The Seeker

by Ann H. Gabhart

  She pulled the basket of sheets over to the side and showed Charlotte how to sprinkle water over them and then roll them up tightly so the fabric would be damp enough for the irons to smooth more easily.

  The hiss of the heated irons against the damp cloth, the clank of cooling irons being set back on the stove, and the rustle of the fabric being shifted and straightened on the ironing boards made it impossible to hear any words spoken except by someone standing very near. Charlotte peeked over at Sister Erma to be sure she wasn’t looking their way before she asked Dulcie, “So how come you to be here if you were married?”

  Dulcie kept her voice as low as Charlotte’s. “My husband was converted by a Shaker brother selling garden seeds. Our farm was rocky and the ground so poor we could barely grow enough corn to feed our children.”

  “Children?” Dulcie looked too young and too slight to have ever borne a child. “You have children?”

  “We had three. Two girls and a wee boy. Then the wee one, our sweet little Willy, got a fever and died. I could have overcome the sadness, but my William felt it was a direct punishment from the Lord for what he called our sins of lust.” Dulcie kept her eyes on the tightly rolled dampened sheet as she placed it back in the basket. “Brother Joseph, the Shaker man, said the Lord had revealed that truth to William, and the only way to protect our girls was to come to Harmony Hill. So we did.” She stood up and together they carried the basket of dampened bedclothes back to the ironing board.

  Charlotte shook out a pillowcase and laid it on the board as she saw a sister doing across the room. “Are you sorry to be here?”

  “We don’t go hungry and Shaker children rarely get fevers.” Dulcie handed Charlotte an iron. “Careful. You can burn yourself,” she warned as Charlotte set the iron down on the pillowcase. There was a slight hiss as steam rose up around the hot iron.

  “Keep it moving or you will scorch the fabric.” Dulcie took the iron from Charlotte and moved it back and forth with just the right pressure to smooth out the wrinkles. “A very hot iron works best, so when this one cools you must put it back on the stove in the iron holder and take a newly hot one. When you need to adjust the material, you can set the iron down on its heel.” She propped the iron up on the end of the ironing board.

  “It looks easy when you do it,” Charlotte said as she picked the iron up to give it another try.

  “I’ve had much practice. My mother had me ironing pillowcases by the time I was six.”

  While not as quick as Dulcie, Charlotte managed to smooth the wrinkles out of the rest of the case. She ran her hand over the warm cotton with satisfaction at its smoothness.

  “Now fold it over and do the other side,” Dulcie instructed. “We have no time to admire our work. There are many pieces to iron.” She watched as Charlotte pressed and folded the pillowcase into a square that matched all the other Shaker pillowcases. Uniformity was desired in all they did. “Now lay it aside on the finished table and begin another until your basket is empty.”

  Charlotte looked at the basket heaped with sheets and pillowcases. “I have to do them all? Today?”

  Dulcie smiled. “I will take from your basket too and we will be finished before the midday meal. Sisters help one another here. That is a good thing.” Then her smile faded as she reached down to lift a sheet out of the basket and hold it up against her bosom as if the bundle held a baby. “But I do miss holding my children against my heart.”

  Charlotte spread another pillowcase on the ironing board. “Where are they?”

  “In the Children’s House. They are well cared for and go to school.”

  “But does anyone hold them as you wish to?”

  “Not like a mother. Only as a sister.” Dulcie unfolded the sheet and spread it on her ironing board. She kept her voice low, barely loud enough for Charlotte to hear. “But they are not unhappy. They don’t cry for me, and I manage to only weep on the inside when they call me Sister Dulcie.” She ran her iron over the sheet for a moment before she said, “I shouldn’t have burdened you with my words. Sister Altha will tell me it is a sin to speak of my unhappiness or even to feel such.”

  “Don’t worry. I am far from perfect enough to share all I hear with Sister Altha. Our words are only about the ironing.” Charlotte matched her quiet tone.

