July 1812
It took less than a week for Gabrielle to grow weary of the constant supervision. Every waking moment Sister Helen was at her side and even at night she lay in a bed pulled close to Gabrielle’s and blocking her path to the door in such a way that Gabrielle was obligated to shake Sister Helen awake if she needed to go to the privy in the night. Gabrielle had been moved from her room with the little girls in the Children’s House to the East Family House in order for Sister Helen to watch her.
Gabrielle tried to bear it with a humble mind and a contrite spirit, but as each day passed, her spirit grew more and more restive under Sister Helen’s constant eye. Gabrielle had suffered the public humiliation of being accused of wrongdoing at the meeting. She’d made no sound of defense because she was guilty of what they said. In her heart she knew she carried even worse carnal sins. She had willingly offered her lips to the doctor and had desired his arms around her.
Her intention had been to submit to her penance willingly to show her desire to once again be in full fellowship with her brethren and sisters. But she had not expected them to assign Sister Helen to watch her. Gabrielle’s heart had sunk when she heard who would be watching her. It was surely another test of whether she could truly humble her spirit since Gabrielle had always had to struggle to feel any kind of proper sisterly love for Sister Helen.
Before Sister Helen had come together with the Believers at Harmony Hill, her gift with herbs had made her a soughtafter midwife in the area. She often talked of the babies she’d helped bring into the world and sometimes seemed to especially enjoy telling of the babies she’d caught in her hands who had never drawn breath and how the tiny infants had surely been doomed by the sins of their parents.
Sister Helen claimed Mother Ann had visited her with a special revelation when the Shakers had come from the east to first teach their beliefs at her brother’s barn. She’d known at that moment her purity of spirit and body without the touch of a man to soil her had been the Lord’s plan so that she would be better fit for her work with the Believers. From the very beginning of their village coming together she had not only seen to the physical ills of the community but also undertook the duty of watching over any new converts to be sure they did not stray from the Society’s precepts.
She reminded Gabrielle of this often during their first days together. “There are many gifts of the spirit. Not all of them have anything to do with singing or laboring the songs.”
“Yea.” Gabrielle was determined to agree with her and not let the woman’s ill attitude entice Gabrielle into allowing her tongue to lead her into more trouble by saying what she thought. Sister Helen had no ear for the melodies of the Shaker songs and her dancing was clumsy although it was said she worked long hours practicing the steps in her room. Gabrielle closed her eyes a moment and summoned all the kindness she could find in her spirit. “We could practice the laboring of the dances together if you wish.”
Sister Helen’s face went dark with anger as she glared at Gabrielle and practically spat out her words. “I need no help from one such as you. You’ve always thought you were so fine, so gifted. I guess now it will be seen which of us has the greater gifts of the spirit.”
Gabrielle lowered her eyes to the ground and managed to keep her voice even and calm. “I meant you no insult, Sister Helen. It was just a thought since we are to be together so much for the next few months.”
It would do little good to match Sister Helen’s anger with her own, although at times Gabrielle felt as if she might break into a thousand pieces if the woman did not quit staring at her or picking at her with her words. Sister Helen harped on and on about how she would have never allowed carnal thoughts to worm into her mind and separate her from the love of Mother Ann and cause her to fall into disgrace. She would have never thought of meeting a man in the woods. And certainly not one so full of the devil as the doctor.
She managed to bring these points to light often as she and Gabrielle went about their assigned duties. Now once again Sister Helen began to browbeat Gabrielle with her words. “It looks as if, Sister Gabrielle, that you should have been able to see the wrong spirit in that Dr. Scott after he led our wayward brother away from us and into sin.”
They were working in the garden, weeding and hoeing to keep out the summer weeds. It made Gabrielle’s back tired and her hands calloused, but nevertheless Gabrielle liked the feel of the dirt in her hands and the strong sunlight on her back that made the sweat run in rivulets down between her breasts. Best of all she was outside where she could look up and see the trees against the blue sky and hear the birds sing as they went joyfully about their natural duties.
