Elsa opened her mouth to object again, but Wilhelm cut in. “Thy experience has clearly been Mother Ann’s Work among us again,” he said. “I have complete faith that the children will recover. We are deeply pleased. Are we not, Sisters?” He glanced from Rose to Elsa, who glared at the floor. “And now I have an announcement. On Saturday we will begin again a ceremony that has fallen into disuse.”
Rose’s heartbeat picked up speed. Wilhelm should have discussed the idea with her first; he often forgot—whenever it was convenient—that they were now equal partners in spiritual guidance for the North Homage Believers.
Wilhelm’s rough, thin lips rarely smiled, but now they did so as he said: “On Saturday afternoon, immediately following the noon meal, we will conduct the sweeping ritual.”
Rose was thrown off balance. The sweeping ritual? What could that possibly gain for him? The sweeping gift had come and gone so quickly a century earlier, during Mother Ann’s Work, that few Believers even knew about it.
“Wilhelm, you and I should discuss this,” Rose said quietly. “The sweeping involves the sisters, so—”
“I would have done so at breakfast, but remember that we were interrupted.”
Rose was reasonably certain that he’d had no such intention. His plan had the feel of a sudden inspiration.
“Elder, what’s a sweeping? I been clear through my novitiate, but no one said nothin’ about it.”
“That is understandable,” Wilhelm said. “The cleansing was a regrettably short-lived gift given during Mother Ann’s Work. It is most appropriate now, I believe. After all, it is thy own assertion, is it not, that there are evil spirits at work here. Remember what Mother Ann said: ‘Good spirits will not live where there is dirt.’ We will cleanse and purify ourselves and our dwelling places with brooms and sacred fire delivered by the angels. And then we shall see.” For the second time, he smiled, which redoubled Rose’s discomfort.
“How’s it done?” Elsa asked.
“I’m sure thy eldress will prepare thee and the other sisters for thy roles in the ceremony, as I will prepare the brethren. The sweeping used to take all day, but we have too much work to do, and too few hands, so we will set aside only the time between the noon and evening meals. And we must work doubly hard today to spare even that time. So ‘hands to work’ . . .” Wilhelm turned and left the room.
Elsa looked confused but intrigued. Patience absently rocked Nora’s cradle bed and began to hum a haunting tune. Though her face was unreadable, Rose felt certain she was delighted by Wilhelm’s announcement. Rose herself thought frantically. She knew about the sweeping gift and could easily prepare the sisters—but why? To cleanse them of evil spirits? The explanation rang false to her. As she watched the two eager women before her, the answer slipped into place. The ritual, though performed—separately, of course—by both brethren and sisters, took the sisters’ task of cleaning into the realm of the spiritual. It was the ideal setting in which to trigger a competition between two sisters who exhibited spiritual gifts. During such a battle, who knew what could happen? That was what Wilhelm wanted—a powerful spark to relight Mother Ann’s flame, a century after it had died away. And never mind the consequences.
EIGHT
IN TIMES OF CONFUSION, THE HERB HOUSE BECAME ROSE’S sanctuary. She almost ran toward it now. She had dispatched Elsa to pass the word among the sisters to meet together briefly after evening meal, when Rose would explain the sweeping ritual to them. She would lead it herself, both because she was eldress and in hopes of keeping either Elsa or Patience from taking control. In the meantime, she wanted to pursue the other problem weighing on her mind—the apparent poisoning of Nora and Betsy, and any possible link, accidental or not, between that episode and North Homage’s medicinal herb industry.
The Herb House, a white clapboard building, stood well back from the unpaved path that ran through the center of the village. Rose had spent many happy days working in the upstairs drying room, hanging bundles of herbs to dry, pressing crumbled dried herbs into round tins for sale to the world, and recording production figures in her daily journal. Since she’d become eldress, those days had dwindled to a few hours here and there. This afternoon she had a good reason to capture more of those pleasurable hours.