  “Then, my lady sister, why are you here if you aren’t searching for the perfect way?” Dulcie asked.

  Charlotte looked across at the other sisters. None seemed to be paying the least attention to them. Even Sister Erma. “I thought to marry Edwin Gilbey before he came here.”

  “And you were so in love with him that you followed him here rather than live your life of comfort without him.”

  Dulcie looked at her with such dreamy eyes that Charlotte almost laughed. Put that way it sounded quite ludicrous, but was her way any less so? “I’m not in love with him.”

  A frown wrinkled Dulcie’s forehead. “Then why would you think to marry him? And why did you follow him here? I don’t think I understand.”

  “It seemed a good plan at the time.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don’t know.”

  “You could leave the village and go back to your life as a lady, couldn’t you?” Dulcie asked.

  “I suppose, but there are complications. I’m waiting to hear from my father.”

  Dulcie paused in her ironing and looked at Charlotte a long moment before she asked, “Do you fear he is angry with you for following Brother Edwin here?”

  “Perhaps.” Charlotte carefully doubled over the pillowcase and pressed the iron down on it before she went on. “Or perhaps I am more worried that he might not care. Whichever it is, I seem to need his words telling me to come home before I can do so.”

  Charlotte smoothed the last fold of the pillowcase and laid it with the first one she’d done. With only a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out a sheet and went to get a hot iron off the stove. Dulcie smiled at her courage to try the bigger piece and showed her how to fold the sheet to make it fit on the board. When Charlotte finally had the sheet ironed and folded and on the finished table with the other pieces, she felt a moment of pride. She had a blister on her thumb and a burn on her arm, but she had done it. She was capable. She wasn’t a helpless young female who couldn’t do up her own buttons or boil her own water for tea.

  She’d read history books and studied politics at her father’s knee. Such pursuits had not injured her mind as some were wont to think would happen when a young woman was interested in learning more than which flower denoted forgiveness or other such useless drivel. And now the Shakers had proven to her that she could accomplish necessary tasks. Her body was as strong and capable as her mind. She could go back to Grayson and begin her life anew.

  Then Sister Martha brought her the letter after the evening meal during their time of rest before the families gathered to practice their songs and dancing.

  “I have something for you.” Sister Martha was so out of breath she could barely get out the words, and Charlotte quickly lifted down a chair from the pegs for her to sit. The old sister eased down on it gratefully as she put her hand over her heart and pulled in a few deep breaths before she was able to say any more. “The stairs get more difficult for me every day. Regrettably my advanced years render me incapable of performing most duties, but I can still help with the delivery of letters, though the task is easier if there are not so many steps to climb.” She blew out a puff of air and reached into her pocket to pull out a letter. “This one is from your family in the world.”

  Charlotte took the letter from her. It wasn’t her father’s writing. She turned the envelope over to see that its seal was already broken. “It’s open.”

  “Yea, the Ministry must be sure the words in any letter coming to those in our Society are not improper,” Sister Martha said.

  “Oh.” She stared down at the neat, concise letters forming her name. The envelope had been addressed by Selena. Of course she could still believe
the letter inside might be from her father as long as she didn’t pull it out to see proof otherwise. “And so the words in this one were acceptable?”

  “I so assume. I was not the reader. I was simply given the duty of carrying the epistle to you.” Sister Martha sat quietly for a moment before she said, “If you have no wish to read it, I can carry it back unread. Some who come among us have no desire to glance backward at the world they left behind, and that serves them well.”

  “Nay.” The Shaker word came easily to her lips as she sat down on the edge of her narrow bed. “I must read it.”

  “I always think that’s best. To read and know instead of wondering. I did much wondering in my younger years.”

  “How old are you now, Sister Martha?” Charlotte looked over at her. The letter was almost burning her fingers, but still she delayed pulling it out to read. She had the unsettled feeling that reading it might be just another step to change her life forever.

