Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [111]
Sir Walter’s gaze traveled from my head to my feet.
“Dark as an Ethiop you are, though more lovely by far,” he said as if he were beginning a poem. “All my senses are offended—yet stirred—by this transformation in you.”
“I am the one offended,” I said.
“I don’t mean you, but the others,” he hastened to explain.
“What of your transformation?” I asked. “Have you turned pirate?”
He laughed. “I am unchanged. This disguise merely permits me to travel in secret. I am always Sir Walter Ralegh, and you”—he made a gallant gesture with his arm, as if laying down a cloak in the wet sand—“you are always my Lady Catherine.”
There was a time when I would have rejoiced to hear Sir Walter speak to me so. But to be flattered and called Lady Catherine while I stood barefoot, garbed in deerskins, and so much altered by my experiences did not please me.
“You do not know me. I am Cate now.”
He made another attempt. “Well, resume your usual clothing and manner and you will be Lady Catherine again.”
“This is my usual clothing, and it pleases me,” I said.
Sir Walter stared at me as if I lacked the capacity of reason. “This cannot be happening,” he said. “I expected my colonists to bring the tenets of civil society and true religion to the savages. I expected to find the natives living like us, not … what I have seen.” Words failed him and he tugged at his beard, becoming distraught. “Manteo—who was made a lord and baptized—has returned to his savage life, and every one of you has regressed to a primitive state. How did this come about?”
“It is a long story with many chapters,” I said. “I wrote much of it down, for I once hoped it would be published.”
For a moment his eyes gleamed, then he shook his head. “It cannot be the story Her Majesty expects to hear or one that will bring me fame.”
“Why did you come here then, if you could not bear the truth?” I said. “If fame is all you seek?”
“I came for you, Catherine!” he cried out, extending his hands toward me. “The queen realizes she wronged you. I also am at fault for your plight and full of regret.”
Those, too, were words I had longed to hear. But what meaning did they hold here in Virginia? “Does Elizabeth forgive me?” I asked. “Is she sorry she banished me?”
Sir Walter beckoned. “Come, and you will hear it from her own lips.”
I wondered, was the queen aboard his ship? Had she come with Sir Walter to see the New World, to find me? “I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What do these regrets mean now?”
He replied with patient earnest, “Lady Catherine, I have come to make amends. I am taking you back to England with me. Her Majesty has promised you can be mine at last.”
Mine at last! Desire for Sir Walter, long buried and almost forgotten, rose up in me again. It had been part of me for so many years, how could it ever go away? And what was to be done with it now? I turned my head to let the wind blow my hair out of my eyes. My thoughts, my hair, everything was tangled.
A breaking wave rushed onto the shore and over my feet, then receded, pulling the sand from beneath me. I lost my balance and stumbled backward. Sir Walter stepped toward me. It was like a dance where the partners do not touch. At court Sir Walter and I had never danced. So much had been forbidden that would now be permitted. But could either of us truly live or love freely while we served England’s queen? My words and deeds would still be overseen and possibly censured. Again I thought of the letters stolen from my chest, like a heart from a body. Though I had forgotten what was in them, I now recalled clearly what had been missing.
“Sir Walter, you never once said to me ‘I love you.’ ”
His eyes widened. Light brown they were; I had forgotten. They flickered away from mine for an instant, then returned. “But of course I do! Even as you are now, despite everything,” he protested. “Haven’t I come for you at last?”
I felt my eyes fill