The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  And yet something about the girl sitting there on the floor staring up at him with sparkling brown eyes made him want to smile at her and see her smile back. He wanted to sit down beside her in the middle of the books and forget the Shakers. Forget everything and go back to a time before guilt weighed down his shoulders. A time when he could take joy in made-up stories.

  “I can’t take any of them?” she asked. There was no rebellion in her voice, only disbelief.

  “Could be I’m wrong,” Isaac said. Not because he believed he was, but because he didn’t want to be the reason for her unhappiness. “Maybe you should ask your father.”

  “My father?” She looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your father. The preacher. Maybe Brother Forrest has told him what you can bring or not bring.”

  She laughed. She seemed as surprised by the sound as he was. She put her hand over her mouth to smother the laugh, but still it worked its way out between her fingers. It wasn’t a good laugh. Not the kind that cleared sorrow and cheered a person. And then with no pause between, she had her hands over her face, and a sob choked out the laughter. She was better at stopping the tears than the laughter. The one sob was all that escaped her as she rubbed her hands across her eyes and down over her face before picking up the book again.

  She closed the book with a snap before laying it on top of one of the piles. He thought to offer her a hand to help her up, but she was already on her feet before he reached out to her. She was nearly a head shorter than he was, but with a sturdy strength in the set of her shoulders. Again nothing like Ella, whose shoulders had curved forward almost begging for an arm around her to support and hold her. To protect her from the dangers of life. This woman looked capable and ready to knock such dangers aside on her own.

  It was a look he admired and then as quickly felt shame, as if he was betraying Ella’s memory with the comparison. He shouldn’t be making such comparisons. This woman was nothing to him. He didn’t even know her name. Ella was everything.

  “Are you one of them?” the woman asked. “I guess that’s a silly question when it’s clear as day you are. Dressed how you are.”

  “I live with the Shakers,” Isaac admitted.

  “You don’t say that like you’re all that sure you want to.” She looked down at the books scattered across the floor and didn’t wait for him to answer. “But then plenty of us have to do things we aren’t all that sure we want to. Our feet can get set on some strange roads in this life.” She glanced up at him with a little frown of worry. “None of the books? Do they not believe in books?”

  “They believe in their own books. The ones that teach you about the Believers and Mother Ann. Not storybooks.”

  She let out a sigh and dropped her head as though his words were blows. “How can they not like storybooks? They dance when they worship.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he kept quiet.

  She looked up again. “Do you dance with them?”

  “Sometimes. If I’ve learned the dance well enough not to take a wrong step and mess up the union of the dancers.”

  “A wrong step. I’ve taken plenty of those. And I’m thinking I’m about to take another one.” She breathed out another sigh before she straightened her shoulders. “But I shouldn’t be burdening your ears with my sorrows.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “You’re being polite. Something I fear I’m neglecting.” She smoothed down her apron and pushed a little smile out on her face. “I’m Lacey Bishop.” The smile wavered a little, but she didn’t let it disappear. “Lacey Palmer now. The preacher and me, we got married six weeks ago today.”

  “The preacher? The one outside?” Isaac thought of the older man who had come out of the shed to speak to Brother Forrest. The man had to be more than twice as old as the girl in front of him.

  She laughed again. A short sound that held little humor. “The very one. No storybook romances around here.” She looked down at the books. “Even in the Bible there are storybook romances. Did you know that? Jacob working fourteen years for Rachel. Ruth and Boaz. Of course he was older than her or at least I always imagine that to be so when I think on the story of her out gleaning the grain, but then again she was a widow. At least I’m not that. A widow. The preacher is. Not a widow, but a widower.”

  With color rising in his cheeks, Isaac tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t make what he’d already said worse. He should have stayed on the porch. “I’m sorry,” he finally stammered.

  “Me too,” she said as she reached down to pick up a Bible from among the books. “Very sorry.”

  He had the feeling she thought he was expressing sympathy for the preacher’s loss and not for his careless words, but he didn’t know how to change that.

  She looked up at him then and noticed his flush. She pushed out her lower lip and blew air up across her face to ruffle the stray strands of hair falling down on her forehead. “I’ve embarrassed you with all my talking. And about things you being a Shaker would rather not hear. Talk of marriage and such. I can’t see how I’ll make much of a Shaker.”

  “I was married.”

  “Married before you went to the Shakers but not now?”

  “I wouldn’t be at the Shakers if I was still married. My wife died.”

  “Oh.” She studied his face. “Now I’m the one who’s sorry. I can see you’re still sorrowful. The preacher is too in his way. For sure I’m thinking he’s sorry we got married. That’s how come your Shaker talk fell on such willing ears.”

  “Your ears weren’t so willing?”

  “Willing in some ways. Not so willing in others.” She didn’t wait for him to respond to that. “Do you like it there? With the Shakers?”

  “There’s plentiful food.”

  “You have to work for it though, don’t you?”

  “You don’t look afraid of work.”

  “That’s true enough.”