  Sister Martha didn’t try to rush her even as a bell sounded to summon those in the Gathering Family to the upper room for their meeting time. The other sisters in the room began to file out, but Sister Martha made no move to rise from her chair. So Charlotte stayed seated as well.

  Sister Martha waited until the room was empty except for the two of them before she answered. “I am well into my eighties. Perhaps as much as ninety. It’s hard to keep an exact count of so many years. What are you? Seventeen?”

  Charlotte smiled. “Not so young. I will turn twenty next month. I had planned to be married by then.”

  “Yea, it has been told us. You and Brother Edwin had such an arrangement. The sin of matrimony can cause many problems. It is good the two of you turned from such transgression and came to us unsullied.”

  Something in her voice made Charlotte curious. “Were you ever married? Before you became a Believer.”

  “I rarely bring to mind the early years of my life, but it is true that I was guilty of the sin of matrimony before I joined with the Believers when they first came to this place. My husband had left me and I thought him dead, but our worldly ties had caused us much misery. I have grown greatly in spirit since I came to Harmony Hill. As you can as well if you will put worldly desires behind you. Peace and love are the rewards of a faithful Believer.”

  “So you are happy here?”

  “Happiness.” The word was a soft sigh on Sister Martha’s breath. She studied Charlotte before she asked, “Is that the reason you delay reading the letter? Because you fear it will not bring you happiness?”

  Charlotte looked down at the envelope, then back at Sister Martha’s kind face. “Perhaps.”

  “Ah well, then it is time you learned one of our teachings. Happiness does not so much depend on circumstances as we think. Within our souls the foundations must abide.”

  “How do I build such a foundation?”

  “Alas, it is not a foundation we can undertake to build ourselves. We must offer the building stones of faith and obedience to the Master Builder so that he can put that foundation in our souls.” Sister Martha pushed up out of her chair and hung it back on the pegs before she turned back to Charlotte. “Now read your letter, my sister. You can overcome whatever it says with the help of the Master Builder.”

  Sister Martha lightly touched Charlotte’s cheek before she smiled and shuffled out the door. Charlotte let the silence of the room fall around her. Above her head she could hear the sound of the other sisters and brothers in the house practicing their dances. There was no fury to the sound. The fury of the spirit seemed only to come in the meetinghouse on Sunday. Everything was disciplined and sedate in the practice hours.

  She stared once more at Selena’s writing on the envelope, and the one prayer she had been able to pray before she came 202 to the Shakers whispered through her mind. Lord, give me courage. She took a deep breath, slipped the sheet of stationery out of the envelope, and unfolded it with trembling fingers. The letter was not from her father. At least not directly.

  Dearest Charlotte,

  It pains me to write this letter on behalf of your father, but he has demanded I do so and as a devoted wife I can do no less than honor his wishes. Charles cannot understand why you would leave the home where he has always attended to your every need as he has never had anything but your best interests at heart. Your irresponsible and ungrateful behavior in the face of that devoted caring has wounded him deeply. In time I feel sure he may be able to look upon this whole silly affair with more sympathy but until I am able to help him understand that young women sometimes make rash and foolish decisions they come to regret and persuade him to look more favorably upon you once more, he has ordered me to inform you that he has no desire to see you or correspond with you at this time. He feels you have deserted him and Grayson and so has washed his hands of you and states he no longer has a daughter.

  Perhaps I should not have written that last, but I thought it best for you to realize the extent of the injury you have done him. And at a time when he needed your unfailing support as his staunch Unionist beliefs are causing some problems here at Grayson. It appears this area is quite overrun with those who sympathize with the South and do not see the same need to preserve the Union at all costs as Charles does. It is good he is not up for re-election this summer. Being cloistered in that strange village, you may not be aware of the division happening in families all around us. But at least you should be safe and I hear well fed.

  Be assured I will so inform you when I have convinced Charles to soften his stance. I trust young Edwin is well.

