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TWO EVENINGS LATER, Noah again appeared on Catherine’s doorstep. He told her he had a trading expedition the following day and had come to retrieve the package he’d left in the loft.
As usual she was pleased to see him and stood breathlessly awaiting him on the ground as he climbed the ladder to the loft, then came back down.
“Do you have time to sit and visit a spell?” she asked, an expectant look on her face.
“Shall we sit outdoors?”
She nodded, and they each picked up one of the ladder-back chairs and carried it to the grassy patch in front. Nancy was just rounding the corner from the garden holding her apron up like a basket, it full of green beans and a few carrots she’d just picked.
Noah greeted her. “Looks as if you have tomorrow night’s supper planned.”
Both girls laughed.
“We don’t have much to eat in our little garden,” Catherine said, “but what’s there is quite tasty.”
Nancy went inside the house and Catherine and Noah sat down.
“How is your school?” Noah asked with interest.
“The children had a surprise today when Tamiyah’s little boy and girl joined us.”
“So. You decided to take them in. Did Tamiyah mention anything . . . particular about them?”
“No, nothing. She left the children and came back for them a few hours later. I was a bit apprehensive, but as it turned out, I had nothing to fear. The children took to one another at once. The little boy, Pamoac, is adorable. I could hardly keep from throwing my arms about him. The oddest thing is, he doesn’t look at all like an Indian.”
“Meaning?”
“He has light-brown hair, curly, like yours; and his features do not look . . . Indian.”
Noah shrugged. “I’ve seen all manner of oddities amongst the Indians. A Paspahegh squaw has hair as red as yours. There are light-skinned Indians and Indians with skin as dark as Negroes. One Weanoc brave has sky-blue eyes. I admit that rather startled me the first time I saw him.”
“I expect so. But what could account for such. . . .”
“You are indeed naive, Catherine,” he teased. “The Spaniards and French were both here long before we came to these shores. Apparently there has been a good deal of . . . crossbreeding.”
“Oh.” She looked down. Obviously he thought that speaking so plainly about things of a carnal nature would not shock her since he believed she’d once been a married woman. But plain talk, even with Noah, from whom she’d never, until now, kept secrets, still put her to the blush. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she murmured. “At any rate, the children all got on very well together.”
He said nothing else on the matter, but a moment later returned to it. “Have you heard anything . . . untoward about Tamiyah?”
“I have not discussed her with anyone, save you.” She gazed at him quizzically. “Is there something I should know?”
As if considering how to begin, he pulled a small pipe from his pocket and began to fill it from a pouch of finely ground tobacco.
Catherine watched the process with interest as it was not something she’d observed many times before. “I’ll get a pine-knot candle for you.” She rose to her feet and disappeared inside.
When she came back out, she carefully handed the flaming reed to him. He lit the pipe and after a long, slow draw, exhaled the aromatic smoke.
“What does it taste like?” she asked curiously.
“Would you like to see for yourself?”
“No.” She shook her head, then quickly said, “Yes, I believe I would.”
He handed her the small pipe, and she drew in a tentative breath and instantly coughed it right back out. “Oh! I hadn’t expected it to be so . . . smoky!”
He laughed. “I believe that’s why it’s called smoking.”
Still coughing, she handed the pipe back to him. “I can see why King James calls tobacco hateful to the lungs.”
“The king isn’t trying to scratch out a living in this godforsaken land.” His tone sounded scornful.
“Noah, hush! Someone might hear you!”
“Who would hear me? There are no king’s soldiers here.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wish to see you hanged for treason.”
“We are not in England, sweetheart, and there’s not been a hanging in Jamestown in over a year, not since Governor Dale left.”
Catherine’s eyes widened with horror. “What crime could a colonist commit so heinous it would result in his hanging?”
“According to Dale, any number of things. Thievery; for one. Some years back, a man was caught stealing from the communal storehouse and hanged for his crime. Another, who’d only stolen a few kernels of corn, was tied to a tree and allowed to starve to death.”
“Oh!” Catherine sucked in her breath.
“There are severe penalties for sins of a carnal nature, of course, and then there’s desertion. I recall a few years ago a number of colonists thought they’d fare better living with the Indians. Dale had them captured and brought back. Two were hanged, a couple more burned at the stake, and one was shot to death. Back in oh-nine, the man who ate his wife was sentenced to death.”
Catherine shuddered. “Adam told me about the starving time. I’m so glad you and he and Father waited until later to make the crossing.”
Noah grew pensive. “I sometimes wish I’d never come.”
“But you appear to be doing very well for yourself. You . . . married well.”
Noah did not reply. After a pause, he said, “I expect I’d best be going. We leave at first light on the morrow.”
“Which tribe are you trading with this time?”
“The Quiyoughcohanocks. Down river.”
Rising to her feet, Catherine laughed. “However do you learn to pronounce those odd-sounding names? Or remember them?”
“It’s in my best interests to remember tribal names.”
What he did next took Catherine completely by surprise. In an easy, natural manner, he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Startled, her hand flew to the place on her cheek where his lips had been. She was so taken aback she could not speak. Just stood staring at him as he sauntered away.
“Good night, my sweet Catherine.”
* * * *
LATER THAT EVENING, as Catherine and Nancy puttered around the common room, Catherine was still thinking about the unexpected kiss, wondering what it meant.
“Nancy . . . ” she began, feeling she had to tell someone. “Noah kissed me.”
Catherine had just placed three clean trenchers and spoons on the table in preparation for their breakfast the following morning. She walked back across the room and slid onto a chair opposite Nancy, who sat slicing carrots and green beans into a pot on her lap.
Without looking up, Nancy replied. “I should warn you, miss, there’s been a bit o’ talk about you and Noah.”
