Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [69]
One day I was alone in the governor’s house when I heard Bailey at the door. I slipped into the bedroom, hoping he would go away. His footsteps sounded inside. I heard him blow on his hands and knew he was standing at the hearth. The fire gave me away. If no one was at home, it would have been banked for safety.
Bailey was standing in the bedroom doorway, trapping me inside.
“You should not be here,” I said, determined not to show my alarm.
“Were you expecting someone else? Thomas Graham, perhaps? Pah, he is nothing but a common soldier. You should grant your favors to one more suited to you—a gentleman.” He tapped his chest.
“You, you … are a vile … worm!” I was so angry I stammered. “Graham is more a gentleman than you will ever be.”
He laughed, baring his yellow teeth. “See how she defends her paramour.”
“He is not my lover, and you I despise.”
He raised his eyebrows. “So you were the queen’s maid? More like her bawd, I’ll warrant. I know why you were sent away from court.”
“You know nothing,” I said. “Now let me pass.” I tried to get by him but he grabbed my wrist.
“And you are too outspoken to be a decent woman. But I will teach you a lesson or two. First, how to obey a man.” He pressed me to the wall. His eyes were fixed on my bosom.
Now I was afraid of Bailey, but my hatred of him was stronger. “Unhand me now or I will scream rape. Surely you know the punishment for that.”
To my surprise he dropped my arm and stepped back. The penalty for rape was death.
“You need to be married, and you can’t do any better than me,” he said.
“I would marry the rudest savage in all Virginia before I would ever let you touch me as a husband,” I said, pouring all the disdain I could summon into my words. “Now get out.”
“You’ll regret your pride, vain wench,” he said with a sneer. He turned to leave and on his way out kicked over the governor’s chair. It crashed onto the hearth and became singed by the fire before I could manage to set it upright.
All my limbs were trembling, and I fell in a heap on the floor, resting my whirling head on the seat of the chair I had rescued from the fire.
That night Eleanor noticed the bruises on my wrist, so I told her about Roger Bailey’s indecent demands. She struck her cooking ladle against the tabletop so hard Virginia began to cry in her cradle.
“Damn him! You are not the first to be undone by that man.”
“I did not lie with him, you understand. How can you even think I would?” I said. “Who else has he tried to violate?”
“I have had it in confidence from Alice that Jane Pierce is with child by him, but she will not say he raped her because she wants to marry him.”
“Jane? How could she want to marry Bailey?”
“We are not as wellborn as you, Cate,” said Eleanor testily. “Jane hires herself out as a servant to earn her living. Bailey took more from her than her cooking. And now, to keep from being disgraced, she must marry him.”
“Yet he dares to come to me and say I should marry him,” I said, more indignant than ever. “At least I told him what a vile worm he is.”
“That was hardly wise,” she said with a rueful shake of her head. “You saw what he did to Georgie and that unfortunate soldier.”
“Roger Bailey is not my governor,” I said. “He is a tyrant, and I pray he will come to a bad end.”
“So you have no man to govern you,” she said with a wry smile. “I should envy you, Cate.”
I thought about Sir Walter and how I had imagined marrying him. Would I have been happy to let him govern me? Did all wives consent to be ruled by their husbands? If so, marriage was no different than serving a king or queen.