The Gifted

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Nay. I was not so blessed. I was already past the time of childhood. The same as Sister Sophrena when she came.”

  “Yea,” Jessamine said as she turned to begin dropping the seeds in the row again. “She has told me that she had the sin of matrimony to overcome.”

  “Many among us walked the sinful path of marriage in the world. It is expected of one there.”

  “You?” Jessamine looked back at her. “You were once married? In love as the world loves?”

  “The sinful state of marriage has little to do with love. Even the kind of love those of the world are ever chasing after. Those feelings bring more sorrow than joy even in the way of the world’s thinking.” Sister Edna leaned on the handle of her hoe as her eyes narrowed on Jessamine. “It seems odd to me that your mind is so filled with the romantic nonsense of the world when you have so long been surrounded by the pure love embraced here among our family of Believers. I fear you have been letting your ears be filled with the sinful talk of some of our novitiates more recently from the world.”

  “Nay. My sinful curiosity rises from within,” Jessamine said quickly. She had no desire to bring disapproval down on Sister Abigail. Even if the sister’s whispered stories in the night had awakened Jessamine’s desire to see White Oak Springs, Jessamine’s own feet carried her on that willful trek through the woods. Her own hand had reached out to touch the cheek of the man of the world. She had stepped willingly into the shadows with him. Indeed had pulled him into the shadows herself and thus steepened her plummeting fall into sin. No fault for that could be laid upon Sister Abigail.

  “You do seem beset with a sinful nature.” Sister Edna sounded almost pleased with her pronouncement.

  “My head has always been full of wonderings and stories.” Jessamine pushed the pretense of sorrow into her voice.

  “You should ponder on the stories of Mother Ann’s life or those in the Bible.” Sister Edna looked down. “Or while in the garden, think only on placing the seeds in the row.”

  “Yea.” Jessamine carefully dropped several seeds into the row before she let her curiosity override her good sense. She looked up at Sister Edna and asked, “Did you come in with a husband of the world? Children who became your sisters or brethren?”

  Each question darkened Sister Edna’s frown. “You ask too many things that have no bearing on our lives as Believers. I have left the stress of such worldly things behind and set my feet on the way to salvation. My children were blessed to be given the gift of a perfect life. It is not a fault that can be laid to me that two of them chose to reject that gift before they were of the age to join in our family of Believers.”

  “They went back to the world?” Jessamine’s eyes softened on Sister Edna. “That must have been a sorrow for you.”

  The woman’s face hardened even more. “I am sorrowed any time one of my sisters or brethren falls into sin. Here in our Society, we do not favor one sister or brother over any other. Sister Sophrena has surely impressed that truth upon you.”

  “Yea.” Jessamine had often been told that was the Shaker way, but she had never seen how it would be possible to love every one of her sisters exactly the same. Nor had she believed many among them were able to manage such except the eldresses with their years of devoted practice in proper sisterly love. And perhaps Sister Sophrena. She didn’t believe it was true for Sister Edna. Jessamine was seeing her in a new light and not as simply one of the watchers always ready to catch someone straying from the assigned way.

  With that new light shining down on the unsmiling sister, she wanted to see even more. “Was it hard to surrender your worldly love for your husband? For your children? I have seen some who come among us struggle mightily with turning from the world’s way.”

  “Those struggle who are reluctant to pick up their cross and carry it. Only those. And you, Sister Jessamine, you ask questions that should not enter your thoughts, much less cross your tongue.” Sister Edna’s eyes were stern. “I should not like to have to report your troublesome thinking and lack of diligence in carrying out your duty for the day to the Ministry.”

  Jessamine had some doubt of the sister’s reluctance in that regard. The very idea of reporting Jessamine’s contrariness brought a measure of cheer to Sister Edna’s eyes. She didn’t smile, but her frown vanished.

  “I will aim for more diligence.” Jessamine didn’t want trouble with Sister Edna. She would tamp down her curiosity.

