TTHESea Venturewhich had left England with one hundred and fifty passengers on June 2, 1609, had not only Sir Thomas Gates aboard, but an ordinary Englishman named John Rolfe and his wife. The lull after the storm which wrecked the ship off the Bermuda Isles was such a relief that they named their baby born there "Bermuda" after the island. She was baptized by the Reverend Richard Buck, who was to stand by John Rolfe on many occasions in the future. The burial of the baby was the next of these. Their sojourn on the healthy islands was a blessing to most of the refugees, although they were supposed dead by the Jamestown colonists, few of whom were surviving themselves during their "Starving Time" that winter and early spring.
THESea Venturewhich had left England with one hundred and fifty passengers on June 2, 1609, had not only Sir Thomas Gates aboard, but an ordinary Englishman named John Rolfe and his wife. The lull after the storm which wrecked the ship off the Bermuda Isles was such a relief that they named their baby born there "Bermuda" after the island. She was baptized by the Reverend Richard Buck, who was to stand by John Rolfe on many occasions in the future. The burial of the baby was the next of these. Their sojourn on the healthy islands was a blessing to most of the refugees, although they were supposed dead by the Jamestown colonists, few of whom were surviving themselves during their "Starving Time" that winter and early spring.
Praying only for a safe arrival in Jamestown before long, they looked only that far ahead. John Rolfe did not anticipate that his wife would die soon. Sir George Somers did not foresee that he would come to an inglorious end on this very island many months hence from eating a surfeit of pig; and Sir Thomas Gates, the first absolute Governor of Virginia, did not know that his desperate decision on arrival at Jamestown would nearly end the colony, making it disappear in the mysterious trail of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth Island and St. George's Fort.
Resolutely these sanguine refugees saw that boats were built out of salvaged timbers from the wrecked ship, along with fresh and strong cedar from the Islands, and they put faith if not wind into the sails of the aptly namedPatienceandDeliverance.
The forlorn colonists at Jamestown could scarcely believe their eyes as the stalwart ships came up the river with their castaways a May morning in 1610. The sixty survivors on the shorewere too weak to fall in with any brave plans at this point, for plague, starvation and Indian enmity had had their will of them.
Gates landed with high hopes and high orders. He intended to establish a colony at a higher and healthier spot. He was going to keep looking for the Roanoke colonists, and yes, for gold, too, until the tottering ruin of Jamestown appalled him. People had gnawed on molded bread, eaten rats and snakes, and perhaps corpses. Listening to their tales of woe, he promised to take them away, for his food would only sustain them all for sixteen days here. Palisades were torn down, ports opened, gates ripped from their hinges, the church ruined—and it would have been bitterly deserted if it had been habitable. Gates declared martial law. The survivors with their pitiful possessions and small arms were gotten on board to the militant beating of drums. He saw that the heavier cannon were buried, and he was himself the last to board the ship, being afraid that the sullen colonists would set fire to what remained. He considered himself a good housekeeper, leaving his premises tidy for any who should come after, never dreaming that that would be of all people—himself.
He had sent the pinnaceVirginiato pick up the guard at Point Comfort. After making six miles, they stopped for the night at Hog Island. In the morning they had travelled but eight more miles when they were baffled at sight of the white sails of theVirginia, which was heading toward them with an important message which reversed the course of western history. Lord Delaware was on his way with one hundred and fifty men to their rescue, and they must go meekly back to await his orders. They met this news with bad grace, but followed the directions.
Gates had his company duly standing in arms, and William Strachey, then Secretary of State, let his colors fall at his lordship's feet, as Delaware entered from the river that Sunday afternoon, falling on his knees to pray silently, on the threshold of the fort at the south gate. He passed on to the church where the Reverend Richard Buck preached.
Delaware was a man who got things done on week days as well as on Sundays, although he fastidiously kept to his quarterson the ship after a look about at rotting Jamestown. He got houses mended, having rails put on leaking roofs, and Indian mats hung over drafty huts. He dealt with the Indians with short shrift, and he sent to seek gold once again. Not since John Smith's day had such an efficient leader hustled lazier men.
The chapel was made the most exalted place of worship yet seen over here. Pews, pulpit, and chancel were built of pungent cedar, and the deeper fragrance of fresh flowers cheered the colonists. The Communion table was built of walnut. Fifty men in bright red livery sat on either side of Delaware, or behind him, as he attended services. Two preachers took turns for two services on Sundays and for another on Thursday. Two bells in the west end of the chapel called all to prayer daily at ten and at four. Everybody and everything seemed on the mend but his lordship himself.
He did not have the stamina to endure this unhealthy climate. The flux, cramp, gout, scurvy and general debility sickened him so that he fled to the Island of Nevis for the cure, wanting to prescribe for himself in as modern and salubrious a manner as he had for the ailing colony. His cure was due to be sunshine, hot baths, balmy climate, oranges and lemons, a far cry from any at poor Jamestown, but winds and waves swept him to London sooner than he had planned.
