The Gifted

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Calm yourself, Mother. Nothing has changed.”

  “So you think, but what if Laura noted your dalliance with that Shaker girl? What if she refuses to marry you now? We’ll be ruined.”

  Tristan had no words to answer her. Inside he already felt ruined.

  26

  Jessamine was relieved when her father offered to escort her to her room. The music hadn’t stopped. Couples continued to whirl about on the dance floor and also to slip past her into the garden. But Jessamine was ready to leave it behind. She needed time to figure out the world.

  She couldn’t think straight with so much new all around her. Mostly she couldn’t think straight with Tristan Cooper there in front of her talking to the princess, Laura. Not while her own lips continued to burn from his kiss. A kiss that had meant nothing to him. Princes probably kissed a different girl every evening. But the kiss had exploded inside her like a shooting star that left a burnt streak across the sky. The trail of the kiss would evermore be on her heart.

  Her father stood inside the door of her room and said he would find a maid to help her get ready for bed.

  “Nay, there is no need,” she said quickly. She had felt uncomfortable earlier with a woman she did not know helping her into the dress. And to call some person away from her nighttime rest so late into the night seemed altogether wrong.

  “Are you sure?” He studied her face. “You might need assistance in undoing your buttons or taking down your hair. A maid can tend to your dress and lay out your nightclothes.”

  They had forgotten nightclothes when they were at Mrs. Browning’s, but while they were at dinner, a frilly nightdress with pink ribbons and lace had appeared. It was folded on the bed waiting for her.

  “I can surely do such myself,” she told him. Then at the look on his face, she added, “Or is that against the rules here?”

  He touched her shoulder. “No, no rules here. Not like at the Shaker village.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” she said as she hung her head. “I think I may have broken many of the world’s rules this day. But it is so hard when the rules are such a mystery to me.”

  “Don’t be concerned, my daughter. You charmed everyone just as I knew you would.” He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to look at him. He was smiling. “Trust me. I know things are different for you here, but each new day will be easier. And I will be here to help you.”

  “Always?”

  A look of distress flashed across his face before he said, “Some things can’t be promised, and always is one of those. But I can promise to do everything in my power to help you find happiness in this new world.”

  “I was happy at Harmony Hill.”

  “Were you? In spite of your wondering?”

  She sighed. “I did always wonder if there might not be more.”

  “And now you will know.” Her father dropped his hand away from her chin. “You are going to find out there is much more. But if you think you can manage your buttons, I won’t call a maid for you this evening. In the morning you will have your own personal maid. Dr. Hargrove says a young woman has just come to the Springs seeking such a position.” He held up a hand before she could protest. “All ladies must have one.”

  “Is that a rule?”

  He let out a funny short burst of air. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps there are more rules than I have considered before because I have taken such little notice of many of them.”

  “Sister Sophrena often accused me of the same at Harmony Hill. She said I only kept the rules if they didn’t cause me bother. I had much need to confess my wrongs.”

  His smile was amused. “Here you can just laugh off your infractions. No need to dwell on them. Unless you want to write them down. Come morning I’ll find you writing supplies.”

  “To record my sins?”

  “My Jessamine, you are every bit as delightful as your mother.” He laughed without reservation. “You can write anything you want. Sins. Blessings. Whatever. It would be good to have a record of your journey into the world.”

  “Anything?” Jessamine felt like twirling at the thought of a pen in her hand. A pen that would be free to write anything that came to mind. For a few seconds she forgot about her wanton actions in the garden and thought only of the promise of a blank page. “Does it have to be true?”

  “So the Shakers didn’t cure you of the writing bug. In the few letters that found me in my travels, our granny wrote of your fascination for words.”

  “I love the way some words sound in my ears and the look of their letters on a page. But the sisters who taught the school wanted only truth on their papers. Not the words that often took flight in my imagination with fanciful results.”

  “How about two books? One for truth and one for flights of fancy.” He put his hands on her shoulders before he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Now good night, my daughter. Tomorrow will be another day for you to conquer. I think with a pen in your hand you will do quite well at finding your path into this new world.”

  Then he was gone and she was completely alone. Wondrously alone. Dreadfully alone. A lamp had been lit on the table and the curtains pulled across the window by hands not her own. The same hands that must have brought the nightdress. Jessamine stared at the bed across the room. A white mound of pillows and ruffles that three, maybe even four sisters might have been able to sleep in. With that gown of ribbons and lace atop it waiting for her.

  In spite of her assurances to her father, the buttons were not easy to undo. By the time she managed at last to reach that last button in the middle of her back, she was as out of breath as if she’d carried a heavy basket of folded sheets up to the top floor of the Gathering Family House. It would have been sensible to have someone unfasten the buttons for her, but it had sounded so odd. To think she couldn’t ready herself for her night’s rest.

  Dressing like a princess had seemed so magical when she first dropped the silky dress over her head hours ago. The maid had been there to fasten the buttons then and to exclaim over the beauty of the dress. Jessamine had caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and been transfixed for a moment. With the silky lilac fabric glimmering in the lamplight and the lacy edges of the top against the pale skin of her neck, she had felt as changed as the caterpillar into a butterfly. But now with the dress no more than a heap of fabric on the floor, her earlier thoughts seemed but vanity. In every way it was surely better to be able to take one’s dress on and off without such contortions and stretching. The way she could take on and off her simple Shaker dress.