Irene Dengler, Thomas Dengler’s wife, was working her rotation in the Herb House. Though not legally divorced, the couple had agreed to separate upon joining the Shakers. What better way to find out more about Thomas, Rose thought, than through Irene? She would have little contact with him now, of course, but perhaps she could offer some insights into his character.
As she entered the front door, Rose expected a wave of fragrances, sweet and earthy. She inhaled deeply to capture that first moment. But the predominant odor turned out to be machine oil. Several sisters were working on the first floor, hovering around two large herb presses, which had been gathering dust for years. During her times in the Herb House, the ground floor had been used mostly for storage, and the sisters had generally worked upstairs in the herb-filled drying room. Andrew had taken over the unused area. Had he reported this change to her? She couldn’t remember his mentioning it in any of their conversations. He didn’t have to, of course; he had undoubtedly discussed it with Wilhelm, his elder. But he might have thought of telling her—after all, she was former trustee, and she had asked him about the medicinal herb industry.
One of the sisters smiled a greeting, and Rose approached the machine. A pungent aroma greeted her as a large batch of sage was pressed into a hard pack.
“Is this the early perennial harvest?” Rose asked.
“Yea, Patience said we were to press it for Andrew’s medicines.”
“What about the culinary herb business? Will there be enough for our regular customers?”
“Andrew said we’d be cutting back on culinary herbs, but we did save some. Irene is upstairs working on the tins.”
Rose nodded her thanks and headed for the stairs. Her cozy mood had soured—no doubt, she thought, because her nostrils were disappointed—but it wouldn’t do to let the sisters feel the pinch of her annoyance.
As she reached the top of the stairs, Rose heard a mellow soprano sing a lighthearted Shaker dance song about making merry like the birds among the trees. She recognized Irene’s voice, often part of the a cappella chorus at Sabbathday worship.
“Irene,” Rose called out as she entered the drying room, hoping not to startle the sister.
The singing stopped, and the same cheerful voice answered, “Rose, is that you? I’m working at the table, though you’ll hardly see me behind all these piles of herbs.” There was a lilt in her voice, as if it were about to bubble into joyful laughter. Rose smiled in anticipation of the chat; she had liked Irene from the moment of her arrival.
The drying room held the fragrances Rose had expected downstairs—the sweetness of lemon balm, the apple scent of chamomile, powerful oregano, and the freshness of parsley. Her good humor was fully restored by the time she located Irene, only her head showing above a mountain of serrated lemon balm leaves. She was tying a length of string around a clump of branches, preparing them to be hung from the pegs and hooks spaced around the walls and across the ceiling beams.
Rose scooped up another batch of sprigs and began to help. Irene did not question this sudden appearance of her eldress. She hummed quietly and continued her work. Irene was a few years younger than Rose and a head shorter, with a delicate-boned face and china-blue eyes that crinkled often with laughter. She had no special skills but a joyous faith that made her a welcome addition on any work rotation. Rose was surprised to find her working on her own.
“Was no one free to help you hang the herbs?” Rose asked.
“Nay, they’re needed on the presses, what with Andrew wanting to send out a shipment soon, so I said I’d take care of the culinary herbs myself. Besides, I enjoy hanging the herbs much more than stuffing them into those machines.”
“I’d have to agree with you,” Rose
said, pinching a lemon balm leaf under her nose to release the fragrance. “Are you particularly interested in herbs?”
“Oh, I enjoy them certainly,” Irene said, “but, then, I enjoy all the rotations.”
Rose would not have believed this coming from some of the sisters, but Irene possessed the gift of contentment with whatever her task might be. “So you have no special fascination with medicinal herbs?”
At this, Irene’s expression clouded. “Nay, I have no interest at all in such things.”
“I was only wondering why you elected to come to North Homage with the medicinal herb group,” Rose asked.
“It was not because of Thomas, if that’s what you are trying to ask me.”
