The Seeker

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “No. Only the same curiosity that you spoke of others having.” Adam answered with honesty. “And the desire to draw your worship for others who might be curious as well.”

  “Is everything a drawing to you, Mr. Wade?”

  “It is my work,” Adam said.

  “That is an answer we as Believers can understand. Work is as much a part of our worship here as the dancing that seems to so amuse the world. We believe the Eternal God is a part of any work we do, and therefore it is a grievous sin to do that work in a slipshod manner.” Elder Logan peered over Adam’s shoulder at the beginning lines of the stairway on his sketchpad. “You have been blessed with talent. Do you allow the Lord to guide your hand?”

  Adam smiled and answered without looking up at Elder Logan. “I’ve always guided my own hand.”

  “And you prefer that thought?” Elder Logan asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I much prefer the idea of our heavenly Father guiding our occupations as Mother Ann taught us to believe.”

  “Is she still among you? Your Mother Ann. Would she allow her likeness drawn?”

  “Nay, she only lives among us in spirit now, but perhaps you are capturing something of her likeness in the lines of our staircase.”

  “A Shaker sister might be a better avenue to capturing her spirit,” Adam suggested. “Perhaps one who is young and fair of face? Too often I have seen Shakers portrayed in an unflattering light.”

  “That matters naught to us insofar as our outward looks are concerned. Beauty as the world judges it is not important to us. Only the inward peace and love that shines through from the windows to our souls.” The elder pointed to his eyes. “That is the desire of a Believer.”

  Adam looked up from his sketch pad at the elder. While the man’s face was deeply lined from years of living, his light brown eyes sparkled with the energy of a much younger man, and he seemed to radiate a calm acceptance of the world around him. “I do see peace in your eyes.”

  The elder stared back at him. “I fear I cannot say the same of your eyes, my brother.”

  “What do you see?” Adam asked with an amused smile.

  “You ask that question in some jest, but I will answer with none.” The elder looked at him with gentle kindness as he said, “I see someone forever seeking.”

  “Seeking what?” Adam’s smile faded as he waited for the elder’s answer. Somehow the conversation had been turned from him trying to understand the Shakers to trying to understand himself. When Elder Logan kept looking at him and didn’t speak right away, Adam tried to rush his response. “Truth? Fame? Success? Love? What?”

  The elder smiled now with a tinge of sad understanding as he finally answered, “That is a question only the seeker can answer. We here at Harmony Hill know the answers we seek, and we guide those who come into our village to live in such a way that true and worthy answers may be found for each of them.”

  “Do you try to convert all who come into your village?” Adam laughed to cover up his unease.

  “Only those who might be seeking our answers.”

  “That’s not me. I’m just here to do some illustrations of your buildings and perhaps some of your people if you agree to it. Maybe I could draw you.” It was easier to think of lines on a paper than questions of the soul.

  Before the elder could answer, a young Shaker sister came in the door. Even before she spoke, Adam was shaping the lines of her face. The cap hid most of her dark hair except for a few tendrils along the side of her face. Her skin was fair and her eyes even bluer than his brother Jake’s. She wore nothing to enhance her beauty, but there was a pureness to her face that made jewels or lace unnecessary. She almost glowed with innocence. With little thought of what he was doing, he turned the page on his sketchpad and began capturing her face. She was the perfect Shaker sister he had asked to draw.

  She turned her eyes downward at his blatant stare and spoke to Elder Logan. “Forgive me for interrupting. I seek Sister Altha. I thought she asked me to find her here, but I must be mistaken.” She eased backward toward the door as she spoke.

  “Nay, you are in the proper place, Sister Gemma. Sister Altha asked that you wait here for a moment while she spoke with Eldress Susan. And that is well, since our visitor was seeking one such as you to draw. Do you mind if he captures your image on his paper?”

  “Nay, I do not mind,” the young sister said with a quick smile toward Adam. “Not so long as such is not improper and I don’t have to stand motionless overlong. A posture of silent stillness is not a gift I have attained as yet.”