  With a sigh, she picked up the lilac dress and hung it in the wardrobe. Changing the dress on one’s back didn’t change the inside any more than kissing a prince changed her into a princess. She couldn’t deny she had sought the kiss and even now thoughts of Tristan’s lips touching hers made her heart beat faster. But it had meant nothing to him.

  What had he told her? That kisses were common in the moonlight of the garden as though they were no more to be wondered about than the plentitude of dandelions blooming in the spring. A bright spot of yellow, pretty for the moment, but a weed nevertheless that needed to be plucked out of a garden. Perhaps that was what she should do. Pluck the kiss out of the garden of her heart and throw it away. But she couldn’t. Sinful or not, it was implanted there and her desire was to nurture it and find the best soil for it to grow.

  That was foolish. She knew that as she pulled the beribboned nightgown over her head. Very foolish. She had heard Tristan and his mother in the garden. Their words had been heated and intense. So much so they hadn’t noticed when she had come back outside to search for the glove she had dropped on the path.

  While she had not understood what his mother’s words speaking of ruin might mean, she had perfectly understood what his words had meant. Nothing has changed. Their time in the garden, their touching of lips meant naught to him. The kiss had changed nothing for him even as it had torn through her, ripping open feelings so new and diffe
rent she would never be the same again no matter which dress she chose to pull over her head come morning.

  Jessamine lay awake long into the night. She felt very alone in the silent room. She had never before slept without hearing another’s breathing. The empty silence brought to mind those hours after her granny stopped breathing and the knowledge of how terribly alone she was had filled her with panic. That day she’d picked up her granny’s Bible and let it fall open wherever it willed and read passage after passage until it seemed as if her granny was sitting with her in the chair, guiding her hands and thoughts. Before dark, the old preacher man showed up. He’d known her granny had been having sinking spells so when the compulsion came upon him to ride into the woods to see about her, he had not put it aside. Once he looked at Granny on the bed, he said he figured Granny must have come by his house on her way up to glory land to nudge him so he would come be with Jessamine.

  But this night in this room the aloneness was a different kind than that sad, mournful sorrow. Sadness was there with her for sure, mixed in with the strangeness of the silent room. She missed Sister Sophrena and the knowledge that come morning she could go confess her sins and be forgiven. Now the wrongs were simply piling up inside her until the weight of them seemed ready to mash her down into the bed until she felt near to disappearing into its softness. Swallowed up by worldly wrongs.

  Come morning when she had pen and paper, she would write to Sister Sophrena. Not confessions. She couldn’t confess her actions in the garden. But simply the thought of writing words for Sister Sophrena’s eyes eased Jessamine’s mind. She didn’t know why. Any words she wrote about what had happened to her in the world would be sure to bring a frown to Sister Sophrena’s face.

  Still, the thought of her with her Shaker teachings on giving her heart to God and that of her granny’s Bible telling her God so loved comforted her. John 3:16 was the very first verse she ever learned. She carried it in her heart with her to the Shaker village because she knew her granny had believed. Now she had carried it in her heart away from the Shaker village. For God so loved the world. All the world. He would continue to love her while she was in the world. She could whisper her wrongs into the dark air over her and be forgiven. Perhaps not by Sister Sophrena, but by the Lord.

  She spoke the words, asking forgiveness for the hurt she caused Sister Sophrena by walking away from the Shakers. She asked forgiveness for her feelings of vanity when looking at her reflection before she’d gone down to dinner. She asked forgiveness for finding fault with the food and for every contrary thought she’d had throughout the day. She asked forgiveness for the indulgence of the too-soft bed.

  Then she let her mind go to the garden. She was silent for a moment before she whispered, “If it was a sin, forgive me for kissing the man in the garden, Lord, but please don’t let it be a sin here in this new world I am in. Even if it meant nothing to him, let me carry the memory of it in my heart without thinking it something that should be swept away. Please, Lord. At least for a little while.”

  She had no sure feeling of being forgiven, but her heart felt lighter as she said amen. She stretched out straight as she was taught to lie on the Shaker beds. Sleep didn’t come. Instead, the day’s events kept marching through her mind as she twisted and turned but found no comfort in that bed of frills. At last, she pulled a pillow and the top cover down on the floor. The cover folded over and made a perfectly fine mat to lie on. She was asleep almost the instant her head touched down on the pillow.

  What seemed like minutes later, a knock on the door pulled her from sleep. Sunlight was streaming in the window, and for a few seconds Jessamine was confused. Why had she not heard the rising bell? The knock came again, this time more insistent, and Jessamine came fully awake. She jumped to her feet, grabbed the pillow and cover off the floor and threw them up on the bed. Her father would not understand her sleeping on the floor. If the knocker was her father.

