Poison in the Colony, page 15
I’ve heard it before, but I certainly don’t mind hearing it again, how the writer William Shakespeare heard of the storm and shipwreck of the Sea Venture, and wrote a play about it. He called it The Tempest, and it was performed in the theater in London.
“Those actors who play it onstage should have been in the real tempest!” Mr. Eason says. “They know nothing of what it was truly like.”
There is a knock at the door, and when Mrs. Eason opens it, snow swirls into the cottage. It is Choupouke, carrying a basket.
“Come in out of the snow,” Mrs. Eason says cheerily.
I stare at Choupouke’s basket. My stomach tenses. Choupouke’s family members, who still live in the Indian village, often give him things they have made, like clay pots or bowls, or food when they know we need it. Since Choupouke speaks our language, he is chosen to do the trading. He trades for what we have, like cotton clothing or metal tools. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he has in the basket.
The adults make polite small talk. Then Choupouke lifts a piece of deerskin off his basket and asks, “Dried venison. You want?”
“No!” I shout it.
Everyone looks at me.
“I—uh,” I stammer, not knowing what to say. “I just think we have plenty of food, right, Mrs. Eason?”
But Mrs. Eason has her fists on her hips. “Well, Virginia, I know there are some who think they are so high and mighty they won’t eat what the natives bring, but that is not us.”
“I didn’t—” I begin, but I have no way to defend myself. My family would never refuse food from the natives—until now.
Suddenly I know what I have to do. I need to touch Choupouke to see if he has any malice in him. Surely if the meat were poisoned, he would have been warned not to eat any of it. I step over near him, as though I need a better look at the meat. Carefully, I brush his hand. I feel calmness, eagerness, interest, but no malice. I am relieved.
In the next moment, Choupouke surprises me. He lightly brushes my hand. I feel something new this time, something I can’t quite grasp. It’s a little like admiration, but not quite. Then I look up at him and see it in his eyes. It’s attraction. He thinks I’m pretty!
I feel my face flush bright red and I scurry back to my chair. I sit very still, looking straight ahead.
“Do you approve, Virginia?” Mrs. Eason asks me teasingly. “Are we allowed to trade for some meat?”
I give a quick nod, keeping my eyes on the far wall.
“What’s wrong with her?” Bermuda asks.
“Nothing is wrong with me,” I snap.
Mr. and Mrs. Eason discuss the trade with Chou-pouke. Would he like a pair of woolen socks Mrs. Eason just knitted? Choupouke points to his bare feet and shakes his head. They settle on a piece of flattened iron, excellent for making into a tool, for the whole basket of meat.
After Choupouke leaves, Bermuda and I finish shelling the pile of corn while discussing how best to catch crayfish for fishing bait. At least he doesn’t think I’m pretty.
“Virginia, isn’t it time for you to be helping your mother?” Mrs. Eason asks after a while.
I agree. I wrap my shawl around my shoulders and step out into the swirling snow. As I walk home, I think of how, if I could touch each person who offers us food, I would find the poison. I could keep us safe if I were allowed to do that. But it would be impossible to tell this to anyone and keep me safe. And there are too many plantations and towns now. I can’t be at all of them. For a moment, I stop walking and close my eyes tightly. I don’t want the arguments in my head to start up again.
“I will give my life if that is what You ask,” I whisper. Then I open my eyes and walk through the falling snow back to our cottage.
Thirty-Four
BY MONDAY MORNING, Da is feeling torn about leaving us. Between Alice’s snakebite and my near indentured servitude, he is afraid we might not be safe on our own.
“But I can’t expect Samuel to work by himself,” Da says. So, reluctantly, he packs up the cabbages Mum has given him from our root cellar, and we all follow him down to where the canoe has been pulled up on the riverbank. He gives us hugs and kisses.
Alice is unhappy and whiny. “I don’t want you to go,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes. “Why do you have to go when Samuel is coming here?”
Da ignores her question and pats her on the head. Mum gives me a panicked glance. I scoop Alice up into my arms. “Let’s go see if we can find a frog,” I say. “Do you think frogs like snow?”
When I have her out of earshot, I whisper, “Is Samuel coming today?”
“Yes,” Alice says. She sniffles.
I glance up. Mum is helping Da carry the boat down to the water, but she is watching us. I nod to her. It is all I can do. Yes, Samuel is coming today. If she can think of a way to stall, to get Da to stay here, we’ll have another day with him rather than sending him back to Elizabeth City to work all by himself and wonder where Samuel is. I know that as reluctant as Da is to leave, it shouldn’t take much to get him to stay.
I hear Mum yelp and see her fall to her knees.
“Alice,” I whisper. “Do you still feel like crying because Da is leaving?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Then do it—cry. Loud. Right now,” I tell her.
I lead a wailing Alice back to where Mum is on her knees on the ground. Da is bending over her. Mrs. Hudson, who has come to the river to fetch wash water, rushes over to help. Katherine begins to cry now as well.
Over all the noise, I hear Mum reassuring Da. “I’m all right, John. I just got dizzy for a moment.”