He was briefly succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale, a grim disciplinarian. Dale was disgusted with the carefree bowling in the streets. He would have been more so a few years back had he seen the naked Pocahontas turning cart-wheels in these streets while the serving boys whirled in her trail, never quite keeping up with her—nor would he have liked the tall tobacco growing rampant in these streets, a few years hence at a time when food crops were needed. Dale believed in all work and no play—never mind dull boys. Houses, the storehouse, and the church needed repairs. Besides he ordered new buildings: a stable, a munition house, a powder house, fishhouse, a barn, a smith's forge, a clean well, and a wharf for landing goods.
He also built up two new towns. Bermuda City he named for the haven which theSea Venturesurvivors had appreciated afterthe tempest. After Gates became governor in 1611, Dale preferred to live in Henricopolis, which was situated on a higher and drier site than Jamestown enjoyed. It had three streets of well-framed houses, several having brick first stories. They had gardens and orchards, and more space than those in Jamestown.
By Christmas there was a pretty street in Jamestown itself which had a London look. There were "two fair rows of framed timber houses with upper garrets corn-loft high." Some had plaster on the lower framing and some weather boarding, while still others had shingle tiles which were hung from the battens across the posts. There was a blockhouse outside of town, the town itself being enclosed with a palisade.
Sir Thomas Gates who had arrived again in August of 1611 with six vessels and three hundred men, replacing Dale, had the "Country House" for governors built. It had a commanding view of the river, outside of the town limits.
Fine as these buildings were, they were constantly needing repair. A jealous Spanish spy declared in 1613 that the whole settlement could be kicked over. Spanish spies had been captured outside of Jamestown in 1611 and were kept there for several years.
Until 1612 Sir Thomas Smith, who was no kin of John, but who gave prestige to the name, being the most powerful merchant in London, had managed the colony by remote control, along with his docile council in England. Then a joint stock company began, being composed of the "court party" which urged martial law and the "patriot party." Sir Thomas Smith gradually veered from the patriot to the court party, leaving the former to brilliant Sir Edwin Sandys.
Samuel Argall, a cousin of Thomas Smith, had landed with Delaware earlier. In 1613 he was sent to capture fifteen Frenchmen who had left Nova Scotia to try a settlement in Mount Desert, Maine, and he brought them as prisoners to Jamestown.
That same year Argall became a frequent figure in the Pocahontas story.
V
PPOCAHONTAS, whose frantic questions had to be hushed with the lie that Smith was no more, now shunned the colony, and her pent-up adoration became a resentment against his people. It was as if he had been adopted into her tribe as well as her heart. A red woman, when she has given her heart, does not take it back. Her moods were more dark than bright, although with the braves and girls her own age she smiled and danced once in a while, like sunlight that would out in darkest woods at noon. A lovely maiden cannot remain woebegone too long, and Powhatan's people, especially those eager for his favor, did their merriest to scatter her dark moods.
POCAHONTAS, whose frantic questions had to be hushed with the lie that Smith was no more, now shunned the colony, and her pent-up adoration became a resentment against his people. It was as if he had been adopted into her tribe as well as her heart. A red woman, when she has given her heart, does not take it back. Her moods were more dark than bright, although with the braves and girls her own age she smiled and danced once in a while, like sunlight that would out in darkest woods at noon. A lovely maiden cannot remain woebegone too long, and Powhatan's people, especially those eager for his favor, did their merriest to scatter her dark moods.
She was visiting in the house of Chief Japazaws when he made a deal with the English of which she was not aware. Captain Argall, whose ship was anchored nearby, had dangled a copper kettle so temptingly in front of Japazaws and his greedy squaw that they could not wait until it spewed steam on their hearth. Captain Argall wanted Pocahontas as a hostage to exchange for English prisoners whom Powhatan had detained too long. That would be easy, agreed Japazaws, for she used to like the English and was grieving even now for their John Smith. After some pouting, she would be happy as a lark sailing down the river with the English in their great canoe.
"I have never been on a ship in my life," the artful squaw begged her spouse. "Captain said he would show it to me."
"Go where you like," shrugged Japazaws.
"Why don't you?" added Pocahontas indifferently.
"Not by myself—the only woman! Besides, I do not know those palefaces. You used to know them right well, Pocahontas. Come along."
Pocahontas complied, but she appeared listless as she went over the ship while the squaw squealed with delight at everything she saw. At dinner Pocahontas did not notice that drunken Japazaws pressed gleefully on Argall's toes. "She's as good as yours."
Afterwards she was looking over the guns in the gun-room, and thinking how Powhatan would have coveted them, when she was told that the chief and his squaw had skipped off of the ship, guiltily swinging their kettle between them.
When she found herself a prisoner, she pulled such a long face, that the English gentlemen felt quite contrite, and every man of them henceforth did his best to cheer her, especially John Rolfe.
