“How welcome it will be to have him close. We’re so near Rose-n-Vale I expect we shall hear the lad’s voice carry.”
“A pleasant thought.”
“I hope he’ll find a playmate in Watseka.” Candace grew grave. “An only child can be quite lonely.”
“Which reminds me that today the widow from Martin’s Hundred came to buy,” Ustis said. “The one with a great many children. She inquired after you and Selah—and Xander. She said she’d heard he’d helped us move.”
“Widow Hastings? She is said to favor him.” Candace took a second cup from Selah’s hands. “He certainly has the means to support so large a brood, and Oceanus would have a great many brothers and sisters.”
Ustis sipped, then winced with distaste. Sassafras was not his favorite. “I’ve lost count of how many children have the Hastingses, yet I fear their great number contributed to their father’s demise.”
“Ustis!” His droll remarks did not deter Candace’s chastening. “Need I remind you that children are a heritage from the Lord, all elevenof them.”
“Merciful heavens,” he replied. “Though I do recall a brood of seventeen at Flowerdew Hundred...”
Selah listened, the mere power of suggestion sending her into a swirl of discontent. Little wonder the widow favored Xander. More than the widow, in truth. Withholding a sigh, she went to the door to look for Shay.
“I doubt he’ll be home till our resident owl begins hooting,” Ustis said of the creature who roosted in a near oak. “Shay is exercised by the notion that gold is to be found hereabouts and is best spotted in the dark.”
“The fanciful imaginings of a lad,” Candace replied, breaking into soft song. “‘Thy crimson stockings all of silk, with gold all wrought above the knee; Thy pumps as white as was the milk; and yet thou wouldst not love me.’”
“‘Greensleeves,’” Ustis murmured, closing his eyes.
Selah walked outside to look for Shay. Foolishly, she’d hoped he’d keep to home, spend his remaining time before the exchange with them. But there was simply no curtailing her brother’s rambles or predicting his wayward timing once he did return home.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, pondering that interrupted, would-be kiss, till a sudden rustle in the brush emptied her head of such. Whirling, she stared into the tangle of overgrowth that led deeper into the woods. A deer, perhaps. A wily raccoon. Or one of the dreaded poison snakes so common in Virginia.
Beset with gooseflesh, she sent up a breathless call to her brother. “Shay, please come home!”
He appeared soon after, clutching a small lump of ore shot through with glittery specks. “See, I am fine, Sister. No need to worry way out here. I was simply looking for gold and found this. What say you?”
“Rock crystal? A fetching addition to your collection.”
With a last look at the secretive woods, Selah followed him inside, shutting the door and barring it soundly behind them.
Come the Sabbath, the reality of their upriver existence took further hold as they gathered for worship at the edges of Renick land. There, in a comely little glade, stood a church set upon a cobblestone foundation and crowned with a wooden roof and belfry. One of the “chapels of ease,” as the mother country called it, erected in shires far from James Towne. Behind the church was fenced ground where sunlight spread yellow light over too many crosses.
Xander stood with several men near the open chapel door as congregants from across the shire gathered. Though church attendance was required but once a month, this building looked filled to the brim. Oft settlers came merely to socialize, but who could blame them?
In moments, Xander greeted the Hopewells, looking pleased they’d come. “Welcome to our parish. You’ll find we stand on no ceremony. Here we have no altar but pulpit, no priest but itinerant preacher. Keith is his name.”
“If the gospel is preached, all is well, aye?” Ustis took his walking stick from Candace while Shay hobbled his horse. “Such progress since sixteen and seven, when James Towne’s first church was held outside beneath an old sail for an awning!”
“Surely there’s no prettier place to worship in all of Virginia, or to be laid to rest,” Candace remarked. “I recall you had this chapel’s foundation laid soon after you settled at Rose-n-Vale, or Renick Hundred as it was once called.”
“It took several years for all the bricks to be had, but ’tis finally finished.” He excused himself as a man sought his attention about some matter inside, leaving Selah slightly openmouthed as she watched him go.
Shay elbowed her. “Sister, are you struck dumb?”
Was she? Another window had been flung open, allowing her to see Xander in a new light. “I’m rather surprised to find so comely a chapel in the woods, is all.”
Congregants moved slowly through the chapel’s open doors, trading sunlight for welcome shade. She did not miss the Sabbath parade of James Towne officials in their finery commanding the foremost pews. Here there were mostly indentures and small planters dressed in their humble best. A few married men with families. A knot of older goodwives. As Selah moved toward the entrance, another startling realization took hold. Might they—the Hopewells—be considered gentry among these people? They were drawing noticeable stares and whispers.
When she tarried on the step outside, Shay turned toward her. “Sister, will you not enter in?”
Aye, and repent of thinking Xander a heathen.
Duly chastened, she bent her head as the bell ceased tolling above them and followed her family to their seats.