  “I sketch very quickly,” Adam assured her and was rewarded with another smile. He drew with fast strokes of his pencil. “What are your gifts then, Sister?”

  She seemed disconcerted by his direct question and lowered her eyes to the floor again.

  Elder Logan answered for her. “Sister Gemma is gifted with kindness and patience. She often guides our novitiate sisters in adjusting to their new life. She is working with a new sister now.” Elder Logan turned toward the young sister. “How is Sister Charlotte doing? She seemed to have a conflicted spirit when last I saw her.”

  Adam’s hand froze and his head came up at the name. But there were many Charlottes. The Charlotte he longed to see was in Virginia. He looked back down at his sketch and began shading in the girl’s face as she answered the elder.

  “She works hard to satisfy the duties required of her, but she has not yet left behind her worldly thinking. Sister Martha said she received a letter from the world yesterday, and she seems much subdued today.” A fleeting look of concern chased across the young sister’s face.

  “Has she confessed her worry to you?” Elder Logan seemed to have no concern that Adam was listening to them talk of the new sister convert.

  “Nay. She is to make confession to Sister Altha, not me.”

  “I see. Where is our new sister now?”

  “In the ironing room at the Gathering Family House. I am not gifted with pressing. I always scorch something, but Sister Charlotte is in capable hands with Sister Dulcie helping her to learn the proper methods while I assist Sister Altha this week. Sister Altha has need to write to our sister societies and her arthritis makes such difficult.”

  Adam couldn’t keep from smiling at the thought of the Charlotte he knew, the senator’s daughter, trying to press anything other than perhaps a flower between the pages of a book. While she might not have been the usual Southern belle with her peculiar penchant for honesty, she certainly would have never picked up an iron. She had servants for that. He doubted she would even know what an iron looked like. He shook his head a little at the image that came to mind of Charlotte in Shaker dress, wielding an iron. That was too ridiculous to even consider. He would not find Charlotte Vance among the Shakers.

  An older woman came in the door behind the young sister called Gemma. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up in a sour look when she saw Adam. It was the same old sister he’d seen on the path weeks before. The woman whose sketch had made Sam Johnson shudder. But Adam felt as if the spirits were smiling down on him as he began sketching her face in the corner above the young sister’s. The contrast was remarkable.

  “What goes on here?” she asked, turning her frown on Elder Logan. “I thought this man was to draw our stairways. If so, why does it appear Sister Gemma is the object of his eye?”

  Elder Logan didn’t seem upset by the old sister’s cross tone. “He wanted to draw a young sister, and so when Sister Gemma came, I allowed him to sketch her face. I saw no harm in that.”

  “There’s always harm when one of the world comes among us.”

  “Please, Sister Altha, we must be considerate of our guest.”

  “Yea, it is so.” The old sister turned toward Adam and almost lost her frown. “I ask your forbearance and forgiveness. I spoke without kindness.”

  “Don’t be concerned on my account. I’m grateful to be allowed to do the drawings. Especially of the stairways. My editor is very anxi
ous to have that illustration for his newspaper.” Adam gave her the smile that generally won him whatever he wanted from women, but it only brought a scowl back to her face as she ushered the younger sister down the hall and into one of the rooms out of sight. The door snapped shut behind them.

  “I hope you spoke truth when you said you sketched quickly, for I have doubts that Sister Altha will allow Sister Gemma to return.” Elder Logan smoothed his hand over his mouth as if to rub away a smile.

  “She didn’t seem too happy with the idea.” Adam turned his sketchbook back to the lines of stairs climbing the wall. “But worry not. I got enough. My mind captures the image of a face as I sketch, much the way those newfangled picture boxes do, and then I can recall that image and finish the details of the sketch even if the subject is no longer actually in front of my eyes. For some reason I have more difficulty with inanimate objects, when it would seem that those would be the easier to draw since they don’t move.”