When a breeze sprang up, it carried not only the smell of new mown hay but also the sweet scent of honeysuckle and roses and other flowers blooming around the buildings. Their blossoms supplied nectar for the Society’s bee swarms and thus were useful as well as beautiful. Now Gabrielle concentrated on filling her head with the sweet smells as she answered Sister Helen softly. “The doctor doesn’t believe as we do, but he is one of God’s children just as we are, Sister Helen.”
“You may have fallen to his level, Sister Gabrielle, but I can assure you that I have not.”
Gabrielle kept her eyes on her hoe as she pulled the dirt up around a bean plant. She had no desire to speak of Dr. Scott with Sister Helen. Actually there was nothing she cared to speak of with Sister Helen. And that too, the lack of sisterly affection for this woman beside her, was a sin.
But Sister Helen would not let her by so easily. “You were in the shadows there among the trees with him for a long time. What did you do?”
“I’ve told you already as I told Sister Mercy.” Gabrielle leaned down to weed out some grass growing around the roots of the bean plants. When she stood up, she let her eyes slide across Sister Helen’s face. “We talked. I asked him of our former brother’s health, and he asked me to go away with him.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Sister Helen sounded as if she wished Gabrielle had gone.
Gabrielle pulled her hoe through the dirt before she answered. She wished she didn’t have to answer at all, that she could just put all her attention on the beans in the row before her. But she could feel Sister Helen waiting for an answer, so she simply said, “My place is here with my brethren and sisters.”
Sister Helen snorted, but to Gabrielle’s relief, she left off her questioning and went back to hoeing the beans. She would ask them again. She was trying to coerce Gabrielle into admitting some worse sin. A sin that might forever put her out of fellowship with the Believers.
After a while, Sister Helen said, “You don’t talk very much, do you, Sister Gabrielle? Or perhaps you talk best with those from the world.”
A line Gabrielle had heard in meetings came to her mind. “None preaches better than the ant, and it says nothing.” As soon as the words were out, she knew she shouldn’t have spoken them aloud. Sister Helen would surely report to the elders and eldresses that Gabrielle wasn’t humbling her spirit as she should in the face of her wrongdoing. Still when she looked up and saw the sister’s face, a smile slipped through Gabrielle. A smile she did not dare let touch her lips or sneak into her eyes as she bent back to her hoeing.
So the days passed. Each one a bit harder to bear than the one before. Gabrielle prayed for the ability to feel love for Sister Helen or at least the strength to endure her presence with a quiet inner peace. But she felt no answer to her prayer, and she remembered Elder Caleb saying charity bore a humble mind. Perhaps the fault was within her. Every day when the sun went down, Gabrielle would sit during their rest time and resolve to be more humble on the coming day.
She no longer wrote in her journal as she knew Sister Helen would insist on reading any word she wrote as she wrote it. Rather she sat in silence and gathered her thoughts to her. She held them close and they made a wall of sorts against the never resting eyes of Sister Helen.
Many of her thoughts could not have been written in a journal at any rate. Journals were written to be read, and her thoughts could only be hidden. The doctor often walked through them, bringing the comfort of the memory of his touch. At first she had tried to shut him out, but as the misery inside her grew, she began to welcome him instead.
Sometimes Sister Helen would ask her sharply, “What are you thinking of, Sister Gabrielle, that brings that look to your face?”
Gabrielle always answered, “I am praying, Sister Helen.” At times it was true, and other times she only whispered a quick prayer asking forgiveness before she spoke. But the truth didn’t seem to matter as much now as bearing the constant presence of Sister Helen with the least amount of distress.
Mealtimes brought some relief for Gabrielle. Sister Helen was at her elbow as always, but there were also the other sisters of the East Family. They knew her shame, but since many of them were struggling with their own acceptance of the Shakers’ ways, their eyes didn’t condemn her. No conversation was allowed at the eating tables, but sometimes a smile spoke as well as words.
