下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
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 Indian 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.