Gabrielle saw the doctor when he came to treat Nathan, but she stayed back in the shadows so he wouldn’t notice her. The third day he rode into the village, she didn’t see him in time to step out of his sight, but when he turned his horse in her direction, she bent her head and hurried on toward the schoolhouse. She could feel his eyes boring into her back all the way up the path, and by the time she went through the door, her heart was pounding inside her chest as if she’d been playing a game of tag with her young students.
She couldn’t allow the doctor to engage her in conversation again. Sister Mercy would never be able to understand or perhaps even forgive another chance meeting. While Sister Mercy had not continued to upbraid Gabrielle for talking with the doctor, Gabrielle felt a difference between them. A difference that saddened her spirit.
From the first moment Gabrielle had stepped into Sister Mercy’s presence, she’d felt a special bond with her. Sister Mercy had been more mother to her than her own mother had ever been. But now when they were together, a worried frown often crept into Sister Mercy’s eyes to push aside some of the fondness that had always been there so abundantly for Gabrielle.
The day when Gabrielle had talked with the doctor and then begged Sister Mercy’s forgiveness, the eldress had said, “Ye need not forgiveness from me, Sister Gabrielle. It’s Mother Ann you should appeal to. And ye know that if ye ask sincerely for forgiveness and pray for a pure heart, our good mother will be sure to grant you such.”
They were words Gabrielle had heard many times before when she’d run to Sister Mercy to confess a slight wrong of spirit, but Sister Mercy’s voice had not sounded so kindly or forgiving in Gabrielle’s ears that day. Rather she had looked at Gabrielle as though some of the doctor’s worldliness might be clinging to her. The stain of worldliness was not easily shed.
So Gabrielle had prayed to Mother Ann for forgiveness in hopes that the forgiveness of Sister Mercy would follow, but her prayers seemed to fall back to her unanswered. Gabrielle had never felt the same comfort praying to Mother Ann as she did to the Eternal Father. It was a lack in her life as a Believer that troubled her spirit even though Sister Mercy continually assured her that Mother Ann did hear all prayers and wanted to drop balls of blessings on their community.
As the days passed and even though Gabrielle did pray sincerely for a simple spirit that only thought of service to the Lord, she began to wonder if Sister Mercy was right and she had been touched by the doctor’s worldliness. Wasn’t she having doubts where none had been before? Weren’t strange new feelings haunting her while questions crept into her mind that she hardly dared even acknowledge, much less try to answer?
Instead she pushed the questions deep inside her where she could almost forget them. Except when she met the doctor’s eyes. Then the questions echoed in her mind and the doubts ate at her soul. So she kept her eyes to the ground away from the doctor. Better to push away the questions than to allow them to upset the peace she’d always known there with her Shaker sisters and brothers. Still she could feel his presence each time he was in the village. He seemed to linger to seek her out with his eyes as if he had questions of his own to be answered.
Gabrielle bent herself to her tasks. She set her mind to the Believers’ way and did her best to put her hands to work and give her heart to God. She worked patiently with the little girls she taught, showing the same love and acceptance to those who were slow to grasp new ideas as to those who learned more easily and with joy.
Learning was a magical thing to Gabrielle. She grabbed at each new thing offered to her eagerly. She’d read all the books the Believers had, and sometimes with a pang of regret, she thought of the shelves of books her Uncle Jonas had owned. She remembered the feel of their dark bindings as she’d traced their titles with her fingers in anticipation of the secrets they would hold out to her in time. The promise of those books had been lost to her the day she and her mother had come together with the Believers.
The year before, she’d asked Sister Mercy if she could have more books. The elders and eldresses had discussed it before deciding Gabrielle’s time would be better spent working with her hands. What one learned from doing a physical chore well was of equal or even more importance to whatever one might learn from a book. If there was extra time and the desire to read, she could read from the Bible or a book of Mother Ann’s precepts. To soften the refusal, Sister Mercy had given her a journal to record some of the daily events of their family.
Gabrielle had already filled several volumes with the daily happenings of the village, the accomplishments of her students, and a record of her duties. When school wasn’t in session, Gabrielle’s hands stayed busy working for the good of the village the same as any of the other sisters, taking her turn in the laundry room, in the kitchen, or wherever she was assigned. She enjoyed working with the other sisters nearer her age and hearing their talk.
She was often touched by the new sisters’ sufferings and sorrows even though she had little direct understanding of their woes. She listened closest and with the least understanding when the women spoke of their husbands and how they missed lying by their sides at night. Many of the new sisters hadn’t wholly converted their hearts to the Believers’ way, and they spoke of their men with the longing of something much more than brotherly love.
Once Gabrielle had dared ask a young sister about this love. “But we all love one another here. How is this love you speak of different?”
The two of them had been working together in the washhouse, scrubbing the men’s clothes, and with the noise of the splashing water, there was little chance they would be overheard. Sister Cassie had paused with her hands still in the soapy water and looked up at Gabrielle. Sister Cassie was young, with eyes that shifted green to blue with her mood. She and her husband had been married only two years when he’d decided to join with the Believers. She had had no babies, and it was a grief to Cassie that now she would never bear a child. She looked at Gabrielle with something akin to pity in her eyes. “Poor Sister Gabrielle. My life may be barren now, but at least I’ve known love.”