John Rolfe was not beholden to the Company for bringing him here, and he carried his own weight in all general endeavors, as well as in his personal projects. He was a far cry from the pampered aristocrats whose idling and futile digging for fool gold had annoyed Captain John Smith. He hailed from the sturdy British farming class, which could come through a Bermuda ship-wreck or a Jamestown disaster in that time, as well as they could a Dunkirk or a "blitz" in the twentieth century. Having arrived with Gates in a prudently salvaged ship, he left with Gates when the Jamestown outpost seemed untenable. He also returned with Gates at Delaware's reinforcement. He, for one, determined to make a go of it, although after his wife's death he was the loneliest of all the bachelor colonists. He sublimated his grief in hard work, and soon in a shrewd project which was to be of value to the colony as well as to his personal fortunes.
He knew instinctively the wisdom of the dying farmer who told his sons that they could dig for their heritage and treasure in the lands on which they lived. If others had heeded such a fable, they would have warmed on the trail of wealth for the colony. In Rolfe's case this was not merely profitable production of the land, but of the specific and prime crop for Virginia—tobacco. He put his finger on the business pulse of the new world. Here was the pot of gold at the foot of Columbus's rainbow; here was the gold for which the laziest colonists had wasted timeprospecting elsewhere. For most of the next two centuries tobacco would be virtually coin of the realm. With it a man would pay the preacher, buy a wife, set her up in fine style, and then be taxed according to the degree of that style, paying in tobacco.
Rolfe was the first tobacconist. In 1610 an excellent plant was imported from Trinidad. Later, another from Venezuela was transported here, and cross-breeding was tried. He had seeds from Bermuda, and he was willing to learn from Indians about what they knew of the soil, and its cultivation. Like a good cook he savored his own product. He sensed that the Indians had none of the earnest industry of his own thrifty family who made the most of every tended acre in England, for they craved only so-so tobacco for their own pipes. This "apooke" was harsh, and English smokers preferred the West Indies product. He was going to improve it until England clamored for its import. Tobacco was a better crop than corn, a more valuable export than mica, lumber, iron, pitch, tar, walnut or cedar. It was more profitable than the mulberry trees which were supposed to produce silk. Rats ate the silk worms, and neither foreign teachers nor statutes could make the silk business succeed. The Glass House never satisfied investors. Yes, tobacco was the thing, and he was keenly on its scent. Within two years he and his neighbors were sending their product to England.
Meanwhile he "looked around," and was one of those Johns who could speak for himself. He could not do without a woman, any more than John Smith could have done with one. When he saw the slim and pensive prisoner, Pocahontas, he was susceptible at first glance, although he admitted that there were plenty of Christians more pleasing to the eye, and he tried to convince himself that he was more concerned for her soul than for her heart. Like an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl she was learning the language and the catechism from the Reverend Alexander Whitaker, and as a devout layman Rolfe was happy to enlighten her.
Three months after she had been taken as a hostage Powhatan did return the seven Englishmen and three muskets and he promised five hundred bushels of corn. The English did not wantto give Pocahontas up until they got more arms from Powhatan, and Rolfe and Whitaker did not want to surrender her until they were sure of her becoming the first convert on this side of the world.
Rolfe craved her in marriage with an intensity that troubled his mind no less than his heart, and his conscience was more sorely beset than either, for no one else had risked marriage with the alien race, so why should he of all people, the most religious and ambitious man in the lot? His course seemed brave to him—"to sweep and make clean the path wherein I walk, from all suspicions and doubts." He wrote to Governor Dale about the "grounds and principal agitations which thus should provoke me to be in love."
He still had no compunctions about being impure. "Nor am I in so desperate an estate that I regard not what becometh of me, nor am I out of hope one day to see my country, not so void of friends, nor mean in birth, but there to obtain a match to my great content." Rolfe believed that he was not "led with unbridled desire of carnal affection; but for the good of this plantation; for the honor of our country; for the glory of God; for my own salvation; and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pocahontas, to whom my heart is and best thoughts are, and have a long time been so entangled, and inthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was ever awearied to unwind myself thereout."
Rolfe confessed his heart's erring with the local preacher as well as the Governor. Both surprised him by thinking it a good thing. Governor Dale thought it would be a love match between the races.
The preacher said: "Don't worry about being unequally yoken with an unbeliever. That one is easy. Convert the heathan." He thought that it would be a feather in his cap to baptize, and later to marry the girl to Rolfe, and not too flamboyant a feather in Rolfe's to marry her. Powhatan would be immensely pleased, although he would never admit it.
All these doubts that had tormented the distraught John made him more bewilderingly in love with this dusky sweetheart.It was April, and redbud blushed through the forest, promising another spring. What that dogwood drifted tardily along in its trail, pure white, and sure of itself? For most men dogwood is synonymous of spring in Virginia, but to him redbud bloomed first, and the more persuasively of spring. To John Rolfe, this comely maid with gentler manners than habitual in her race, yet with warm bloom belonging to this land and this moment, seemed enchanting.
As for Pocahontas, having grieved for that other John two winters, how could she think of another? She had been immature then and destiny had moved him beyond her reach, indeed if he had ever been within it. This man, too, had known grief. The English, unlike Indian men, desired and valued but one woman. There was an empty place in his life now that she would fill, for she too was lonely.
Sir Thomas Dale had sailed up the York River with Captain Argall, hoping to retrieve arms from Powhatan, but without success. John Rolfe was now sent to deal with Powhatan but he got no closer to him than his brother, Opechancanough.