Da tries to help Mum up, but Mrs. Hudson stops him. “No, sir, if she’s dizzy, the last thing you want is her standing up.” To Mum, she says, “You just sit there, Ann, until you feel better.” Then she snaps at me, “Can’t you get those children to quiet down?”
I try to calm the girls. “Mum is going to be all right,” I say.
But Alice doesn’t even want to hear about Mum. “I don’t want Da to leave!” she cries.
Mrs. Hudson narrows her eyes at Da. “Leave? Where are you rushing off to? You can’t leave your wife in this state.”
Da shakes his head. “No, you’re right. I can’t. I will stay.”
Alice stops her wailing in an instant. “You were right, Ginny, it worked. And now Da will get to see S—”
“Alice!” I say quickly. “Leave Da alone so he can help Mum.” I pick up Katherine and take Alice’s hand. “I’ll bring the girls back to the cottage so they’ll be out of the way,” I say. And explain to Alice that she has to keep Samuel’s arrival a secret, I think.
* * *
. . .
Once Mum is settled in bed, and both girls are playing with their dolls on the floor, Da goes out to fetch wood for the fire.
“Did you really get dizzy?” I ask quietly.
“The thought of your da not being here and all this going on with Samuel and that chief and you worried about food from the natives—that makes me plenty dizzy,” she says.
“Mrs. Hudson showed up just in time, too,” I say.
“She was an angel, saying all the right things,” Mum says. “And Alice was a help, making it sound like the world would end if Da didn’t stay.”
“I know,” I say. “I told her to.”
Mum raises her eyebrows at me just as Da comes back through the door, his arms loaded with wood.
“There’s something going on,” Da says. He drops the wood onto the floor and picks up the poker for the fire. “The leaders from Elizabeth City, Captain Newce and Captain Tucker, have just arrived along with Chief Debedeavon of the Accomack tribe, and Samuel. Everyone is long-faced. I don’t know how serious it is, but I’d say it’s a very good thing I didn’t leave you girls here alone.”
“Yes, John,” Mum says. “A very good thing.”
“May I go see, Da?” I ask urgently.
Da says yes and I rush out the door.
People are gathering to watch the four men walk through the fort. The chief is tall with broad shoulders, wearing a magnificent mantle woven of shimmering blue feathers. Captain Newce, Captain Tucker, and Samuel look small and plain by comparison.
Samuel sees me and breaks from the group to come over to me. He leans in close. “You did it,” he whispers. “The warning is almost complete.” Then he straightens back up and marches ahead.
“What is going on?” a gentleman calls out to the men.
“We have come to see the governor,” says Captain Newce. “After we have met with him, an announcement will be made and you will all be informed.”
There is murmuring among the colonists, speculation as to what is going on.
“Is that chief a prisoner?”
“Of course not. He was not shackled.”
“They could have informed us now instead of making us wait.”
“Why is Samuel Collier involved in this? He’s a commoner.”
“He’s an interpreter. Lived with the natives when he was young.”
I watch as the men arrive at Governor Yeardley’s house and go inside. You did it. The warning is almost complete. I am safe. Samuel is safe. And the colony is safe.
* * *
. . .
I have to wait until evening to have a moment alone with Samuel. Mum does not object to me going with him—she trusts whatever is going on.
We leave the fort and head to the near woods. There, we stop and listen for a moment to be sure there is no one else around. Then Samuel launches in.
“When Chief Debedeavon arrived with his guards, I met with him and Captain Newce and Captain Tucker. He asked lots of questions, about how many settlements we have and what land we are using up and down the river. I interpreted his questions, and their answers. The chief seemed nervous, like he had something on his mind. The English call him ‘The Laughing King,’ but he was not in a laughing mood at all. At one point, everyone was silent. I knew that no one but he and his guards would understand my words in Algonquian, so I asked, ‘What about the poison?’”
My eyes grow wide.
“You should have seen his face!” Samuel says. “Out came the whole story, how Chief Opechancanough wanted his tribe to gather as much water hemlock as they could find, because it grows in great abundance where they live. He said he did not want to do it, did not want to poison us. He also said he doesn’t think we are using too much land.”
“And you translated it all?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says.
“And then you brought the news to Governor Yeardley?”
“Yes. The governor is leaving today to go visit every one of the cities and boroughs to get the warning out. The word is spreading through James Town now: we are not to eat or drink anything that comes from the natives. And soon the word will reach Chief Opechancanough that his plan has been revealed.”
“Thank you, Samuel,” I say. “Thank you for listening to me and believing me.”
“Of course I believed you, Ginny,” he says. “I always have.”
As we walk back toward the fort, Charles comes striding down to meet us. “I have important information for you,” he says, with an air of supreme authority, looking only at Samuel. “While you were out picking weeds or whatever it is you do in the woods, an announcement was made.” He clears his throat, as though he is about to introduce the king. “We are not to eat or drink anything the natives offer us—not that I would do that anyway, but people like you might.”
Just for fun, I ask innocently, “Really? Why not?”
Charles grunts with annoyance. “I’m not telling you; you’re just an ignorant girl. I’m telling Samuel.”
Samuel crosses his arms over his chest. “Well then, do tell me why not.”