Each time she went into the biting room, Gabrielle quickly searched the tables for Sister Esther. Sometimes Esther would look up at her and accept her smile. Other times she kept her eyes to her plate as if she wasn’t even aware of the others in the room. Then Gabrielle would wish she could sit beside her and offer her whatever help she could. But that was not allowed. It was what Gabrielle regretted most about her constant supervision.
She had pleaded with Sister Mercy to allow her to continue on the same work duties with Sister Esther, but Sister Mercy hadn’t even hesitated before she refused. “You have shown yourself in need of help, Sister Gabrielle. Can we expect the lame to lead the lame?”
“I feel I can still be of help to Sister Esther,” Gabrielle had said as she looked down at Sister Mercy seated at the narrow table she used as a desk in the small room where they had shared so many talks. Sister Mercy had not given Gabrielle permission to sit down.
Sister Mercy sighed and laid down her pen as though irritated to have her work interrupted. She frowned at Gabrielle. “Perhaps you could have been if you had not allowed worldly thoughts to creep into your own head. Now you must think upon your own sins and work toward repentance and cleansing in your own life.”
“That doesn’t make the problems of my sister go away or mean that my love for her might not be a comfort to her.”
Sister Mercy stood up and leaned across the table toward Gabrielle. “Until you have once again gained the inner peace of the true Believer, your presence would only be a hindrance to the spiritual growth of Sister Esther.”
“May I at least speak to her during times of rest or at the meetings?” It seemed a reasonable enough request.
Yet Sister Mercy didn’t even consider it. “Nay, Sister Gabrielle. Ye will do well not to make requests out of keeping with your present situation.”
Gabrielle shrank back from the coldness of her words. Gabrielle had disappointed Sister Mercy by falling away from the teachings she had showered on her these many years, and Gabrielle wondered if they would ever be close again even after she stepped back into the full fellowship after serving her penance. Gabrielle bowed her head a bit as she said, “I will pray for your forgiveness, Sister Mercy.”
Sister Mercy’s voice was sharp. “It is not my forgiveness you need. It is the Eternal Father’s.”
“Yea, I have already asked his forgiveness. He knows my sin, and yet I feel I have not lost his love.” Gabrielle kept her head bent as a thankful prayer rose in her heart for that truth.
“And Mother Ann’s?”
Gabrielle had never been able to pray as easily to Mother Ann as she could to the Eternal Father. She sang the songs of Mother’s love, but yet some part of her seemed unable to reach out to Mother Ann. It was always the Eternal Father or his loving Son she felt received her prayers, but she looked up at Sister Mercy and said, “I pray daily for her love and forgiveness as well.”
“Ye will do well to remember that saying you are sorry is not always enough. Nay, sometimes it takes much more.”
“Yea, Sister Mercy,” Gabrielle had said. She’d asked more than Sister Mercy was able to give. In time the old sister might forgive Gabrielle, but there would always be this hurt between them.
So she didn’t speak with Sister Esther although she longed to. She could only pray for her, and many times her prayer was for the sister to leave the Believers. Then Sister Esther might be able to start a new life away from the sad memories of this village. She might have another child who would bring her joy.
But Sister Esther did not leave. Each night she looked a bit thinner and paler. When others of the Believers spoke to her during the meetings, she often seemed confused as if she could not understand the words reaching her ears.
One night at meeting in spite of Sister Mercy’s orders to the contrary, Gabrielle found a seat along the wall bench beside Sister Esther. Sister Helen had gotten caught up in the exercising of the songs, and for the moment she’d forgotten about Gabrielle.
Sister Helen never watched her quite so closely during meeting. They each had their parts as they labored the songs. Gabrielle was usually among the singers and Sister Helen among the dancers. Sister Esther did neither unless one of the other sisters took her hand and led her through the motions of the exercise. Even then she couldn’t keep the steps or turns in her mind, and usually they allowed her to return to the bench that held the old and the infirm.
“Sister Esther,” Gabrielle said. “How are you?”