  “But you’re not sure you want to go.” Isaac didn’t make it a question. Her reluctance was plain to see. He’d seen the same look on Ella’s face when he’d told her they were going west. So now he said the words to this woman that he should have said to Ella. “If you don’t want to go, don’t go.”

  “A married woman has to do what her husband says.”

  “You won’t be married among the Shakers,” Isaac said.

  She frowned again. “How can all those men and women be together and none of them think on marrying?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. She didn’t expect an answer. “It’s a puzzle for sure.”

  “Romantic love is forbidden.” Isaac wasn’t sure why he said that. Again it would have been better to stay silent.

  She shook her head a little with a knowing smile. “Lots of things are forbidden among church folks. That doesn’t mean they don’t sometimes happen.”

  He was saved from having to respond to that by a child running in from the back of the house. “Lacey! Lacey! Those men are here.”

  The little girl’s eyes, as blue as the woman’s were brown, flew open wide at the sight of Isaac. She skidded to a stop in the doorway as if afraid to come closer to him. Her hair was dark as night and her cheeks very pink. She didn’t favor the woman who held a hand out to her. The child crept forward and grabbed hold of the young woman’s skirt pulling it in front of her.

  “It’s all right, Rachel. He’s one of the Shakers. Brother . . .” She stopped and looked over at Isaac. “I can’t recall you telling me your name.”

  “Isaac. Isaac Kingston.”

  The woman called Lacey put her hand tight against the little girl’s back and pressed her close against her leg. “How about that, Rachel? A Bible name just like yours.” She looked down at the child and then back at Isaac. “This is Rachel. She doesn’t take to strangers.”

  “Your little sister?”

  “Do you always jump to conclusions about how people are related when you meet them?” Lacey said with a smile th
at took the sting out of her words. “We aren’t sisters. And before you ask, she’s not exactly my daughter, but she’s mine. Every bit mine. I’d try explaining it all, but it’s complicated and would take awhile. So instead of storytelling, I guess I’d better go on and pack up these books to leave here for the church people if I can’t take them with me.” She glanced down at the books. “I’m beginning to wonder what’s the use of packing anything. Could be we should leave it all for the church folks here to fight over.”

  “Will they?”

  “Will they what?”

  “Fight over it. Fight over those books and whatever else you leave.”

  “Of course they will. Church folk fight over everything even when they’re pretending not to. Don’t they do that over there where you live? At that Harmony Hill place?”

  “Not so you notice. Everybody follows the rules.”

  “Rules.” Lacey looked at him with a puzzled frown between her eyes. “What rules? The Ten Commandments?”

  “Those too I suppose. But more. Shaker rules.” The ones he was breaking, he thought, but there was no need telling her that.

  “Oh, you mean like the no-storybook rule. And the no-romance rule. Who makes up all those rules?” Her frown grew darker, and the little girl peeked up at her before burying her face in the woman’s skirt.

  “The Ministry. Or so I’ve been told.” Isaac wondered if he should warn them about more rules. Something about the way the woman gently stroked the child’s head stabbed Isaac’s heart with loss. Not only for the child he and Ella would now never have but for the two in front of him. The Shakers would separate them. Their rules not only separated husbands and wives but mothers and children. But what good would it do to tell her? It would just bring the sadness sooner.

  “A bunch of their preachers, you mean?”

  “Their leaders anyway. They don’t exactly do church like most people around here.”

  “I guess not if they just hand down rules and don’t let their people have any say in it. Our church people here aim to have a say in nigh on everything.” One side of her mouth twisted up in a little smile and her eyes sparkled. “For sure, I can’t imagine getting them or any body of church folks to agree to that one about the no marrying. The Bible we read speaks plenty about a man taking a wife and being fruitful.”

  “The Shakers have a different way of looking at those parts of the Bible, I suppose.”

  “You think they’re right?” Her smile disappeared as she waited for him to answer.

  “It’s what they believe.” He avoided an answer, but she didn’t let him slip past her question.

  “But what do you believe? Isn’t that what we need to figure out? Not what they think, but what we think.” The child eased the woman’s skirt away from her face to peer at him as if she wanted to know his answer too.

  “Me, I’m not worried about that kind of fruitful. Not since my wife passed on.” Isaac felt the familiar stab of sorrow and regret mixed with guilt.

  Her face seemed to reflect some of the same sorrow and regret back to him as her shoulders sagged a little. “Guess as how I’m not either, with how I’ve been living here with the preacher. But if everybody lived that way, believed that nobody should be fruitful, there wouldn’t be any babies.” Lacey tightened her hand on Rachel’s back as her voice took on a pleading tone. “That can’t be what the good Lord wants. It just can’t.”

  Isaac heard the men coming into the house, but there was no escape from their notice now. It was going to take a lot of confessing to get Brother Verne’s forgiveness for this lapse of obedience.

  The man’s voice was harsh and condemning. “Brother Isaac, you were told to wait out on the porch.”

  Lacey spoke up for him. The very worst thing she could have done. “He was doing no harm. Merely explaining your beliefs.”

