The Maidenhead Read Free Page B

halted at a long, wooden building set on a broad green which appeared to Modesty to be a council hall. “The State Building," a stocky male volunteered eagerly to one inquiring maid. Built of timber on brick and cobble foundation, it was more substantial than the others within the fort and was flanked by tall yaupons.
    When they entered, Modesty saw that benches occupied most of the room, with several tables flanking a desk at the front of the room. Behind the desk, the official great seal of the Virginia Company of London was affixed to the wall.
    She followed the other women as they filled the benches, and the male colonists, hats in hands, crowded two and three deep along the walls. They were romantics, these Virginians, Modesty thought. They were treating the women like priceless objects. No Englishman did.
    In place of padded breeches, knee-length coats, and waistcoats, most of the colonists wore more serviceable clothing the color of the forest’s natural dull shades of brown and green: doublets, jerkins, surcoats, and tabards. All were armed with dirks, broadswords, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols.
    Attempts made at keeping their hair short, as was the style back in England, had resulted in some hacked and chopped cuts. To Modesty, their faces mirrored yearning and open hunger at the mere sight of the white women. She wondered how many men were left of the original 105 males who had first cleared the somber forests in 1607, thirteen years earlier.
    Feverish murmurings of the king’s English, Irish, and Gaelic, which Modesty had occasionally overheard in London, as well as the guttural-sounding Indian language, crescendoed to babbling confusion.
    Modesty eyed the scurvy lot of men. The Indians she had glimpsed looked healthier than they did. She searched for some tottering old geezer but found mostly young, lean faces. Apparently, only the hardiest survived the harshness of wilderness life.
    A foppish man in two-inch heels adjusted his red waistcoat as he hurried down the center aisle. Once behind the desk, he cleared his throat and identified himself as the colonial governor, Sir George Yeardley. He had a little pointed beard and a waxed mustache that curled up at the ends.
    "On behalf of our men, I warmly welcome our new arrivals. We realize you are hungry and weary. Tonight, you will be quartered here, at the inn, and in our church, and tomorrow—”
    “Tomorrow begins the courtships!" a lusty male voice called out from the back and was followed by further cheers from the men.
    Their excitement was interrupted by the London Company representative, who rose from behind the table to the left of the governor and gave a perfunctory smile. Radcliff’s long teeth betokened his name. Modesty kept her head down as he spoke. "I remind you of the Company rules: that a female has the right of choice, has three days in which to comply with her contract, and can choose only one groom.”
    A titter of nervous laughter erupted as the women were assigned their sleeping quarters. Modesty was not one of the sixteen brides-to-be selected to sleep at the large half-completed inn on Back Street but was shepherded to the log church. Fortunately, it was a more substantial shelter, though austere didn’t do full justice to the description of its interior. At least the small wavy-glass panes mounted in the leaded lattice windows permitted daylight.
    A hot meal of maize, squash, and stewed tomatoes, food new to Modesty and the other women, was provided by the few Company wives. “Prithee, do try my bread pudding," urged a little guinea hen of a woman who identified herself as Mistress Priscilla.
    Modesty needed no urging. Just the smell of the hickory-smoked ham made her mouth water.
    Clarissa's table manners were refined, but she was finicky about what she ate from the shared wooden trenchers.
    Rose ate little, Polly licked her fingers with a sigh of ecstasy, and Annie kept up a running stream of talk while she ate.
    Her mouth