The night passed slowly while a dark shadow seemed to linger over Nathan as he struggled to cling to life. Elder Caleb came in to pray with them. Then he touched Gabrielle’s shoulder and said, “If it be God’s will, our brother shall live. But if not and it is time for him to go on to the other side, he can go rejoicing that Mother Ann is there to prepare a place for him.”
He meant the words as a comfort, but Gabrielle couldn’t accept them. She saw the very dearness of life as Nathan fought to stay among them. “He is too young to die,” she protested.
Elder Caleb showed no disapproval of her words. He only said, “The Eternal Father calls home the young as well as the old.”
Dr. Scott looked up from changing the cooling compresses on Nathan’s burns. “Don’t give up on the boy yet. He’s a tough one or he’d already be dead. He’s fought this long. I won’t let him die now even if I have to cut off his legs.”
Elder Caleb’s brow wrinkled in a slight frown. “You may treat him, Dr. Scott, but you are only a man. God will decide if our brother lives or dies.”
“Which god is that?” the doctor asked. “The one you believe lived in your Mother Ann’s body?”
Sister Helen stared at the doctor with burning contempt, but Elder Caleb remained calm as ever. “We do not ask that those from the world believe. Only that they allow us the peace to believe ourselves.”
“And not burn down our barns,” Sister Helen added.
“I grant you’re well within your rights there,” Dr. Scott said. “Those who set fires should suffer the results instead of the innocent like this boy.”
By morning the lines of strain between the doctor’s eyes were easing. Nathan’s breathing was once more regular and strong in spite of the moans that often worked out of his lips. Dr. Scott dosed him with something to make him sleep. “Sleep is the best thing for him now. His body needs a chance to heal.”
The doctor leaned back and looked at the others in the room. “Sister Helen, I thank you for your help. You and the young sister can go rest. I can care for the boy now.”
“I will stay with you yet a little longer,” Elder Caleb said.
Gabrielle looked at Nathan and rose from his side. All night she had knelt by him, praying for him as he had asked. She turned to Elder Caleb. “May I come back to see how he is later?”
Elder Caleb’s brow wrinkled with concern as he stared at her for a long moment before he gave his permission.
“Before you go, young sister, could you bring me some fresh water?” the doctor asked.
Gabrielle took the piggin and went out. When she started to lift the full pail of water, pain shot from her hand up through her arm. She put the piggin down and looked at her hand. Her palm was an angry red. For a moment she was puzzled, but then she remembered beating out the flames on Nathan’s legs with her neck scarf. Suddenly she was ashamed to be worrying about such a small pain after what Nathan had suffered. She picked up the piggin and carried it back to the cabin.
When she set the water down on the table, pain shot up her arm from her hand. She turned quickly, but not before the doctor saw her wince.
“What is it, young sister?” he asked.
“Nothing. If there’s anything more you need, you may ring the bell on the table.” Gabrielle moved toward the door.
“Let me see your hands, young sister,” the doctor commanded.
Gabrielle turned around slowly. Elder Caleb looked at her and said, “If you have injured yourself, let the doctor treat you, my child. It is for the good of all that we stay well and healthy.”
Gabrielle held out her hands without a word. The doctor took hold of her wrists and led her over to the window. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had burnt your hand, young sister?” He frowned as though her pain made him angry.
“It is nothing,” Gabrielle said again. “I only noticed it a moment ago myself when I picked up the piggin of water. It’s such a small thing next to Brother Nathan’s burns.”
The doctor’s eyes came up from her hands to touch her eyes. “Your suffering won’t lessen his.”
Gabrielle lowered her eyes and stood quietly while the doctor soaked a cloth in the medicine he’d been putting on Nathan. Then he wrapped the cloth loosely about her right hand. “This will be a terrible nuisance if you try to use your hand, but by tomorrow the medicine should have taken the fire from your skin.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Gabrielle said, but she kept her eyes from his. The presence of Elder Caleb made her even more aware of the warmth of the doctor’s hands on her skin.
“Come back in the morning so I can examine your hand to be sure the medicine is working.” His hands seemed to linger on hers.
The bell for the morning meal rang out through the village. Elder Caleb said, “You may go now, Sister Gabrielle. When you get to the biting room, please tell one of the sisters in the kitchen to send food here for Dr. Scott.”
“Yea, Elder Caleb,” Gabrielle said before she hurried out of the cabin. She stopped by the kitchen and gave the sister in charge the elder’s message. Then she went on to her room. She couldn’t go to eat in her grimy clothes. Her scarf was scorched and ruined by the fire, and her hair straggled out from under Sister Mercy’s too-small cap. She passed several of the sisters and brothers on their way to the biting room, but there was no talk between them. Nor did any speak to her in passing, though here and there eyes sought her out with a curious look.
The house was empty when she entered. Gabrielle found her extra set of clothes and began cleaning up. She wanted nothing more than to sink down on her bed to rest, but she couldn’t. The school bell would ring soon, and she had to be ready to teach her small charges.