“But I know love,” Gabrielle protested. Her life fairly exploded with the love she felt for those around her.
Sister Cassie smiled. “True. You know love as it is here. You’re much better at this kind of love than I will ever be. But I mean the love of a man and woman, bound together as one. James and I had that kind of love. It’s still strong in my heart.” Sister Cassie pulled a hand out of the sudsy water and held it against her bosom. “That kind of love should last forever. Till death do us part the way we promised each other in front of the preacher the day we married.”
Sister Cassie bent back over her tub and blinked her eyes. Tears mixed with the sweat on her cheeks as she went on. “Now James won’t hardly look at me. Says I’m the devil’s temptation. Calls me ‘sister.’ I’m not his sister. I’m his wife.”
“Maybe you should try to love as we love here,” Gabrielle suggested gently.
“I’ve tried. Am trying. But it’s not enough. If I was like you and had never known a man’s love, then maybe it would be. But I don’t want to live like this with the natural juices of life dried up inside me. I want to have my own cabin, my own man, and a houseful of children just like my ma did.” Cassie began scrubbing the knees on a pair of trousers furiously. “I love James. Promised him I would forever, but I don’t know how much more of this kind of living I can stand.”
Gabrielle had no experience with the kind of love Sister Cassie longed after. Gabrielle had witnessed no such shared love between her mother and father before her father had gone away and found death on the river, but it seemed to be the intended way for many of the world from Bible times on down. Adam and Eve. Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob and Rachel. Many of the converts who came into the village were married before they joined the Society of Believers.
Even Mother Ann had been married before she had recognized the true spirit inside her and the purpose the Eternal Father had for her. At times a newly converted couple came into their midst equally devoted with full acceptance of the Believers’ way, but other times only the husband believed strongly, as with Sister Cassie and her husband. Then the wife was encouraged to bend her mind and will to the better way of the Believers.
Gabrielle took note of the converts who left and those who stayed and wrote of them in her journal as she sought fuller understanding of this part of life she’d never know. Marriage could never be part of a Believer’s life.
Sister Mercy had explained it to her many times. “As Believers we feel the need to devote all our attention to the spiritual life and fill our hearts with spiritual love. Worldly love destroys spiritual love because there is often strife among families. Here in the Society of Believers we can worship God fully without the distractions of individual family ties. We are one family with the blessings of Mother Ann.”
Gabrielle accepted that as right for her life, but sometimes when she thought of the pain in Sister Cassie’s eyes or heard Becca’s lonely weeping at night, she wondered if the Believers’ life was right for all people.
Then the doctor had held her hand and looked deeply into her eyes, and suddenly all the questions weren’t just to do with others. So Gabrielle stayed away from the doctor just as she avoided getting too near to the boilers that heated the water for the laundry. A wise person stepped back from danger. It advised as much many times in the book of Proverbs. Instead she sought her news of Nathan’s progress from Elder Caleb or Sister Mercy.
Each time they told her of how Nathan was getting stronger and walking easier, she felt a growing relief. Not only for the healing of Nathan’s wounds, but because once Nathan was healed, there would be no reason for the doctor to return to their village. Then she would be able to put him from her mind and the worldly questions and doubts with him. Her life was planned, and if at times she lost the absolute surety that it was the perfect life the Believers intended it to be, all the same she had no doubt it would be her way of life forever.
She wrapped herself in prayer, and any time an unworthy question or doubt slipped into her mind, she plucked it out and threw it down on the ground where she could stomp it into dust. Sister Mercy had taught her to do that when she first came into the village and missed some trivial part from her life before she became a Believer. Parts so unimportant that Gabrielle couldn’t even remember them now.
This too was just a moment in her life. For this moment the sea of her emotions was rougher and the view ahead wasn’t as clear. But when this moment had passed, then she would once again see her future with the Believers as it was meant to be.
On Sunday after Gabrielle dressed for the early meeting, she helped the little girls get their scarves and caps on straight. When the meeting bell sounded, they all sang as they walked to the meetinghouse. As they came close to the building, their voices joined with the other Believers coming to meeting from the other houses. The familiar sound of the gathering song always renewed Gabrielle’s spirit.
Inside they sang a hymn and then sat on the benches while Elder Caleb brought forth some Society business and spoke of the fire.
“The loss of the harvest barn is a hardship, but working through this trial will only make us stronger. We have already cleared away the rubble and will commence to build a new structure in the coming week. Soon we will be planting new crops, and in the fall we’ll once again have a barn filled with the harvest of our labors. Meanwhile the Eternal Father and Mother Ann will provide for us.”
“Praise God,” one of the men called out.
Elder Caleb inclined his head for a moment before he went on. “As you know, Brother Nathan was badly burned in the fire. But again our Father has been kind. It now appears that in time Brother Nathan will recover the full use of his legs. Each day he grows stronger and by next week he may be well enough to attend meeting again.”
A murmur of thanksgiving rippled through the Believers.