“Gabrielle,” Sister Esther said, awareness coming to her eyes. “Where have you been?”
Sister Esther had been too deep in her own misery to even notice Gabrielle’s trouble. Gabrielle smiled and touched her hand. “I’ve been near. They’ve assigned us to different duties.”
“They must have known how I longed to talk to you and decided to keep us apart.” Sister Esther moved her hands about in her lap in quick, meaningless gestures. “I have a need to talk about my Becca, but no one will talk to me about her. They say I should forget. That I should turn my grief over to Mother Ann.”
“They are surely trying to help you, Sister Esther.”
The woman sighed. “Perhaps so, but it doesn’t, you know. I can’t forget Becca. She was part of me. My gift from the Lord. He gave me Becca and I did not take care of his gift.”
“That is not so. You loved Becca just as the Lord surely meant for you to do, and now she will always be in your heart.” Gabrielle took both of Sister Esther’s hands into hers to still them. “But now you have to quit punishing yourself for her death and go on with your own life.”
“I have no life.” Sister Esther’s voice was flat and void of feeling.
“But you do. You have a life here with the Believers.” Gabrielle glanced around to see if anyone could hear her words. Everyone was absorbed in the song, so she went on. “Or you could leave and find a new life in the world.”
Sister Esther didn’t seem to hear. “Becca calls to me. Did you know that, Sister Gabrielle?” Without waiting for Gabrielle to answer, she went on. “I hear her voice and see her beckoning to me. And when I don’t go to her, I hear her crying.”
Gabrielle searched her mind for something comforting to say, but she found no words. She held Sister Esther’s hands tighter and shared her sorrow silently.
“She cries, Sister Gabrielle, and I can’t go to her. I never could stand to hear her crying. I used to hold her all day and rock her when she was a baby because she would cry. But now I can’t hold her. I can’t reach her at all. And she keeps crying.”
Gabrielle spoke around the lump in her throat. “It is only a dream, Sister Esther. Becca is in heaven. In heaven with the angels there is only happiness.”
Sister Esther’s eyes came up to stare at Gabrielle. “And weren’t we going to be happy here, Sister Gabrielle? Weren’t all our troubles supposed to be gone? Weren’t we to love one another and make a heaven on earth? And didn’t my Becca die anyway?”
“We are only human. We haven’t the power of the Eternal Father to solve all problems and heal all sickness.”
“The Believers only make problems. They solve nothing.”
“We have love one for another. We have love for you.”
“Tell me, Sister Gabrielle, do you think Becca would have died if we had never ventured into this supposed paradise on earth? Your truthfulness would be a kindness to me.” Gabrielle hesitated. How could she answer her? Finally she said, “Who am I to know when death will come?” Sister Esther smiled sadly. “You know, Sister Gabrielle. You know the truth, but you are afraid to admit it or speak it aloud. I knew it was wrong the first night we were here when they took Becca from me and she cried. I didn’t go to her then, and now I cannot.”
Gabrielle didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say. Words and phrases shot through her mind, but all of them faded away in the face of Sister Esther’s grief.
Sister Esther didn’t seem to notice Gabrielle’s silence as she said, “But if she keeps crying, I will have to try. You understand that, don’t you? I will have to try.”
Sister Helen stepped in front of them. “Sister Gabrielle, you are not in your place with the singers. Are you ill?”
“Nay.” Reluctantly Gabrielle let go of Sister Esther’s hands and stood up. Sister Esther’s hands began their nervous dancing about in her lap again. Gabrielle looked straight into Sister Helen’s eyes. “Sister Esther isn’t well. Someone needs to sit with her.”
Sister Helen stared at Sister Esther for a moment. Then she looked back at Gabrielle. “It is nothing. She’ll snap out of it as soon as she confesses her sins and gives her obedience to the Believers’ way.”
“She needs someone with her,” Gabrielle insisted. Then she softened her voice and said, “I humbly seek your permission to speak with Elder Caleb about her.”