  “Take all the time you need to properly do your work. One of Mother Ann’s basic teachings that all Believers must take to heart is to do our work as if we have a thousand years to live, and as if we might die tomorrow. Such advice would serve even an artist of the world well, I should think.”

  “I hope it doesn’t take me a thousand years to get this right,” Adam said as he rubbed away one of his lines. Simply getting the correct curvature of the handrail wasn’t enough. He wanted to capture its innate grace.

  Later, with three sketches of Sam’s stairways safely tucked away, Adam wandered out of the building where those of the 213 world were greeted and lodged. He would sleep in one of the upper rooms come nightfall. When he had followed Elder Logan up one of those beautiful stairways to the room he’d been assigned, Adam had been more than pleased with the light that had flooded the room. If he rose early enough in the morning, he should be able to complete the drawings to leave with Elder Logan, who had promised to post them to Sam come Monday morning. It was an added convenience that the Shakers operated a postal office right there in the village.

  “We try to be self-sufficient inasmuch as we are able,” Elder Logan had told him. “And then we market our excess to the world along with the many other items we produce with an eye on the needs of those with whom we trade. However, I must confess the current threat of conflict very much concerns us as it threatens to close our trade routes. You say you are recently from Washington. Were any there yet seeking a way to peace?”

  “I wasn’t privy to the circle of power, but the city is full of men responding to the President’s call to arms. Peace did not seem likely.”

  The elder frowned and shook his head sadly. “I had feared it was such from the reports in the papers. Our traders who have come back from the states that have fallen away from the Union tell us the populace there also talk of nothing but the first battle to come. They are much more interested in buying guns than brooms and seed. As if there will no longer be need to continue sweeping or eating. And alas, that may become too true for many if bullets start flying.”

  “At least here in Kentucky I’ve heard the government is voting to stay neutral.” Adam tried to offer a cheerful word for the worried man.

  The frown on Elder Logan’s face grew darker. “I do not see how such a policy will be possible to enforce. Already we hear of enlistment camps being set up on the state’s borders both to the north and to the south to gather men into their armies. Thankfully we gather only the fruits of peace here. If only those of the world desired to do the same.”

  Now with the sun sinking lower in the west, Adam studied the Shaker men and women he passed on Harmony Hill’s pathways to see if they carried the same peace as Elder Logan so obviously did. It was hard to tell, for many of the people he met kept their heads bent with their eyes intent on the ground at their feet. Some who did glance up at him seemed to begrudge his presence on their pathways, as if simply being near one from the world might taint the peace they sought. A few turned and followed a different path that kept them from passing close to him.

  A bell rang, perhaps to signal the end of the working day, because more men and women began filing out of the various buildings and walking toward the larger family houses. Adam moved off the pathway to keep from being an obstruction to their orderly flow. He leaned against a tree and wondered how it would be to live such a cloistered life.

  He searched their faces as they passed by for some hint of why they might have withdrawn from the world. Were they simply seeking the perfect life of peace that Elder Logan seemed to have found? But many didn’t carry the elder’s peaceful expression. Some looked tired from their day’s labor. Other faces were as devoid of expression as a smooth river stone. Their blank looks made Adam wonder what feelings they were taking such pains to conceal.

  The men’s faces were easier to see than the women’s, whose features were shaded by their white bonnets. The few female faces he did glimpse brought to mind the old sister’s suspicious look rather than young Gemma’s easy smile. Perhaps because it was only the older sisters who dared look his way. The younger women kept their eyes so diligently on the path in front of them that Adam would not have been surprised to see one of them stoop down to retrieve a lost coin or some other bit of treasure.

  The paths were emptying as the houses swallowed up the Shakers. Only a few stragglers remained, and those walked with quick steps to keep from being late for whatever was to happen next in the village. The evening meal perhaps. The sun had disappeared below the horizon and twilight was gathering. Adam felt the grumble of his own stomach as he pushed away from the tree to head back to his assigned room where Elder Logan had said someone would bring his meal.