Catherine looked puzzled. “What sort of talk? The house across the road is so far away, the identity of a man on our doorstep could hardly be discerned from such a distance. Noah never stays long. And when he is here, we are in plain sight in front of the house.”
“And tonight, in plain sight in front of the house, he kissed you.”
Catherine flinched. “I am certain it meant nothing. Just a simple parting of friends. What more could it be?”
Nancy cast a sidelong look at her companion. “What more indeed?”
* * * *
ALONE IN HER BED THAT night, Catherine reluctantly admitted that Nancy might be right. Noah’s visits, however short, were happening now with greater regularity. Thoughts of seeing him, and looking forward to seeing him, constantly filled her mind. At odd moments throughout the long days, while she was with the children, walking in the forest, or tending her herb garden, she found herself thinking about Noah . . . thinking about things to tell him when next she saw him, wondering what he was doing, wondering if he was thinking about her.
And tonight, he kissed her.
In the darkness, she touched her cheek and imagined again the feel of his smooth lips on her skin. The gesture had surprised her so, that only now did she realize she hadn’t said good-bye, or wished him luck with . . . whichever tribe he was off to see tomorrow.
She exhaled a troubled sigh. Life here was indeed hard. Having Noah come around was the one small pleasure she had at the end of a long, difficult day. Were his days equally as long and burdensome? Despite the terrible disappointment she’d suffered when she first came here, her love for Noah ran deep. The few precious moments she spent with him now meant a great deal to her. She could not bear to give that up. It appeared Noah felt the same. Still, that Nancy had said there had been talk about the two of them did disturb her. As a teacher, she knew she was expected to conduct herself in a respectable manner. To have her pupils pulled from her school because of her misconduct would be too shameful to bear. Yet, she knew she would continue to take the risk, for she could not give up her precious moments with Noah. Not now, not ever.
* * * *
CATHERINE AWOKE THE following morning with thoughts of Noah still uppermost in her mind. She was taken by surprise when only three of the English boys and one of the little girls showed up for classes. However, both Indian children were there bright and early, their little hands folded before them in eagerness for whatever the new day might bring.
“Emily, has Patience fallen ill?” A good many cases of something called swamp fever had struck many colonists that summer, resulting in an alarming number of deaths. Catherine had been saddened to learn there were as many deaths in Jamestown during the sweltering summer months as there were during the harsh winter ones.
“No, Mistress Fielding. Her mama, and David’s mama, too, don’t want them. . . .” The little girl’s eyes cut toward Pamoac and Tonkee. “It’s because of . . . them,” she said.
Catherine was stunned. The parents of two of her students had withdrawn their children from school because there were now Indian children present! And after Reverend Buck had announced from the pulpit that one of the primary goals of her school was to bring the Indian children to Christianity!
Though her breath quickened with anger, she managed to listen to the English children recite the letters of the alphabet. When the lesson was done, she moved straight into another one. Holding up one finger, then two fingers, she attempted to teach Pamoac and Tonkee their numbers, at least one through five, all the while her worry and agitation increasing over the consequences of the presence of the Indian children.
When it appeared Tonkee was having difficulty understanding what the word “three” meant, Pamoac finally turned to his sister and said, “Nus!”
In a flash of inspiration, Catherine decided the English children should learn to say their numbers in the Powhatan language. She motioned for Pamoac to come stand beside her. After a good bit of gesturing and repeating, she was rewarded by the appearance of the deep dimples in his cheeks when he finally understood what she wanted him to do.
Proudly holding up one finger, he said, “Nekut.”
Catherine instructed her English pupils to repeat that word again and again, until Pamoac giggled with delight. Again, she could hardly resist hugging him.
After the children had mastered “nekut,” she had Pamoac hold up two fingers and tell them what the Indian word for “two” was. At length, they had all learned to count one through five in both English and Powhatan.
“Tomorrow,” she announced triumphantly, “we shall learn how to count in French.”
Before the children left for the day, she called Emily aside and told her to be sure and tell Patience’s mama what she had learned at school that day. “Tell her that when you grow up, you will be able to converse with your Indian neighbors, or if your mama ever has an Indian servant, you will be able to communicate with her, whereas Patience will not.”
* * * *
“I’VE NO IDEA WHAT THE outcome of this will be,” Catherine told Nancy that evening over their supper. “But you should have seen the proud look on Pamoac’s little face when he realized he’d taught the English children to count in his language.”
“He is a darling child,” Nancy agreed, smiling. “But don’t you wonder who his father might be?”
“I broached that very topic with Noah just last evening.”
Nancy’s gaze cut ’round. “What did he say?”
Catherine didn’t look up from her trencher of green beans, carrots, and “scrapple”, a dish Goody Smithfield had told Nancy how to make from pork scraps and cornmeal. After the mixture dried, one sliced and fried it. Both girls and Lad, who had already gobbled up his share and disappeared, declared it quite tasty.
“He said there had been a good bit of crossbreeding with the Indians when the French and Spanish were here. They came to these shores long before we did, you know.”
“Ah. Well, I’ve heard a few . . . interesting things about Tamiyah.”
Catherine recalled that last evening Noah had been about to tell her something about Tamiyah, only they’d become distracted smoking his pipe. Perhaps it was of no consequence. She didn’t care what anyone said about the Indian woman. She liked Tamiyah, and she loved her children, especially Pamoac. She had never been one to listen to gossip and she had no intention of doing so now. Furthermore, she was not about to let the prejudices of a few narrow-minded Jamestown citizens prevent her from teaching those two sweet Indian children how to read and write.
Finishing up her meal, she rose to her feet. “I don’t care to hear what anyone says about Tamiyah.” She walked briskly toward the doorway, carrying her soiled trencher and spoon, which she meant to dip in the bucket of freshwater outside. “And I care even less to know what people are saying about Noah and myself.”