Gabrielle was only nineteen, but she had an ease for learning. Her earliest memory was of her grandmother holding a sack and pointing out the word flour to her. Her father and grandmother had run a store then. Gabrielle smiled at the memory of that happy time. She had followed her father around and even found the customers what they needed when he was busy.
Her grandmother had said she was ahead of her years, a special child who should be nurtured and taught everything until her curiosity was finally satiated. So her grandmother had taught her, her father had laughed with her, and even her mother, if she hadn’t been happy, neither had she been especially unhappy.
Then the baby brother had died moments after coming into the world. Her beloved grandmother succumbed to a fever a few months later, and everything changed. Her father would disappear for days at a time. When he did come home, he smelled of strong drink and was full of talk of a new life, a better life across the mountains. Her mother cried and yelled and threw pots, but in the end she had little choice but to follow her husband to a place called Kentucky.
In Kentucky, Gabrielle had found a new teacher in her mother’s uncle who had helped them get settled in the frontier state. Uncle Jonas, a respected lawyer and judge in the state, had never married and had little patience with children, but when he saw the quickness of Gabrielle’s mind, he undertook the task of filling it with the proper education in spite of the fact he thought such knowledge would surely be wasted on a female.
After only one summer in Kentucky, Gabrielle’s father had gone away again. Before the snows of winter came, they received word of his death on a Mississippi riverboat. She and her mother had no choice but to move in with Uncle Jonas. He was a cold, strict taskmaster who scorned even the smallest mistake, so Gabrielle did her best to be perfect.
Thus when she and her mother had joined the Believers, Gabrielle at thirteen was already better educated than most of the adults in the church family. Now as Gabrielle twisted her hair into a knot to stick up under her clean cap, she thought about the last time she’d seen Uncle Jonas. When they’d gone into his study to tell him they were leaving, he had turned from his desk and stared at her mother.
“I always knew you were a weak-willed, foolish woman, Martha,” he’d said with no feeling at all to his voice. “Else you would have never married such a ne’er-do-well as Alec Hope.” He turned back to the books in front of him. “Go then and cloister yourself among these peculiar people with their shaking dances and odd tenets if that be your desire. Outside of childbearing, what use are women to the world anyway?”
Gabrielle wondered again as she had then if her mother had really believed as the Shakers did or if she had simply been desperate to get away from Uncle Jonas, for if he was cold to Gabrielle, he was a tyrant to her mother. Whatever the reason for their coming into the community of Believers, her mother embraced the Believers’ way fully and had found a measure of happiness she’d never known anywhere else.
And Gabrielle was satisfied with her life at Harmony Hill as well. The move had been good for both of them. Gabrielle had molded her life in accordance with the rules and found it easy to love her brethren and sisters as the elders and eldresses taught. She especially loved teaching the little girls, some she’d had in class now for three years.
She looked in the small mirror as she adjusted her scarf clumsily with her bandaged hand. Nay, she had never doubted her life as a Believer. She met her eyes in the mirror and knew there was no reason to lie to herself. Instead she could only wonder why there were questions and doubts this morning where none had ever been before.
Sister Mercy knocked softly on the sleeping room’s door and called Gabrielle’s name. Gabrielle turned away from the mirror. She would talk to Sister Mercy before she went to the schoolroom. Sins only multiplied and darkened one’s soul if hidden and not confessed.
“Sister Mercy,” Gabrielle said as she opened the door. “Do you have a few minutes to talk with me?” Sister Mercy inclined her head and without a word led the way to a small room with only two chairs and a table. Sister Mercy sat in one of the small straight chairs, and Gabrielle dropped to her knees beside her. Sister Mercy touched Gabrielle’s head lightly. “Ye may sit in the chair, Sister Gabrielle.”
Gabrielle got off her knees, but after she sat down the words wouldn’t come. She didn’t know what to say that Sister Mercy might understand. Sister Mercy had been like a mother to her ever since they’d come together at Harmony Hill. She was a small, neat woman who never seemed to have so much as a thought out of place. She moved calmly and surely through each of her duties with a quick, youthful ease even though she was past her middle years.
Sister Mercy had joined the New Lebanon Society of Believers in New York more than thirty years ago without the sin of marriage to cleanse from her spirit. When the western colonies were formed, she volunteered to come help with the ministry and leadership. She found her place of service with the children who were gathered into their family, loving them while at the same time demanding they learn and abide by the rules of the Believers. The eternal salvation and the souls of the children in her charge were at stake.
She often spoke to Gabrielle of her need to grow in pureness of spirit and intelligence so that perhaps someday Gabrielle could take a leadership role in the Society of Believers. But now she looked troubled as she asked, “What is it, my child?”
“You knew I stayed with Brother Nathan through the night.”
Sister Mercy bent her head forward slightly. “Under the circumstances, that was the good and proper thing to do.”
“He said he thought he had died and gone to hell.”
“Brother Nathan is often a careless boy and too obstinate to accept the truth. Perhaps his guilt brought forth the thought.”
Gabrielle was stricken by her words. “Nay,” she said. “Surely it was the fire that made him have such thoughts. And the pain. His pain is terrible to see.”