  It seemed a strange life. Everything so ordered and serene. Elder Logan claimed all strife had been removed for those who dwelt there, but how could one live in a tranquil sea day in and day out? A man needed the water of his life stirred by breezes. Else he stayed in the doldrums and wasted away for lack of challenge. And yet here were all of these men and women seeking those doldrums. It was more than Adam could understand. And certainly nothing he could ever want.

  He was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice the two sisters coming toward him on the pathway until the older sister put out a hand to stop the other, a young black woman, from passing too closely to him. He moved off the path to give way to them. The older sister stepped faster to move between him and the younger sister. In the fading light it was difficult to see the young sister’s black face under the white cap even though she didn’t duck her head away from him. Instead her eyes widened in surprise as she peeked around the older sister at him.

  He stepped forward to get a better look at her face. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  She seemed to want to stop, but the older sister didn’t allow it as she put an arm around the girl and hurried her past Adam. “Come, Sister Melana. It is not proper for us to speak with those of the world without first receiving permission from the elders and eldresses.”

  “But I only wanted to ask if he’d come for her.”

  “His business here is no concern of ours.”

  “But . . .” The girl tried to look back at him, but the other sister tugged her along.

  Adam watched them until they disappeared into the brick family house. Melana. Not a familiar name, but even so, something about the woman’s face tugged at his memory. If he could have gotten a better look at her, then he might place where he’d seen her. Perhaps she’d been a servant from one of the great houses he’d visited in Frankfort, and now she’d found freedom here with the Shakers.

  But who in the world would she think he might have come for? He shook his head a little as he started back down the path. She must have mistaken him for someone else. He knew no one among the Shakers.

  20

  The day after Selena’s letter came, Charlotte got up at the sound of the rising bell. She knelt in pretense of prayer. She put on the Shaker dress and cap and went into their biting room where she forced
food into her stomach. She listened to Dulcie’s chatter in the pressing room as she pushed the iron across the fabric. And she was glad for the toil that brought sweat to her face and made her shoulders ache, because it took some of her mind off the ache in her heart.

  She had lost her home. Her life. She had nothing. She who had always planned and arranged and made things happen as she wished. Now there were no wishes left. Grayson would never be hers. She had nothing left but this shell of Charlotte Mayda Vance that the ones around her called Sister Charlotte. Her father had cut her off. In spite of Selena’s words to the contrary, Charlotte knew the woman would see that the wound never healed. She had outflanked Charlotte once more.

  She couldn’t blame it all on Selena. She was the one who had let foolish pride set her feet on this strange path. She should 218 have stayed at Grayson and kept her place. They couldn’t have forced her to go to Virginia. Her father wouldn’t have pushed her out the door. But no, Charlotte had gone through that door herself. Had run out that door.

  The thought tormented her as she pushed the heavy irons over the woven fabric of the sheets. She didn’t want to think. She closed her mind to everything but the task at hand. Pick up one iron and move it back and forth until it cooled and then pick up another one to do the same.

  Dulcie touched her shoulder when it was time for the evening meal and led her out of the pressing room to where Gemma waited. Gemma was smiling, talking about a man drawing a staircase. Charlotte paid scant attention as she let Gemma’s words float on the surface of her mind like leaves on a still pond. If she started listening, really listening, her mind might awaken and she would have to think of losing Grayson again.

  She sat at the evening meal and didn’t dip any food onto her plate even when Gemma edged the bowls of potatoes and beans closer to her. Sister Altha frowned at her across the table but could say nothing because speaking wasn’t allowed in the room where they ate. Each group of four Shakers had their own set of serving bowls in front of them so that no one had to ask for a bowl to be passed. The food was good and plentiful, but Gemma had greatly stressed that Charlotte must Shaker her plate, which meant she must eat every bite of whatever she might take from the bowls. Charlotte had forced down the morning meal and the meal at noon, but now she only stared at her empty plate and was glad no food was there. What was it Selena had written? That at least she would be well fed.