So there is fire behind the sunny disposition, Rose thought. She offered a disarming smile and reached for a bit of string to tie up her bundle of lemon balm sprigs. “If I thought you’d come for anyone, I’d have assumed it was your children,” she said quietly.
“It was.”
“You could have stayed with them in Mount Lebanon. You needn’t have uprooted everyone.” Rose was pushing hard, digging for the person underneath the perpetual happiness. Much as she believed in conversion, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more than one reason for a young wife and mother to give up her family. Her less-than-complete separation from her children, and perhaps her husband, hinted at an ambivalence that had not yet surfaced during her enthusiastic confessions.
“It seemed best,” Irene said. “For everyone.” She scooped up a pile of herbs, tied in bunches with string, and began to hang them from wall pegs which she had to stand on tiptoe to reach.
Rose did not offer her superior height as assistance; it would be insulting. She busied herself cutting lengths of string until Irene returned to the table.
“Did you not wish to separate the children completely from their father?” Rose asked. “Even though they would have little contact with him?”
“Sometimes I wish we had never come here!” Irene bit her lip and grabbed a pile of wilting oregano sprigs. Rose waited.
“Thomas . . .” Irene dropped the oregano back on the table and stared out the window. “Thomas was not eager to become a Believer. Not like I was. I was sad not to be raising my children, of course, but I knew they would be treated well, fed and clothed and educated, and I wouldn’t be far away. We couldn’t give them all that. Thomas was a salesman, and he was good at it—he can sell anything, truly—but with this Depression and all, he lost his job and couldn’t find another.” Irene lifted the corner of her apron and dabbed perspiration from her forehead. The afternoon heat was reaching its peak, and Rose put down her own work, as well.
“We had a little house that my parents had left me, but we hadn’t enough money to eat, and what little savings we had went for Thomas’s . . . Well, he started drinking, you see.”
“Did he hurt you or the children?” Rose had heard this sort of story so many times in recent years.
“It was so frustrating for him.” Irene picked at the leaf bits littering the worktable. “But I couldn’t let it go on, could I? If it had been just me, maybe . . . But I had the girls to think of. I couldn’t let them suffer.”
“If you are saying that Thomas was violent with you, I certainly understand your separating from him. But did you tell the Ministry at Mount Lebanon?” Rose knew the answer to her question when Irene avoided her eyes.
“He took his vow of nonviolence,” Irene said. “And he doesn’t drink anymore, so I have no reason to suspect he is not a good Believer.”
“And you, Irene—do you wish to be with him again, as husband and wife?”
“I have been true to my vow of celibacy.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Irene’s dimpled chin jutted out a fraction more than usual. “I wish to be exactly where I am—a Believer, doing the work of the Mother and the Father. As soon as I heard about Mother Ann losing her four children in childbirth, I knew. I lost two little ones, my last two. Soon after, I went to a Sabbathday service at Mount Lebanon, and the elder preached about the price of carnal sins, and I felt he was talking right straight to me. I brought Thomas the next week. He wasn’t so convinced, but really, how could he disagree? He’d done everything possible to make sure those two babies were born healthy, and they weren’t, so it had to be the will of God.”
“What do you mean? What did Thomas do to ensure healthy births?”
“Oh, I thought I’d told you. He used to do just what he is doing as a Shaker—he sold all sorts of patent medicines. He made a good living because the medicine from doctors was so expensive. Thomas could offer curatives for much less money because he and his brother could mix it all up by themselves, and then they didn’t have to fuss with that law—what’s it called?”
“The Pure Food and Drug Act?”
“Yea, that’s the one. Thomas said it was just meant to make medicine expensive so doctors and pharmacists could get rich from selling it, and only the rich could afford it. He wanted to do something good for the poor. So you see, even though we had our bad times and I couldn’t live with him anymore, I thought he would make a good Shaker.” Irene’s clear eyes searched Rose’s face with worried hope.
“And he fed you some of these medicines while you were carrying your last two babies?” Rose asked.
“Yea.”
“Do you remember what was in any of them?”