Sister Mercy reached over and patted Gabrielle’s hand. “I didn’t mean to upset you, child. It is possible you are right. Is he better now?”
“I think so. Dr. Scott put something on his legs to bring the fire out.”
“Ah, Dr. Scott. I have heard of him. He lives near here, does he not?”
“I have heard he does. I suppose that is why he was here. He must have seen the flames.” Gabrielle took a deep breath and pushed out her next words all in a bunch. “I was alone with him.”
Sister Mercy spoke calmly. “I knew it to be so.”
Gabrielle looked at her in surprise, but then she understood. “Sister Helen has already been to you.”
“She thought I should know.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
Sister Mercy smiled. “But of course she does, child. Ye are sisters.”
“Yea,” Gabrielle answered, but she remembered the look in Sister Helen’s eyes the night before.
“It was only her concern for you that brought her to me. She said Dr. Scott forced her to leave you alone with him, and she was fearful of what might have happened after she left. She thought him a worldly man with no honor.”
Gabrielle defended him at once. “Nay, she is wrong. He is surely a good, kind man who worked a near miracle to keep Nathan alive through the night.”
Sister Mercy’s voice was reproving. “If there was a miracle, it was of the Lord’s or Mother Ann’s doing and none of Dr. Scott’s.”
“Yea, of course you are right, Sister Mercy. But he did care for Brother Nathan gently and with great care and concern.”
Sister Mercy studied her face for a long moment before saying, “But, child, why did you want to talk to me? Have you some sin to confess? Did the man hurt you in any way?”
“He troubled my mind, Sister Mercy, and I don’t understand the reason for it.”
Sister Mercy let out a small sigh of relief. “You needn’t worry, Sister Gabrielle. Those of the world often trouble the true believer. They have no understanding of the peace we have here. The peace that you have so abundantly, my child. The shadow he has cast over your mind will evaporate like mist in the morning sun if you remember how the Eternal Father has so gifted you with love here among us.” She smiled at Gabrielle and waited a minute before she asked, “So is that all?”
Suddenly Gabrielle couldn’t tell her any more. She couldn’t tell her how the doctor’s fingers lifting her chin had warmed her whole being. She could only beg the Eternal Father’s forgiveness for such wayward thoughts in silence. Gabrielle lowered her eyes to her hands and said, “Yea.”
“Then you needn’t see him again. That way his worldliness cannot trouble you more.”
“But I must go see Brother Nathan again,” Gabrielle said and then held up her bandaged hand. “And the doctor said I should go to him in the morning to let him treat my hand again. It seems I suffered a slight burn when I helped smother the flames on Brother Nathan’s legs.”
Sister Mercy was deep in thought for a long time before she finally said, “Very well. Your hand needs to be treated for the good of all. I shall go with you in the morning to shield you from his worldliness. He has not the proper respect for our beliefs.”
“Yea,” Gabrielle said quietly.
Sister Mercy reached over and touched Gabrielle’s hands again. “You see, my child, the Believers have joined together in a family as a separate society from the world where all reasons for sin are removed from our lives. Everyone works for the good of all and without the strife of the individual marriage and family. But when someone comes among us from the world he brings evil thoughts and ideas with him. That evil can touch and disturb our inner calm. But it is just a momentary thing. Nothing a true Believer needs worry about. The stranger will soon go back to the world and his disrupting influence will leave with him.”
Gabrielle lowered her eyes and said, “Yea, it will surely be so.”
“It will,” Sister Mercy said. “Now let us pray quickly before the morning duties begin.”
“What shall I pray, Sister Mercy?”
“That the doctor’s worldliness has left no stain upon you.”
“And for Brother Nathan’s recovery? Surely that is a proper prayer this morning.”
“Yea. For Brother Nathan’s recovery and for his true acceptance of the Believers’ way.”
Later as she listened to her youngsters reciting their spelling lessons, Gabrielle felt shame for not praying as Sister Mercy had directed her. Gabrielle didn’t want this Dr. Scott to go away. Not yet. She had a great curiosity about him. She wanted to know what made him speak as he did and why he used cures others disdained. She wanted to understand the sad look that had crept into his eyes as he had looked at her the night before. And perhaps her largest reason for shame, she wanted to know more about the world he’d come from.
For more than five years she’d not thought much of the world at all. It was there beyond the border of their village, but she never thought to have any part of it again. But the doctor had pushed a new feeling into her mind. A feeling that would have to be fought.
She tightened her mouth and straightened her shoulders as she pushed all such whimsical thoughts of the world out of her mind. There would be no questions for Dr. Scott. She had put things of the world behind her, and it was best if she remembered that. The Believers’ life was her life, and it was a good life.
Yet as her eyes fell on her bandaged hand, she couldn’t deny the tingle of excitement that pushed through her at the thought of the doctor touching her hand again. His hands held a sort of magic. They looked big and strong like the hands of one who worked the earth, but at the same time they were gentle and soft to the wounded.
Her face warmed at the thought and then once again she felt shame. Such thoughts were surely a sin. Yet another sin she would be unable to confess to Sister Mercy.
She curled her fingers into a fist and was glad for the pain that took her mind away from the doctor.