While they were arguing with the Indians, John Rolfe's friend, Ralph Hamor, handed Rolfe's long letter to Dale explaining his confusing love for the Indian princess. Meanwhile Pocahontas went ashore and told a few choice Indians of her new romance. She said that if her father had loved her, he would value her more than old swords and axes. Therefore she would live instead with the English, who loved her. If there had been a flag for bold romance it should have whipped in the breeze along the James River, together with the red cross of St. George at the masthead. Now the fanfaron was of trumpets, drums, guns, and clapping hands, but soon wedding-bells would call the tune.
Pocahontas considered herself a grown woman now, and free to go her own way. This marriage would be an omen of peace, a union of peoples as well as persons. She anticipated it happily, knowing that it would be an exciting affair for her own people, and a nostalgic one for the colonists, who had seen but littleromance here. She was baptized and given the Christian name of "Rebecca" the week before the nuptials.
It was as she surmised. Powhatan was gratified and he could scarcely keep from showing it, but he did not deign to come to Jamestown for such a foreign ceremony. If he had not gone to get himself crowned, why should he go to see his daughter married? Nevertheless, he sent his brother Apachisco to represent him, for Opechancanough would not flatter the English by attending, eager as he was to see the goings-on. Powhatan also sent two of his sons and some other young people to participate, and these added a colorful note to the scene.
The wedding itself was the most paintable scene yet staged in the wilderness, and an idealistic picture of it has hung in American homes ever since. In the wooden church stood guests of international prestige. The picture shows Don Diego de Molina, a Spanish grandee and Argall's French prisoners. Governor Dale, ranking highest, wore full regalia: doublet, ballooning breeches, and stockings with ribbon at the knee. The strange and haunting romance of the scene lingers with those not there, for Pocahontas herself was the most romantic figure in American history. Her sleek black hair dropped upon an Indian mantle which was embroidered in the native fashion, but the dress was of demure white muslin. Her tawny skin had a ruddy glow, and her eyes, as they met Rolfe's showed shining trust, for they intended to live together "civilly and lovingly."
The couple went to live at Varina which was named for the strain of tobacco which Rolfe raised there. He was the sort of bridegroom, who soon forgot the honeymoon, and measured his love in support and proud surroundings.
Governor Dale, impressed with their success, sent an emissary to Powhatan. His house was surrounded by two hundred bowmen, but he offered a friendly pipe of peace, and asked why the messenger did not wear the pearl chain, due to be worn by any messenger between the two leaders. "How is my brother?" he asked. "How do my daughter and her husband live, love and like?"
"Your brother is well, and your daughter is so contented thatshe would not live again with you." Answering why he had come, the messenger said: "Sir Thomas Dale hath sent you two pieces of copper, five strings of blue and white beads, five wooden combs, two fish-hooks, a pair of knives, and when you will send for it, he will give you a grindstone."
Glad to live on their own ample acres provided by Powhatan, but left to themselves, the couple were happy and prosperous. Pocahontas swam, fished, hunted, and roamed her woods. Housekeeping was easier for her than for other squaws, for she had not only a solicitous and helpful husband, but English household goods. Their son Thomas was born in 1615, and he too thrived here.
After a while she became piqued with her preoccupied spouse, who kept planting, and improving tobacco crops, having advanced beyond the rugged Indian agriculture which she had taught him. Indians planted merely enough for their own pipes, and those of a circle of friends, while John Rolfe wanted a bigger and better crop each year. The seedlings were transplanted, thinned and cured as Pocahontas had taught but with added pains that made the product sweet rather than bitter. Soon hogsheads of tobacco were being rolled off his wharf for shipment to England, which rewarded him for his thrifty work. When he got coin of the realm in exchange, he intended to heap it in her aproned lap, but the ex-Princess was tired of aprons, and craved something else besides coin out of England.
If tobacco of the Rolfe plantation rolled the seas, why not its charming young mistress, who was eager to see the land of John Smith? As she hoped, Sir Thomas Dale invited the Rolfes to come along on his trip, thinking they would make a fine advertisement for the London Company. Just in case they looked too fine, he also took along a savage troop.
Powhatan was more dubious about this than he had been about the marriage, wanting to keep his bold daughter where he could keep an eye on her. But finally he consented, provided that she have several of her own along, and her sister, her brother-in-law Tacomoco, and Uttamatomakkin. Powhatan told this manto make notches on sticks for every white he saw over there. He was not too hospitable a host over on this side, and he would like to get an idea of how many guests were to be expected in his western world, just in case there was a wholesale exodus from England.