  Brother Verne turned his scowl on the young woman. “It is surely impossible to explain that which one has no understanding of himself. Obedience is the first duty.”

  Lacey met his stare with no give in her own as she asked, “Duty to who? You or God?”

  “That’s enough, Lacey,” the preacher said, his voice every bit as harsh as Brother Verne’s. “You speak out of turn.”

  She turned her eyes to the man she’d claimed as her husband, and for a second Isaac thought she was going to defy him too. But then she shut her lips tight together and bent her head before she muttered, “Sorry. Forgive my rudeness.”

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed her words, the child began to sob. The woman pulled the little girl around in front of her and held her tightly against her apron.

  The preacher looked completely disgusted with them both as he said, “Rachel, stop that noise right now.” He raised his hand as though he might be thinking of striking the child to make her hush.

  Brother Forrest spoke up quickly. “We must all keep in mind that kindness is as much a duty as obedience.” Brother Forrest’s voice was soft with no censure as he looked at Brother Verne.

  A bit of color climbed into Brother Verne’s face. “Yea. Forgive me as well, my sister and brothers.”

  Brother Verne looked over toward Lacey, who acknowledged his words with a barely perceptible nod and then at Isaac. Brother Forrest and Brother Jacob were looking at Isaac too, expecting him to ask forgiveness as well. To bring peace back among them. So he said the expected words asking forgiveness for his disobedience, but what he really wanted to say as Lacey raised her eyes to meet his for a brief second before she turned away was don’t go.

  He’d told her that once already when she’d asked how he liked living among the Shakers, and it had been plain from the look on her face that she had little desire to go to the Shaker village. The words, ill advised then, were impossible to speak again in front of this man who was her husband. It was just as she had answered him earlier. Of course she had to go. She was the man’s wife. The same as Ella had been his wife.

  14

  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. That verse kept running through Lacey’s head. Words straight out of the mouth of Jesus, telling folks gathered on that Bible mountain how to live. Miss Mona had taught her the blessed verses early on. She’d told Lacey a person might not understand them all exactly, but that didn’t mean there weren’t lessons to be learned and attitudes to be sought.

  Lacey had trouble with the meek part. Not understanding it. She knew what meek meant. It was the being it that was hard for her. She didn’t know why. If anybody had reason to be meek, it was her. A girl whose father had the same as given her away instead of standing up to his new wife. A girl who had to depend on the kindness of others for a place to live. A girl like that had no reason to be anything but meek. And yet her spirit resisted any hint of meekness.

  Even when she bent her head there in front of the Shaker men and the preacher and pretended meekness, her insides knew better. She wanted to stare right into the face of that Shaker brother with his condemning attitude and talk some Bible at him. “Judge not that ye be not judged” and the like of that. But then the meek verse had slid through her mind and the “turn the other cheek” part of that mountain sermon and the “so far as a body is able live in peace with one another” verse.

  Miss Mona was surely pelting her with those bits of Scripture straight from heaven. And if that was true, then Miss Mona must be telling her to go on and set her feet on this new path without fighting against it inside or out. Besides, she didn’t want to get the young brother in deeper trouble with the frowning brother. He seemed nice. The younger one. Isaac.

  If you don’t want to go, don’t go. That was what he’d said. She wondered why. He was there living with those Shaker men learning obedience. And kindness, she reminded herself. Brother Forrest was that. Kindness on foot. So could be there were more brothers and sisters like him at this village Preacher Palmer was determined to take them to than those like that other brother with his frowns and grudging apologies.

  That’s w
hat she would have to hope for, because she didn’t have the first choice except to follow the preacher wherever he went. He was her husband, in the sight of God and man. Didn’t matter if he acted like a husband or she acted like a wife. They were married. She’d stood up in front of a preacher and promised to love, honor, and obey till death do them part. Against her better judgment perhaps, but the vow had been made. While she hadn’t done the first two so well, she could manage the last one. Especially since to do any different would mean being parted from Rachel.

  After the Shaker men started carrying the furniture out to the wagons they’d brought with them, Lacey hushed Rachel’s crying and mopped up her face with her apron. Then she and the little girl carried the storybooks to the kitchen and stowed them away on the shelves next to the rose-covered plates. She’d leave Miss Sadie Rose a note telling her everything left on those kitchen shelves was to go to the churchwomen in memory of Miss Mona. Maybe they wouldn’t fight over it that way, in spite of what she’d told that young brother about church folk fighting over everything. Maybe they’d remember that “meek inheriting the earth” verse and divide it all up with no cross words or hurt feelings.

  Meekness. That was what she was going to dwell on. That and the verse about how the good Lord would never desert those who followed after him. She should have told the young brother that. His eyes had been so sad when he talked about losing his wife. Just the thought of a man loving a woman that much made Lacey feel all soft inside. That had been the kind of love she’d once dreamed of knowing while reading those storybooks the Shakers didn’t believe in. The kind of love a body could read between the lines in some Bible stories. The kind of love she’d likely never have a chance to know.