Elder Caleb said, “Later we will labor a special song for him and his complete recovery.”
After a few more items of church business, the elder read from the teachings of Mother Ann. Gabrielle listened raptly for some special message that might touch her, but the words seemed to float around and away from her even though she tried to grab on to them. She’d never felt so strange in meeting before. It was as if some invisible hand was pushing her apart from the other Believers and keeping her from entering into their common worship.
When at last Elder Caleb stopped speaking and they began to push back the benches, Gabrielle was glad. Laboring the songs would surely bring her back into full fellowship with her brethren and sisters.
She did feel better as they lined up in preparation for the marches. Gabrielle took her place with the singers. She loved to sing and was gifted with a clear, melodious voice and a natural ear for the tunes of the songs. The other singers followed her lead as she sang first one song and then another. They were simple songs, songs that begged for the humble life.
“I want to feel little,” Gabrielle sang. “I want to be low. I want Mother’s blessings wherever I go.”
There was no music other than the music of their voices and the sound of the feet of those laboring the songs as they moved back and forth and through and between the other sisters and brethren. The spirit began building in the room, and Gabrielle broke into a whirling song. The laborers moved faster across the floor and the singers lifted their hands and gave themselves to the song.
Suddenly there was a stir in the air, and one of the brethren leapt into the air and shouted. A sister fell trembling to the floor while another sister cried out, “It is the devil. We must stomp him out.”
Gabrielle joined the dancers as they stomped and shook away their sins. There was another shriek, and then as quickly as the frenzied dancing had come, it departed. The Believers were once again moving orderly about the floor while those who had fallen were helped to the benches.
When Gabrielle felt the tingling strangeness up her back, she was tempted to fight against it. She often feared giving her mind over to the power of the spirit, but Sister Mercy said she should not try to quench the gifts of the spirit. So she opened herself to the gift and whirled out away from the other singers as the song bubbled up out of her. The other Believers gathered around her. Some of them reached out to touch her in order to share in her gift.
At first she sang the melody in sounds with no words. Gabrielle, who felt as if she were somewhere far away watching someone else sing, was relieved when she heard the joy in the song. Sometimes the songs the spirit gifted her with were sad and troubled, but this melody rang with joy. The spirit was rejoicing in Nathan’s recovery.
Then words were flowing into her mind and out her mouth. “There is joy in the love. The love of our Father. There is joy in our love, one with another.”
Gabrielle lifted her arms upward and dropped to her knees. She sang the same words over and over as other voices began to join hers and some of the dancers went forth in another exercise.
When the song left her, Gabrielle got to her feet and went back to her place among the singers. Sister Mercy came to her and touched her face. The frown was gone from her eyes. “My child, Mother Ann has blessed you with a gift and you in turn have blessed us. You must always give yourself over to the gift and let it come freely through you as it should.”
“Yea, Sister Mercy, I will try,” Gabrielle said even as a great weariness washed over her. The gift did not always bring songs of joy. More often the gift seemed to tear at her with songs or messages of grief. This song had left behind no pain like shards of glass to pierce her heart, but the next one might. “The gift is not always so kind.”
“We cannot choose our gifts, Sister Gabrielle, but we must receive what Mother Ann wills us to receive,” Sister Mercy said sternly. But then her smile returned. “Ye are yet young, my child. Each day your understanding grows and in time you will know. Then thy gift will never be a burden but always welcome.”
There was another song, and Sister Mercy drifted away from her. Gabrielle labored with the others in song until all the brethren and sisters fell to their knees and sang, “Come down heavenly spirit; descend on us like a fire. Burn away our sins and lusts. Keep us pure in thy eyes.”
They sang the verse over and over as they first lifted their arms toward the heavens and then laid their faces to the floor. Then all at once the singing hushed, and as they bowed on the floor, a profound silence filled the meetinghouse.
After several moments, they got to their feet and sang a closing hymn. It wasn’t until Gabrielle turned toward the door that she saw the doctor sitting in the corner. When she looked his way, his eyes were there, waiting.
Sister Mercy was by Gabrielle’s side at once. “He should not be here,” she said.
Gabrielle dropped her eyes to the floor. She wouldn’t let his presence trouble her. As soon as Nathan was better, he’d be gone from their community for good. She would never see him again.
Sister Mercy kept talking beside her. “If he wanted to attend meeting, he should have waited until summer when we have our meetings open to the world. But not he. No, instead he sneaks in where he is not welcome. No doubt to ridicule us by carrying stories of our worship out to those in the world.”
“I’m sure he means no harm, Sister Mercy,” Gabrielle said softly. “He may be ignorant of our rules.”
Sister Mercy’s mouth tightened. “Nor does he wish to learn them.” The frown inched back into her eyes.
“Not everyone can be a Believer,” Gabrielle said.
“Nay. Many choose the pleasures of the lustful world instead of the rewards of eternity. In the next life they will know nothing but grief when the fires of hell burn round them.”
Gabrielle’s eyes shot back over to the doctor. It wasn’t a thought she liked to hear spoken. She didn’t want this man who’d brought turmoil to her mind to know any kind of grief in this world or the next.