VI
WWHILE away from Virginia Smith had kept up with its happenings, if Virginia had not of his own. He kept talking it up with missionary fervor as a place of settlement. "The mildness of the air, the fertility of the soil, and the situation of the rivers are so propitious to the nature and the use of man as no place is more convenient for pleasure, profit and man's sustenance." In England he could chuckle at the complaints against other leaders. Since he had been blamed for rigid discipline, he was amused at Dale's martial law. The death penalty was given for telling lies, blasphemy, gaming or even picking a flower in another's garden, or in one's own if on the Sabbath. Failing to attend church or trade with the Indians was as severely punished, but lesser offenses got merely whipping or mutilation. He could have told them that a fine gentleman such as Delaware would not stick it out over there. It seemed to him that neither he nor his men had had a fair chance in Virginia, for after two years of toil and trials, they had no gold, silver, nor quantity of fur, tar, pitch and hemp, and little glass. Yet they had gone without women, drink and entertainment, wealth, even food and shelter at times, and they had seen their companions drowned, scalped or starved.
WHILE away from Virginia Smith had kept up with its happenings, if Virginia had not of his own. He kept talking it up with missionary fervor as a place of settlement. "The mildness of the air, the fertility of the soil, and the situation of the rivers are so propitious to the nature and the use of man as no place is more convenient for pleasure, profit and man's sustenance." In England he could chuckle at the complaints against other leaders. Since he had been blamed for rigid discipline, he was amused at Dale's martial law. The death penalty was given for telling lies, blasphemy, gaming or even picking a flower in another's garden, or in one's own if on the Sabbath. Failing to attend church or trade with the Indians was as severely punished, but lesser offenses got merely whipping or mutilation. He could have told them that a fine gentleman such as Delaware would not stick it out over there. It seemed to him that neither he nor his men had had a fair chance in Virginia, for after two years of toil and trials, they had no gold, silver, nor quantity of fur, tar, pitch and hemp, and little glass. Yet they had gone without women, drink and entertainment, wealth, even food and shelter at times, and they had seen their companions drowned, scalped or starved.
Yes, Smith was very much alive on his side of the great salt waters, Powhatan to the contrary. He still yearned for Virginia. When he had left he had been cut to the quick that his righteous authority was questioned by the sending over of his former enemies—captains all—and the haughty governor, and other new officers to follow. His pride was sorer than his burns.
Denied southern Virginia, he began to crave the northern coast which stretched to the present Nova Scotia. While fifteenvoyages had traced it already, the plan outlined by the second company had not been successful. "As I liked Virginia well, though not their proceedings, so I desired to see this country and spend some time in trying what I could find." He scurried about Plymouth and London until he found backing and two ships were loaded and manned for him. In spite of his short stature, and mediocre lineage, he was every inch their commander as he took his stand high on the poop deck, although he allowed another to run the ship. He had a high brow, his long hair sweeping back from the temples. Easily annoyed, furrows soon wrinkled his forehead. A hint of scorn ran in the line from flaring nostril to mouth. He could be tough or tender, furious, or exultant, but never niggardly nor lugubrious. His features have engraved themselves facilely on the American mind, as hero, and founding father, although his enemies begrudged him the honor.
After two eventful voyages to the Northern coast, he wroteThe Description of New England. His boyhood friend and patron, the present Lord Willoughby, lived with the royal family and Smith easily secured the help of Prince Charles. Smith indulgently let the Prince give English names to the coast which he had already decided to name "New England." On the title page of the book he was heralded as "Admirall of New England."
Just as his book appeared Smith heard in London that a letter from Sir Thomas Dale declared that Dale and his party from Virginia were in Plymouth awaiting a favorable wind before continuing to London. Captain Argall had brought them over on theTreasurer. So ... Smith's colorful past had caught up with him, and he recognized this as good luck. The exciting arrival from the other side of the world was a windfall for him, even if he could not get to either of the Virginias. Publicity would be opportune for the sale of his book.
He was not entirely mercenary, and he was deeply grateful to Pocahontas who had saved his life, and the perilous colony besides. Now it could all be told. He must advise Queen Anne, King James' wife, that it would help the Virginia plantation if Pocahontas was received like royalty. Londoners had known ofthe marriage for a year, but they had never heard of Pocahontas and John Smith—only of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. When the council for Virginia in London heard of that marriage they had debated solemnly whether Rolfe should be tried for treason. Smith was possibly jealous that Rolfe had hit upon a practical export from Virginia, if not because he had married Powhatan's daughter. An idealist, and a soldier-adventurer, he scorned financial success, at least when it was not his own, and that was usually.
Actually John Rolfe was the independent and industrious colonist for whom Smith had longed, wanting such a one to stay busy in Jamestown while he, Smith, did the exploring. Both had been essential to the colony, the one as path-finder, and the other as planter and producer. Pocahontas, who loved both, would have been baffled by their incompatibility had the two men been thrown together, but fate kept them out of each other's way, and denied both for long to hers, or to the colony's.
Smith found it easier to make England bow to the Rolfes than to himself. Pocahontas became the most distinguished visitor of the year in England. While she could not speak the King's English glibly, she could conduct herself as the daughter of a king. London gentlemen of the court sent engravings of her picture to friends around the world, as if to say with a flourish: "Look whom we have here!"
Uttamatomakkin preferred to impress the English with diabolic antics. People at the landing in Plymouth and also in London thought the savages a circus, but not so the stately Pocahontas.
From the moment she walked off the boat, she moved with a strange new majesty that baffled her own husband as much as others. How could a mere man explain the unaccountable poise which a clever woman could affect in the most unfamiliar setting?