  “And more silence,” Sister Edna said. “Remember, none preaches better than the ant, and it says nothing.”

  “Yea, Sister Edna.”

  Jessamine leaned over and dropped seeds into the row. She did not mind silence. She and her granny had shared much silence. Comfortable silence. Silence where thoughts could grow and entertain. Silence at times broken by her granny’s singing the words of a favorite hymn. At times the hymn’s words had seemed not to actually break the silence but to add to it. Silence among the Believers was sometimes the same. A time when holiness could fall down over them all. She wasn’t feeling that kind of silence now.

  The cessation of talk between her and Sister Edna had no peace in it. Only the sound of uneasy truce. Jessamine could not keep from sneaking looks at Sister Edna and wondering which of the brothers might have once been joined with her. A devout brother. One who did not often let a smile slip onto his face. She could not imagine the sister married to a man who embraced happiness as a gift of peace. She had often had the same wondering thoughts about Sister Sophrena until the sister told her that her former husband had journeyed to a village in the east. But Sister Sophrena had no children to set on the Shaker road the way Sister Edna obviously had.

  Jessamine had seen many mothers and children parted among the Shakers. She’d noted the tears, the struggles. Sister Edna might have once suffered such tears even if she denied it now. How could a mother not suffer some feeling of loss with the surrendering of her young? How could a father? But it happened. Fathers brought their children and left them. Mothers brought their children and left them.

  Jessamine’s own father had taken her into the woods to Granny and left her. And never returned. The prince who loved her mother. An ache opened up inside her heart and she felt terribly alone even with Sister Edna close enough behind her to touch and more sisters spread out across the garden, planting beans with the same movements. A planting dance.

  She was never outwardly alone, but inwardly she sometimes felt ever alone with no one who loved her as she really was. Sister Sophrena loved the sister she wished Jessamine could be. Sister Annie loved her because that is what she had been told to do. Love your sisters. Sister Edna loved no one if her scowl was any indication. Her granny had loved her without reservations, but her granny was gone.

  God was not gone. God loved her. God loved everybody. At least those who kept his commandments, or was that the way she was to show her love for him? Yes, that was it. The verse she’d been taught came to her mind. If you love me, keep my commandments.

  Mother Ann threw down bushels of love on her followers. Those who obeyed the Shaker way. It was Jessamine who was out of step. She was the one stepping out of union with her sisters. She was the one yearning for a different kind of love. The wrong kind of love. Worldly love.

  Tristan Cooper. She let his name whisper through her thoughts as she remembered his fingers tracing her lips. It was his leaving that was making her feel so alone on this day. So unloved. So forlornly and forever unloved. She’d never see him again. She’d continue down the Shaker way, planting seeds that would bring forth food, sweeping dirt from every corner, lifting her voice in song and exercising the dances.

  She would not always feel so alone. She would keep the commandments. She would be loved by her family of Believers. She was loved by the Lord. The Bible promised as much. For God so loved the world. Whether she was here in the village or part of the world, God so loved.

  Journal Entry

  Harmony Hill Village

  Entered on t
his 18th day of June in the year 1849

  by Sister Sophrena Prescott

  Monday is drawing to a close. The retiring bell will soon sound to signal the time to blow out the candle and put away my journal. The week has had a good beginning. My fingers are sore from the weaving of the straw into bonnets, but with the diligence of our sisters continuing through the week, we will have many bonnets for the brethren to carry with them on their trading trips. It is good to make something useful that benefits those of the world the same as it does us here in our village.

  Sister Edna reports that Sister Jessamine did not shirk her duties in the garden this day, and other than voicing a few questions with no place in the mind of a Believer, she submitted to the constant supervision without showing distress. I asked Sister Edna what questions concerned our young sister, but she said they were worldly questions that did not bear repeating. She assured me she had impressed on Sister Jessamine the need to keep her thoughts on the task at hand. Sister Edna has embraced her duty of seeing Sister Jessamine through this difficult time. She is ready to diligently watch and make sure our sister’s feet come back to the proper path of obedience.

