, Jocelyn Marie.”

  She pulled his hands to her lips and gently kissed his knuckles. “You are my only father. How could I leave you?”

  “I am tired,” he said abruptly, pulling his hands from hers. He took two steps toward the back chamber where his bed waited, then turned toward her. “Will you ask the apothecary to visit me tomorrow? I have a boon to ask of him.”

  “I’ll go as soon as I have lit the fire,” Jocelyn answered, glad to see that for once her father seemed eager to take the apothecary’s advice. Mayhap he had been worried that he would be left alone and did not want to prolong his death. But now that she had promised to remain, he could regain his strength. If she could only convince him to rest—