  Should she call out and ask who was knocking or should she open the door and peer out? What did people of the world do with no bells as signals for rising? Jessamine looked toward the window. At Harmony Hill, the morning meal would be over and duties beginning. She would be going out to the garden with Sister Edna to do useful work. Here, in the world she had no idea what she would be doing. Then she remembered the promise of pen and paper and almost ran to the door.

  But it wasn’t her father with his promised gifts. Before she could open it, a voice was speaking through the door. “Miss Jessamine, I am your new lady’s maid. Your father has instructed me to find out if you are up.”

  Jessamine eased open the door to peer out. She stared at the girl standing there, not sure she could trust her eyes. “Is that really you, Sister Abigail?” She let the door swing open.

  “You are even more surprised than I thought you would be.” Abigail laughed. “Let me in before someone happens along the hallway and catches you in your nightdress. A lady would not want that to happen.”

  When Jessamine stepped back from the door, Abigail quickly came into the room and closed the door behind her. She looked at Jessamine with a smile clear across her face.

  “What are you doing here?” Jessamine asked.

  “Your father hired me to be your lady’s maid.”

  “Nay, I mean here at the Springs, Sister Abigail?”

  “You can’t call me sister here. You’ll have to say Abigail. Or Abby might be better for a maid. And it would be best to say yes and no instead of the Shaker talk.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “As to why I’m here, you remember how I told you I worked here last year. Well, after I left Harmony Hill, I came back here to see if Dr. Hargrove would give me a job. Then when your father needed someone for you, they both thought I’d be the perfect maid to help you figure out life here in the world. Trust me, Jessamine, it is better here in the world, but we don’t have time to talk of that now.” Abigail went to the pitcher of water on the table and poured some into the bowl. “If you don’t hurry, you will miss breakfast and that might disappoint Mr. Brady.”

  “And me. It has to be hours past the morning meal at Harmony Hill.”

  “Forget Harmony Hill and wash your face.” Abigail went to the bureau and pulled out the cranberry-and-cream-striped dress Mrs. Browning had sold them. Before she shut the door, she ran her hand down the silky lilac dress Jessamine had hung there the night before. “It seems almost magical and right at the same time. A story come true just like those tales you whispered to me in the night while everyone slept at Harmony Hill. And now you have become the princess in the story.”

  “Nay,” Jessamine said. Why did everyone think a dress could turn one into a princess? She couldn’t even remember to say no in the world’s way. She was that unchanged. “No. I am the same person I was yesterday. The dress is only a dress.”

  Then again, why had she stopped thinking about being that princess in her imagined stories? She was living her imagined dreams come true. Her father, the prince who loved her mother, had come to escort her into the world’s ways. She had kissed a different prince in the garden. And that was where the story was going awry. The prince who loved another. A kiss that meant nothing.

  Abigail was still stroking the lilac party dress. “Yes, but such a dress that two days ago would have been no more than a fanciful dream for you. One you had no thought of wearing and now you have a bureau of dresses with bows and ribbons.” Abigail spread the striped dress across the chair and fingered the cream-colored ribbon threaded around the neckline before she looked up at Jessamine. “It is good that you escaped that nasty Sister Edna. Good that we both escaped.”

  “Escaped?” Jessamine echoed the other girl’s word.

  “To freedom. To life.” She came over to start undoing the ribbons on Jessamine’s gown, but Jessamine pushed her hands away and pulled them loose herself. Abigail laughed. “You will have to learn princess ways.”

  “And what ways are you having to learn?” Jessamine asked as sh
e pulled the gown over her head. “To be a servant?”

  “I was doing only the bidding of others at the Shaker town. Now I still must do the bidding of others, but at least here I am paid. And at the end of the season Jimmy and I are going to marry. Between the two of us working here, we will have a bit of money for a start.”

  “So you found him.”

  “I found him.” Abigail’s face took on a happy glow. “He had not forgotten me.”

  “I’m glad for you. You might be the princess in the story instead of me.”

  “If love makes one a princess, you could be right.” Abigail picked up the dress again and waltzed it over to Jessamine. Then she was all business. “But we must hurry and transform you into the actual princess before your father knocks on the door. I would not want him to be displeased with my service. You must let me help you into your dress.”

  So she held up her arms and let Abigail wrap petticoats around her waist and then drop the dress down over them. She stood like a post while the girl buttoned and tied and straightened. Her hair was hastily arranged and pinned away from her face. When Abigail worked some curls loose to let fall around her face, Jessamine lost patience.

  “My Shaker cap was much easier and faster.” She pushed Abigail’s hands away from her head. “It is only hair and no reason for such vanity. I don’t care how it looks.”

  “But your father does. That handsome man you dragged in from the woods might.” Abigail grinned and raised her eyebrows as she reached back to shape another curl. “Here in the world women dress to please the eyes of the men in their lives.”

  “Even princesses?”

  “Especially princesses. For what other duty can a princess have than the duty of being beautiful.”

  “But the beauty that matters most comes from having a beautiful soul. A loving heart. ”

  “That is every word true, but in the world, in a place like the Springs, what the eye sees matters too. That’s why we have lace and ribbons and curling hair.”