  Your ever loving stepmother, Selena

  Charlotte folded the letter and slid it back in the envelope. She sat without moving on the edge of the narrow Shaker bed and let the darkening air of the evening gather around her. Above her head the thumps of the Shakers’ feet continued. She pulled off her Shaker cap and stared at its whiteness in her hand. What had she done? It had seemed the only way at the time, but now she could see no way.

  What was it Sister Martha had told her? That the foundations of happiness had to reside in one’s soul. But her foundations lay in ruins. The other Charlotte, the one waiting to pick up her life at Grayson, was lost. If only she could find Mellie. Mellie would tell her the other Charlotte could yet be found, but Mellie was the same as lost to her too.

  All she had left was this Sister Charlotte. Safe and well fed.

  She crumpled the cap in her hand, but then very carefully smoothed it out again and put it back on her head before she stood up and went to the chest to pull the bottom drawer all the way out. She anchored a corner of the letter in the crack where the side and the back of the chest joined above the paper she had wedged there on the first day she was at Harmony Hill. Her fingers caressed that paper before she pulled it out. It was too dark to see now, but she unfolded the paper anyway and stared down at it. She knew the lines that were there. The lines of her face, the other Charlotte, drawn by the artist. By Adam. And instead of her face, she saw his as she wondered where his unexpected roads had taken him.

  19

  The double Shaker staircases were incredibly beautiful as they rose seemingly without support to the two upper floors. One side of the risers kissed up against the curve of the wall as the stairs wound up in a spiral, but the other side with its curling wooden railing seemed suspended in air. One stairway was for the men and the other for the sisters, stated the old elder with Adam. To Adam’s surprise, the Shakers had not shown the least bit of hesitance to have part of their village featured in Harper’s.

  “We wish all to know the peace and serenity of our village, and if that peace can be felt by gazing on a drawing depicting our spiral staircases, then we have no desire to withhold sight of it from those of the world. Yea, we must do all the good we can in all the ways we can as often as we can to all the people we can,” Elder Logan said as he stood back to allow Adam clear view of the stairways.

  “Sounds like a good creed to have,” Adam said.

  “Not a
creed. Simply our duty as Believers,” Elder Logan corrected him mildly.

  Adam went to the stairs and ran his hand gently along the curving cherry handrail. Sam was going to be happy. “Who came up with the design?” he asked.

  “Some years ago, a young man in our Society, Micajah Burnett, demonstrated a gift for design. The Ministry sent him to school to develop his gift, and his dedicated work brought much good to Harmony Hill and to other Shaker villages as well. It is his design that allows the air to flow freely through our buildings and lets the unhealthy stale air escape through our roofs. Our rooms are full of light because he designed them so. That saves lamp oil and candles and improves our efficiency.”

  “But whoever designed these stairways surely had beauty in mind,” Adam said as he stared up through the spiraling stairs to get their lines in his head.

  “Not beauty. Utility and proper conservation of space. True beauty lies in an object’s usefulness.”

  “Do the other buildings have such stairways too?” Adam asked.

  “Nay. The more common staircases well serve the purpose in our family houses. If you desire to see them, I will take you there.”

  “Not right now.” Adam stepped back and opened his sketchbook. “It’s best I complete the task at hand, but before I leave I would greatly appreciate having a tour of your village.” Adam looked over at Elder Logan as he added, “And I would like to also attend a worship meeting if outsiders are allowed to do so.”

  “At times in the summer we have open meetings for those of the world. While the spirit rarely comes upon our gatherings at those times, the watchers show great curiosity as we go forth to labor the dances. We once thought such open worships might be a way to bring converts into our Society, but history has shown that rarely to be the case. Most watchers from the world are simply curious. I doubt we will open our services to any this year with the unsettledness of the country and the threat of war.” Elder Logan studied Adam for a moment. “And why do you wish to watch? Do you have an interest in learning the true Shaker way?”