In their own modest lodgings, Rolfe could scarcely keep off curiosity seekers, especially fine lords in elaborate dress who cantered into the cobblestone court and called for Madame Rolfe.
John Rolfe bowed low, contending that Madame was indisposed after her trip, and could not see strangers, no matter ofwhat importance. He would not have them mocking his strange, proud wife. Yet when she met the same lords at balls, he was surprised to find himself in an humble, obscure place in the background. A snobbish Britisher, he was secretly proud of her, though his eyes smouldered occasionally with resentment at some snobbery to himself. It was enough to turn the impressionable woman's head, but he told himself she was at heart a sincere sweet thing.
John Rolfe heard that the King thought that he had aspirations to become Powhatan's heir, and as such James's rival over there, and for that reason was snubbing him to keep him in his place.
John Smith, very much alive after all, was just out of three weeks in jail where he had been put for fancying himself king of Virginia. Because he should show his gratitude, he thought that England should show hers, and that the latter was good business, he wrote a "little book" to the Queen telling her how things were. Now, for the first time he told her of the rescue, hitherto kept secret by his discretion. Queen Anne just must do the right thing by Powhatan's girl.
He wrote of how, when he had but eighteen men with him, Pocahontas came to warn him of her father's plot, and "the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods and with watered eyes, gave me intelligence with her best advice to escape his fury, which had he known, he had surely slain her. Jamestown with her wild train, she as freely frequented as her father's habitation; and during the time, two or three years, she, next under God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine, and utter confusion."
The queen was duly persuaded, commanding, "Bring her on." All the court was as keen as the people in the street to get a close-up view of the tamed Pocahontas and her wild retinue. Fastidious Anne saw that these kept their distance, but she offered her plump, white, jewelled hand to Pocahontas.
"What do you mean, Mr. Rolfe," King James scolded John, "by marrying a princess of the blood, you, a mere commoner?"
Royal society tittered behind its hands. Was the king pulling poor John's leg, or was he really jealous of his share of Powhatan's realm? After all, John Smith had been put in jail recently. Rolfe had imported quite a fortune in tobacco, and he had been no fool in marrying Powhatan's daughter who did him honor as Lady Delaware presented her.
"Captain Smith wrote me of your indispensable aid to our forlorn colony, my Lady Rebecca, and I thank you for all my people. For myself, I would say, now that I see how pretty you are, I wonder that John did not speak for himself."
"I was a child when I saved the brave Captain," murmured Pocahontas modestly.
She felt here like the princess whose fairy-tale had come true in climactic palace scenes. There was more of a kind to come because she was now the fashion—having her portrait painted, and numerous engagements sought after. The Bishop of London gave a masquerade ball in her honor, at which she danced with court celebrities. The Bishop, John King, whom Queen Elizabeth had called the "king of preachers," never honored a lady more. Her brother-in-law Tacomoco looked on with more pride than Rolfe, who was too much of a provincial Puritan to enjoy court circles, especially those at which he was improperly snubbed. He was repeatedly confounded by his wife's poise. They went to "Twelfth Night," other theatrical occasions, and one masqued ball after another. Pocahontas's acquiline features were as inscrutable as Mona Lisa's. Powdered and painted, dressed up like an English lady in small tailored hats, and billowing swishing skirts, she kept her face the very mask of fashion, concealing its Indian thoughts.
"The Masque of Christmas" was attended by King James, Queen Anne and Pocahontas. There the queen danced with the Earl of Buckingham and the Earl of Montgomery and Pocahontas had her noble partners too.
In February she would attend the "Masque of Lovers Made Men" as would the King and Queen. The Lord Mayor would bethere as well as the Duke of Lenox and Lord Hay, the entertainment being in honor of the French ambassador.
Rolfe, piqued at his own unimportance at these festive occasions, wrote a political and economic treatise on the colony. Pocahontas objected to any plans for an early return home.
The Lady Rebecca liked London, even though the foggy climate was giving her a hacking cough that worried Rolfe, who wanted her to get on to the country to meet his family. Neither rolling wagons and carriages on the cobblestone street, nor roistering revellers downstairs beneath their lodgings disturbed her, she said.
Naïve, ordinary Indians did not admit themselves so pleased as she was. John Smith ran into Uttamatomakkin in London.
"Powhatan did bid me to find you out to show me your God, the King, Queen, and Prince, you so much told us of."
"God is not to be seen by human eye. The King you have seen. And the rest you shall see when you choose."
The Indian shook his head. "Nay, not yet have I seen the King."
"You did see him, just yesterday," insisted Smith.
"He did not look as much like a king as our Powhatan. And he didn't give me a present. You gave Powhatan a white dog, which Powhatan fed as himself; but your king gave me nothing, and I am better than your white dog." He had long since given up counting white men since he was quickly weary of that task.
Smith could not do anything about that, but he could and did go calling on the Rolfes, having no idea that Pocahontas considered him long under the sod. He knew that now as the pet of society in London, she must have changed, but he had not known how much, and he was impressed with her formal appearance when he went to Brentford to see her.