  I did not speak with Sister Jessamine. In fact, I did not see her speak a word to anyone as she kept her eyes downcast during our family meeting in the upper room. I admit to feeling some sorrow not to have her words in my ears and her eyes smiling my way, but perhaps it is for the best. She is under Sister Edna’s guard now. As much as I love my young sister, I failed in leading her in the proper way. I feel that failure acutely with her not so far from the age when she could sign the Covenant of Belief. And I worry for her now.

  I have seen young sisters leave for the world rather than submit to constant supervision, but most of those were sisters who had already planted their feet firmly on the pathway to sin by improper words or secret meetings with one of the brothers. Or at least what they thought were secret meetings. Few things are hidden for long from the watchers. But all are given a chance to turn from their sins and come back to the Shaker way. Just as Sister Jessamine has been given. I do not think she will slip away in the night. The man who tempted her is gone from here to where we do not know. Nor care.

  But now there is the letter. Eldress Frieda says the Ministry has decided to allow Sister Jessamine to see it unless she refuses. I do not know what the letter says or even who it is from. All I know is that it has been here for many years, almost as long as Sister Jessamine herself. So once more, I worry.

  Worry is wrong. I know that. Even before I came among the Believers, I knew that. The Christ told us so in the gospels. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” That verse often circled in my mind in those days when I despaired of ever knowing another day of peace while shackled to a man in sinful matrimony. Even in the world’s eyes, our union had no good to it. I am thankful every day for Brother Jerome’s decision to join with the Believers. The Eternal Father poured down grace and gave me the joy of many days of peace here with my sisters. So I will not think of the trouble of the morrow. I will rejoice in the peace of the day.

  If the letter has words in it that will tear our sister from our bosom of love, then the morrow will be soon enough to face that sorrow. Tonight I will put away my writing tools, blow out my candle, and enjoy the rest due a laborer who has faithfully worked with her hands and given her heart to God. Each Believer must do that for himself or herself. No one could have ever done so for me and I can never do so for any of my sisters. Not even Sister Jessamine, whom I do love.

  A prayer for her. That is what I can do as I kneel by my bed before my time of rest. A prayer for all my sisters.

  16

  Tristan considered claiming his arm was aching too much for him to go down to the dining room that evening, but one look at his mother’s face let him know he could not escape the evening. Even if he had been in real pain. Which he was not. Laura might not trust the skill of the Shaker doctor, but Brother Benjamin had done his work well. Even Dr. Hargrove hadn’t argued that.

  The owner of the Springs had caught Tristan in the lobby after he and Laura came back from their afternoon stroll. With great interest, he grilled Tristan on every aspect of Brother Benjamin’s treatments.

  “And you say he gave you sleeping powders?” Dr. Hargrove peered at Tristan intently as if expecting him to reveal something of great import. The man was half a head shorter than Tristan but every inch of him vibrated energy. Even standing there studying Tristan’s arm, Tristan had the impression that any second he was going to shoot away to talk to someone else.

  “I don’t really remember much about the first day or two,” Tristan said. “But the old sister who nursed me said the doctor thought it best if I slept while the swelling on my head receded.”

  “Interesting. Is the knot still there?” Without waiting for an answer or permission, the man reached up to probe the back of Tristan’s head with his long fingers. “Ah yes, there it is. That must have been some goose egg. You’re fortunate the swelling popped out instead of in or you might not be standing here now.”

  “I had much fortune that day after my misfortune of being set upon by a highwayman.”

  “You think that’s what happened then? That someone attacked you to take your money.” A frown settled on his face as Dr. Hargrove dropped his hand away from Tristan’s head.

  “When I came to, I had nothing in my pockets and the track of a bullet on my head.”

  “But were you not in a remote wooded area?”

  “That’s what I am told.”