Charles leans in conspiratorially and speaks in a low voice. “They were going to poison us. They had a plan.” He straightens up. “But their plan has been foiled, thanks to the good gentlemen and leaders of our colony.”
I clench my teeth together. Not a word must escape my lips.
“Yes, the good gentlemen, of which you are one, Charles,” Samuel says. “Thank you very much for informing us. If not for you, we may have perished. Now if you don’t mind, we really must get back to picking weeds.”
Charles turns and marches ahead of us back to the fort. I am about to explode. Once Charles is within the gates, I can finally blurt out, “Why didn’t you tell him that you were the one who translated the meeting with our gentleman leaders?”
“He’ll find out soon enough that I was translator. It’s no secret,” Samuel says. “And then he’ll be good and embarrassed that he acted like a know-it-all.”
When we get back to James Town, everyone is discussing the plot to poison us.
“They were going to kill us all!”
“They hate us.”
“Not all of them. The chief of the Accomacks saved us.”
“I’m never eating their bread again. It’s hard and heavy as a rock anyway.”
I say goodbye to Samuel as he heads off to see Angela, and I make my way back home. I feel buoyant. So much darkness and heaviness has lifted. I have done what the knowing asked of me and my part in all of it will remain a protected secret. Now I can go back to my normal life and stop being a “difficult child to raise.”
An orange cat trots over to me and rubs against my leg. I lean down to scratch her under the chin. “This is a good day,” I tell her. She closes her eyes and purrs.
Near our cottage, I walk by two men talking. I hear only one sentence, one snatch of their conversation:
“How will they try to kill us next?”
Thirty-Five
DA AND SAMUEL go back to work on our homestead in Elizabeth City for several more weeks, but in mid-March we are happy to welcome them home for tobacco planting. The birds return, too, and it is time to plant peas and onions in our garden plot.
By April, the ships begin to arrive. Most of the new colonists are the usual crop of servants: convicts from the prisons, drunks picked up off the streets of London and Bristol, homeless children, and poor farmers who were kicked off their rented land by wealthy landowners. Sadly, there are also more kidnapped children, lured with candy and forced onto the ships.
All these new servants are sent to work the tobacco plantations so that the gentlemen who run the plantations can make more money. And while the gentlemen grow rich, their servants die from lack of food and from having to live in the woods because there are not enough tents and cottages for everyone.
A new sort of trade has begun: the buying and selling of men and boys. The gentlemen argue and barter, wanting the strongest and fittest servants for their plantations. Some servants are lost and won in card games, the way the Irishmen did with me. Da says if they would just feed their servants well and give them a dry, warm place to sleep, then they wouldn’t always need to buy new ones. He overheard two gentlemen complaining that out of every hundred servants that get sent to their plantations, seventy-five of them die within the year.
Some of the new colonists are called Puritans. Mum says they wanted to purify the Church of England, but the church didn’t like their ideas and so they have come here where they can be free to have their religious beliefs. They are sent down the river to live at the Lawnes Creek settlement.
Later in the spring, Chief Opechancanough himself comes to meet with Governor Yeardley. He says he never had any plans to poison us, but that Chief Debedeavon lied in order to end our friendly relations. He says his greatest desire is to have peace between us and for his people to be our friends and helpers. Governor Yeardley, and most of the colonists, want to believe that this is true. Many of the colonists go back to trading with the natives for food, and no one drops dead of poison. I know that it is Chief Opechancanough who is lying. And I am greatly relieved that it was Chief Debedeavon, and not me or Samuel, who told Governor Yeardley about the plot to poison us.
George Thorpe is still trying to convince Chief Opechancanough to send the native children to his new school. By early summer, Mr. Thorpe comes up with a new way to try to bribe the chief: he decides to build him an English-style house. Da and Samuel are called away from the tobacco fields to help build the house, since they are excellent carpenters. Mr. Thorpe wants the house to be fancy, not just a cottage.
* * *
. . .
In midsummer, when Da and Samuel have been gone for weeks helping to build the chief’s house, Alice wakes up one day and begins to sing a happy song about Da coming home. She is like a little harbinger, always letting us know the day Da will be returning. This knowledge of when people she loves will arrive is the only way the knowing has manifested in her, and so Mum is not too worried about her.
“Is your da coming home today?” Mum asks her.
“He is,” Alice says.
“Shhh. Don’t tell anyone,” Mum says, making it sound like a fun game. “It will be our secret, all right?”
Alice whispers, “I’ll keep the secret.” Then she goes back to singing her song, but more quietly.
Da is home in time for supper. “Lucky again,” he says. “I always seem to come back on stew days.”
Mum gives Alice a furtive glance and quickly taps her finger to her lips. Alice’s eyes are bright with the secret. “We’ve had only loblolly forever,” she says.
I quickly change the subject. “So, has Chief Opechancanough seen his house yet?” I ask. “Does he like it?”
Da digs into his bowl of stew and talks with his mouth full. “He is fascinated with it,” he says. “We put a lock with a key on the front door. He’s never seen anything like it. He locks and unlocks that door at least a hundred times a day.”