"The Lady Rebecca!" he greeted her with a flourishing bow.
Suddenly the Lady Rebecca in her stiff, swishing London costume vanished, and only a forlorn little maid was left. Her beating heart, like her frivolous London mood, nearly stopped with pain at this spectre from the past! There stood the one shehad thought dead, come alive, too late to be alive for her. She who had saved him, and lost him, had found him too late, once again—or was it? Her heart seemed bare and wounded, although she was not disillusioned in the stocky figure in the shabby clothes of this man who was old in his thirties, because he had lived too many lives in one. His figure was paunchy and his eyes bloodshot, but she was blind to imperfections in her hero, for she saw him only in the colors of her caressing brush. He had come true in the make-believe world where he was the greatest wonder of all for the little princess, but this boon which she craved most was probably not for her.
"They told me you were dead," she muttered dully.
She rushed from the room, and it took her hours to compose herself. When she would have flung her arms about his neck, his cool English eyes had reproved her, calling her rebellious heart to a halt. For her there should be retreat from the Captain, who always had everything under control, including his own heart. Hers was bleeding unstaunched, for a red woman, when she has given her heart does not take it back. What they call Indian-giving was not the heart of Pocahontas, for its pulse measured out time, that of a country and its founder, if not of herself.
She was not aged, pious and resigned like Moses looking into unobtainable Canaan. She was a young, wild thing, untamed and hopeful yet.
When she came back she had washed away her hot tears, powdered and painted her face, trying to match her stiff London clothes. She was like a bird with its gay feathers taut and drawn, winging away no more ... unless some merciful human opened a window. She reproached him, looking as sad as if death was in the house, as it was in her heart.
"They did always tell us that you were dead, and I did not know that you were not until after I came to England. Only Powhatan did not believe that you were, and ordered Tacomoco to seek you out because he said your people always lie so much."
He smiled, silent for once, and she went on hurting him who had hurt her so much. "You promised Powhatan that what wasyours should be his, and he promised the same to you. You called him yours when you were a stranger in his country, and now that I am here in yours, I will call you 'Father'."
Again he thrust her shameless heart back behind her London lady's mask. "You mustn't do that. You are a king's daughter, and I am a poor man looking for a boat."
She reproached him yet again. "You were not afraid to go into my father's country and put fear into all his people but myself." Perfect love, she knew casteth out fear—with the simple wisdom of a child of a childish people. "But now you are afraid to let me call you father. I tell you that I will, and that you shall ever call me your child, and remember that you and I are of one people, and that we are fellow countrymen."
"I cannot, Lady Rebecca Rolfe." He, master of every situation put her in her place in this.
Ah, if one of her could walk demurely down the dull road to "Heacham Hall," clinging to John Rolfe's arm, and keep on with him to "Varina" near Powhatan, bearing other descendants for the pride of Rolfe and Powhatan, but if the other could wing away with Smith going far places! Tragabigzanda had tried to keep him in chains for herself; Pocahontas had saved him only to lose him. He was a man belonging to the world, but to no woman.
She had to be the staid English housewife, not the princess of the wild woods. As she had her wild dreams of a different way out, she looked into his sea-faring blue eyes, and found there no response, only respect for Anglo-Saxon domestic respectability.
"You are the Lady Rebecca, the toast of London."
Toast, that should be a foaming, intoxicating drink, not a staid, insipid dose. She was a sick woman, but even sicker at heart.
"It is not seemly that a poor explorer be familiar with a lady of your position."
Position, she would snap her fingers at it! She wanted yesterday in Virginia fields where the corn tassels tossed in the sunny breeze, or an impossible dazzling tomorrow, but must take dull today. She was in Christian London, where the bells in the church spires chimed monotonously, chastening the savage din in her ears.
She snatched up small Tom who had been gazing at the captain who had strode out of a story book into the room. They left the two men to their boasting—Rolfe of his tobacco crop in the new world, Smith of newer worlds he would set out to conquer.
So John Smith passed out of Pocahontas' life more finally than he had before, because he went deliberately. The hand of death was definitely upon her, not upon him, the more so because she scarcely resisted it. Her Christian resignation, more like that of an elderly saint, than a youthful worldling now gratified, now confounded her serious husband. Gone was her gay delight in the adulation of the London populace, and the frivolity of the court, which he had long since deplored. She had not minded the late hours, the murky London atmosphere, worsening her cough; nor the noise of the cobblestone streets, nor the roisterers beneath their lodgings before, but now she was as weary of London as he was.
She was meekly ready to accompany him to "Heacham Hall," his family's seat in Norfolk, where the sunny air seemed to him the healthiest atmosphere for a cough like hers. While his doubts about mating with a strange woman were long past, he wanted to set the seal of his family's approval upon her. Had there been any doubt about that, news of her London reception had dispelled it.