“Something that had the word ‘apple’ in it, I think.” Irene’s expression darkened as her doubt overshadowed her hope.
“Thorn apple?”
“I think so.”
“I see,” Rose said. “Jimsonweed. As I recall, that may be used to prevent the loss of a baby.” Among other less benign uses, she thought.
Rose had a lot to think about as she made her way to the Medicinal Herb Shop to tell Patience that Gennie Malone would be arriving that afternoon to help her with her work. Secrets were surfacing about the small band of newcomers to North Homage. Struggling to pinpoint any connections between these secrets and the children’s misfortune, she began a mental list. Thomas Dengler, while in the world, had made and sold herbal curatives of doubtful composition. Moreover, he had a history of drinking and violence. Rose considered it possible, of course, that he had undergone a thorough conversion experience, but his wife did not seem completely convinced of it.
Irene Dengler expressed no special interest in herbal medicine, but she had lived with Thomas and might have picked up some knowledge. With her open personality, Rose found it difficult to imagine Irene involved in the creation of dangerous concoctions. Surely, if she had had a part in hurting children, she would be miserable with guilt now, not delighting in her work.
Benjamin Fulton and Andrew himself were both knowledgeable and ambitious, each in his own way. Andrew was a puzzle, which in Rose’s experience usually indicated personal secrets. Benjamin, she feared, was close to breaking his vows over Irene. Those two would bear watching, though Irene seemed unaware of Benjamin’s fervor. Or Irene might be a consummate actress.
Or I could be inventing melodramas where none exist, Rose thought, sighing at herself. The girls might simply have stumbled into an attractive but poisonous weed or cleaning compound and been foolish.
Nevertheless, Rose’s instincts told her that something odd was going on in the Medicinal Herb Shop. Determined to find out whatever might be hidden, Rose pushed through the shop door, unannounced. Given the suspicious state of mind she’d gotten herself into, she almost expected to see the shop’s inhabitants reciting incantations over a steaming cauldron. Instead, they stood at their assigned spots, absorbed in mixing and packaging and making quick notations in journals. They all glanced up at her as she entered, then went immediately back to their tasks, except Andrew, who gave her a friendly smile and beckoned her over.
“Have you brought news of the little ones?” Andrew asked.
Rose noticed Patience tilt her head toward them as if listening for her answer.
“Nay, no change, I’m afraid,” Rose said.
Patience returned to her work.
“So you’ve returned for a more thorough tour?”
Rose shook her head. “I have something to discuss with Patience, if you can spare her.”
“I’m in the middle of a delicate measurement,” Patience called over, without raising her head. “I could meet with you later, if you’d like.”
“I’ll be glad to wait until you’ve finished your measuring,” Rose said. She lifted a tall stool from a wall peg and planted herself at Patience’s table. This was not what Patience had hoped for, clearly. Her fine, dark eyebrows knitted together more closely the nearer Rose came to her. Patience added a pinch of some powdered substance to a scale, frowned at the weight, made a note in her journal, and pushed the book away from her.
“We might as well talk now,” she said. Her rich alto voice held no hint of irritation, but Rose was sure it was there nonetheless. Perhaps Patience was the actress.
“Good, it needn’t take long,” Rose said. “But it’s dreadfully hot in here; I wonder if you would walk with me outdoors for a few moments.”
Patience stiffened, but she nodded and closed her journal. She followed Rose out into the fierce sunshine. They walked in silence past the rear of the Herb House and the northern boundary of the new cemetery until they came to a small clump of trees. Rose could feel rivulets of perspiration trickle down her back by the time they found a shady spot and sat on the grass.
“Patience, I like to have an understanding of who each sister is, so I can be of utmost help to all of you. Yet I know so little about you. I realized that you have never sought me out for confession, though you have been with us for several months.”
Patience looked directly into her eyes. “Forgive me, Eldress, but have you called me away from my work in the middle of the day for a confession?” Patience’s tone was even, without emotion.
Sins of a Shaker Summer Page 6