Sister Helen’s eyes snapped angrily. “There’s nary a thing humble about you, Sister Gabrielle, and there never has been. So you want to go over my head to the elder. Elder Caleb has no time for one in disgrace.”
Gabrielle refused to back down. “Our sister needs special consideration. Surely you have compassion for her.”
Sister Helen’s face reddened and her hand came up as if she might strike Gabrielle. But then she seemed to remember she was in meeting where they were only to show love for one another and not anger, and she said, “Of course I do. I’ll see that someone takes care of Sister Esther. You need not remind me of my love for my sisters.”
“Nay, of course not,” Gabrielle said meekly. But she didn’t feel meek. Her spirit would not humble before Sister Helen no matter what she did, and suddenly she was tired of trying. Still she had to endure Sister Helen’s presence for months more. It was either that or leave, and even if she had wanted to leave to get away from Sister Helen, she had no place to go.
Brice was in her mind with his words promising to be there if she needed him, but the words had no truth in them. He’d gone away into the region of war. Nathan had gone with him. She’d heard it from Sister Helen.
Gabrielle knew nothing of wars. She knew only that men fought and men died. Her gift of knowing nudged at her with images of guns and soldiers, but she pushed the gift away, fearing what she might see. Perhaps her visions were nothing more than dreams just as she’d told Sister Esther hers were when Becca called to her.
Gabrielle looked over her shoulder at Sister Esther and felt somewhat relieved when another of the sisters went to help her up and held her arm as they left the meetinghouse. Gabrielle walked with her head bowed beside Sister Helen. She’d give the woman no further cause to report her unwillingness to bend her spirit and repent.
It wasn’t a dream that brought Gabrielle instantly awake just before dawn. She heard a scream. Gabrielle’s heart pounded as she sat up in bed and looked around. The room was dark, but she could see the shape of Sister Helen in the bed next to her. Gabrielle waited for her to move, but she slept on as though the scream had not shattered the peace of the night. No one in the room moved, and slowly Gabrielle realized the scream had sounded only in her own mind.
Although the air coming in the windows carried the warm, dry feel of summer, Gabrielle shivered. Sickness gathered in the pit of her stomach and dread filled her being as the gift of knowing captured her. Gabrielle could not keep the knowing from washing over her. The scream was gone, but where it had ripped through her there was a wide streak of raw pain. She saw Sister Esther’s face. Her features were strained and oddly twisted.
Gabrielle rose from her bed and held her breath as she silently edged past Sister Helen’s bed. She had to go to Sister Esther. But where? Gabrielle shut her eyes and probed the vision. A chill crept through her, turning her fingers ice cold as her breathing grew so shallow it almost stopped. But she saw Sister Esther. She was standing on a chair, and there were pots and a fireplace and strips of towels.
The kitchen. Gabrielle opened her eyes. For a moment she was too weak to move, but then she was in the hall, running, pulled by an urgency she didn’t even understand.
She was almost to the bottom of the stairs when she heard a clatter of something falling, and again the scream seared through her, burning away her breath. Each step on toward the kitchen was like pushing through a vat of syrup, and it seemed to take an eternity for her to reach the kitchen doorway.
“Nay, Sister Esther,” she cried, but it was too late. The chair lay sideways on the floor and Esther dangled halfway between the floor and the rafter she’d looped the strips of towels over. Her head lay in an odd angle against her shoulder.
The gray light of dawn began to filter in through the window, but Gabrielle wished for the dark of midnight to return and shut out this horror. She closed her eyes, but the same image was there in her mind. She had no way to escape it.
She found a knife and forced herself to right the chair. She hugged the woman close against her as she cut through the knotted towels. Gently she lowered her sister’s body to the floor and then fell down beside her.
She could do no more. She had no strength left to go after Sister Helen. She could only hold Sister Esther’s lifeless hands and hear her words. “Becca cries for me.”
The minutes passed, bringing the full light of day ever nearer while Gabrielle’s innocence withered like a tender wildflower hit by the hot, dry wind of truth.