Sister Pocahontas was not nearly so savage as they had feared, and her amenability to their tutelage gratified their provincial vanity. She was willing to learn how primly a Rolfe wife should fold her hands in church of a Sabbath morning, and tastefully gather roses and stocks from the flower borders to arrange them in the parlor mantel vases. It was important too, to sew a fine seam, or mend to the last thread. Adept needle-women themselves, the Rolfe sisters made a picture in needlepoint of Pocahontas and little Tom. She would learn how to bake a steak and kidney pie, or a goodly pound cake as John liked it.
Strange that whatever they subsisted on over there agreed with John and little Tom, and after a while John decided thatnothing else except Virginia air would revive his ailing wife. She was not acclimated to this small, neat isle. Only when she rode horseback, as she had longed to do, reining in beside the trim stable back of the substantial stone house was there the wild gay vein in her eyes that had ever led him where she would. Then she had raced away a while from the broken health and the broken heart.
Soon she was too ill for the rides, and Rolfe arranged passage on Argall's boat,The George, which was embarking from Gravesend. Its pitiful passenger was immediately on her deathbed, where her resignation and Christian testimony inspired the beholders: the ministering foreign women and the men, Argall and Rolfe reading scriptures. She was buried beneath the chancel at St. George's Church where her dust rests, some think, out of place.
VII
AARGALL'S ship had put into Gravesend to have Pocahontas buried in St. George's Church. The vestry-book recorded her name erroneously: "Rebecca Wrothe, Wyffe of Thomas Wrothe, a Virginia-lady born here was buried in ye chancell." While the faded writ remains wrong to this day, it was preciously bound in white leather and kept in a vault, and the church building therefore became a shrine, although the argument as to where she lies there, or whether she should be brought here will be interminable.
ARGALL'S ship had put into Gravesend to have Pocahontas buried in St. George's Church. The vestry-book recorded her name erroneously: "Rebecca Wrothe, Wyffe of Thomas Wrothe, a Virginia-lady born here was buried in ye chancell." While the faded writ remains wrong to this day, it was preciously bound in white leather and kept in a vault, and the church building therefore became a shrine, although the argument as to where she lies there, or whether she should be brought here will be interminable.
Thomas was the name of her son, and the child's illness on theGeorge, as it put to sea again, distracted John Rolfe, who remembered how he had lost another wife and child almost within grasp of the waves. Again the ship returned to English shores, this time to Plymouth, where the frantic father sought out Sir Lewis Stewkley and persuaded him to take care of the little lad until Henry Rolfe, a London merchant, could take his nephew in charge. Stewkley who was to betray his own cousin, Sir Walter Raleigh, still proved worthy of Rolfe's trust.
At that moment John Smith, who was trying to get support for a New England colony, bustled about Plymouth unsuccessfully, and then tried London. Pocahontas was lost to her own country, but her ambitious Johns both coveted it still for themselves.
Rolfe, in spite of the buffetings of disaster and grief, was a man who got things done as long as he was alive to do them. Without Smith's brilliant, antagonistic and fascinating temperament he, if not Smith, got on to America since that was his aim, and there he took his third wife, Jane, daughter of William Pearce, Captain of James Fort.
Rolfe was made Secretary and was soon put on the Council. He yearned over his absent son for the next few years, and wrote Sir Edwin Sandys that he hoped that he would not be censured for leaving him behind, but that that seemed the only way the lad could survive. A practical man, he requested Pocahontas' stipend of the company. Later Henry Rolfe tried to get more indemnity from the company to repay him for his expenses in bringing up the lad.
Rolfe's marriage with Pocahontas was credited with bringing about eight years of peace with the Indians. But Opechancanough had long bided his time for revenge on the English, grimly sure that the American story would have been different had he been allowed to deal with John Smith. He was called "White Hair Man" because of his white fur mantle. Kingly ermine was never worn more haughtily. He planned the massacre of 1622. Tragic John Rolfe is supposed to have been among the victims.
Rolfe was a marked man as well as a man of mark. While he could have handled his own life ably at any time if violent tragedy had not overcome him, none could have survived his disasters. He achieved the first colonial business success and the first interracial marriage and he had mastered personal grief. He had married three women happily before he was forty years of age, and each bore him a child. He had survived shipwreck and ship illnesses although his first two wives had not. He had thought that he had the red man's land in hand, but was instead in the hands of the red men.
Nevertheless, his son Thomas, then still in England, had inherited lands from his grandfather, Powhatan, and he would return to the land of his Indian fathers and now of his English father, who also willed him lands and carry on in his unique heritage the American tradition. It was reported that the two old chiefs, Powhatan and Opechancanough had gone up and down the country asking about the welfare of the motherless boy in England, and too solicitous for him to return until he was stronger. After Powhatan's death in 1618 Opechancanough talked grandly of giving the whole country to the child. Rolfe had beensent to him to be reassured about the peace between the races ever since the Pocahontas marriage. To him and others Opechancanough declared that the sun should sooner fall out of the sky, than his friendliness.
Another colonist had also been deceived by him. This hopeful missionary believed that he had converted him, and he built him an English house. The chief was so tickled with lock and key, that he tinkered with both constantly. Still the naïve builder was killed for his kind pains. In the massacre Indians had sat at table with English at breakfast Good Friday only to slay them wherever they found them, in field or cottage.
VIII