  “You don’t remember why you were in that part of the woods?” The man studied him as if trying to make sense of what Tristan was telling him before he went on. “I have to admit parts of your story bring questions to mind. It doesn’t seem reasonable that thieves would be lying in wait in a place where very few if anyone would be traveling.”

  “It does seem an unlikely chance, but then I was shot.”

  “True.” Dr. Hargrove’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “Are you sure you weren’t on your way to meet someone? Or that someone didn’t follow you?”

  “I have no idea. I remember being here at the Springs the day before. The dancing and music. Nothing at all about the day in question.”

  “Nothing? Not why you were out riding? Nothing?” Dr. Hargrove looked disbelieving.

  “Nothing until I was found by two Shaker sisters out hunting raspberries. That was truly fortunate.”

  “Huh! For you or for them? Out for berries and back with a man.” Dr. Hargrove laughed as though that was the funniest thing he’d ever said. Several in the lobby looked over at the man and smiled indulgently. He appeared to lose interest completely in who had shot Tristan as he switched his thinking to the Shakers. “Quite an adventure for those girls. An ugly bunch. Never saw one of those women over there who didn’t hurt your eyes.”

  Tristan smiled. “You must not have seen Jessamine.”

  “Jessamine, eh?” The man lifted his wiry gray eyebrows at Tristan. “Sounds like you might have gotten to know the sister a little better than a brother might. No wonder you were in no hurry to find your way back over here.”

  Tristan held up his hand to stop the man’s wrong thinking. “No, nothing like that, but she was lovely.”

  “Even in a bonnet, you say? And that hideous collar crafted to hide the very fact you might be looking at a woman. One good thing, I’m thinking the way they make them work that at least they don’t bother with those ruinations of female health—corsets. Give me a woman who can take a deep breath any day.”

  He didn’t seem to expect an answer and Tristan gave none. Instead the doctor poked his finger on the stiff bandage around Tristan’s arms. “I do hope they aligned that bone right. If not, you might never be able to shoot straight again.” Dr. Hargrove looked up from studying Tristan’s arm with a smile splitting his face. “Not that those people over there would w
orry about your shooting arm. They’re pacifists, you know. Don’t believe in war. What that really boils down to is they sit back there on their rich acres and let the rest of us keep the country safe for them.”

  “They were kind to take me in.”

  “Oh, they take everybody in. The better to increase their land holdings. You do know that everything a man owns goes directly into their coffers if a person is fool enough to join up with them, don’t you?” Dr. Hargrove shook his head as if he couldn’t believe anybody would be that foolish. “And the more they can get to sign up with them, the more hands they’ve got to make their brooms and hats and grow their pumpkin seed. Those old preachers have it made, if you ask me. Tell their troops what to do and don’t allow any free thinking. And some of those preachers are women or so I’m told. Pulling the strings and making grown men jump to their orders. Can’t imagine what kind of man would want to live that way.”

  When he paused for breath, Tristan said, “I didn’t meet any of the preachers. Just the doctor and his nurse.”

  “And the beautiful Jessamine.” Dr. Hargrove grinned. “If you weren’t deluded by whatever that Shaker doctor gave you and she truly was a sight for sore eyes, then that seems a sorrowful waste. What with that celibacy thing they have going over there. That’s another thing that makes you wonder about what kind of man is willing to throw in his lot with them. Celibacy! Not something I’d recommend for a young sapling like you. Or for an old codger like me either.” The doctor clapped Tristan on the shoulder and laughed again, this time louder than the time before. Then he was off like a hunting dog losing interest in one scent and working to find a new trail.

  But the questions the doctor had raised settled in Tristan’s mind as he struggled to change for dinner. There was no way he could get a dinner jacket over his bandaged arm. Finally he allowed his mother’s maid to fashion a new sling from one of his mother’s silk sashes and just draped his coat over his shoulder. It would be unhandy but he had no other choice. Not if he wanted to shoot straight ever again. The one thing his father thought Tristan did well. Shoot. The one thing he never cared if he ever did again.