A Simple Shaker Murder

by Deborah Woodworth

  “It’s a breathtaking sight, isn’t it?” Rose said.

  Earl whirled around so fast that he stumbled back against the deep window frame. Unable to steady himself in time, he sat with a plunk on the wide sill.

  Earl stared at Rose as if he couldn’t place her. He couldn’t be much older than Gretchen, if they’d been childhood pals, but he looked closer to forty. Unlike the Griffiths cousins, he was taller than average. Rose supposed he might be considered handsome, but the telltale signs of a dissolute life had already added extra inches to his girth and dark pockets under his eyes, which were deep brown and hard to read. Rose must have given him a severe shock, because his breathing was rapid and red splotches formed on his already florid face.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you so. I’ve no idea what shape those sills are in.”

  Earl stood up and rearranged his expression into one of affability. “I’m fine, just fine. Rose, is it? You just startled me, is all. I, uh, was having a look-see around the house, just out of curiosity. If I may ask, why aren’t you using this place?” He scanned the large, empty room as if he could already see it filled with elegant, and probably expensive, furniture.

  “You may have noticed when you entered that this dwelling house has only one door,” Rose said. “Decades ago, when we were a much larger community, this was where our gathering order lived—people who had not signed the covenant. Since they were still outside the faith, they lived apart from the Shaker families, and took care of their own affairs. Some of them decided to sign the covenant, but others never did. Such folks just don’t show up much anymore. It’s wasteful to keep this dwelling habitable for one or two people.”

  Rose didn’t go on to tell him about their various other plans for the house. After asking his question, he’d seemed to lose interest, inspecting the woodwork instead of looking at her as she spoke.

  “I came to find you for a purpose, Mr. Weston,” she said.

  His attention snapped back to her face. “Oh? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Yea,” Rose said, “you can stay away from my sisters.”

  “Your sisters? I don’t think I . . .” The splotching reappeared, and he gazed down at the dusty floor. “I see,” he said. “You’re talking about Gretchen. I meant no harm, I assure you.”

  “I’ll accept your assurances, Mr. Weston, but I must insist that it never happen again. Will you promise me that?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of causing problems for Gretchen, I was only . . . well, she’s an old friend, you see.”

  “I know all about that.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m glad you brought this to my attention.” He was edging toward the door. “I certainly understand. If you’ll excuse me, I promised to meet with Gilbert.” He was out the door and thudding down the stairs so fast Rose had no chance to respond. From the window, she saw him trudge through the dormant Kentucky bluegrass toward the South Family Dwelling House. He was halfway there before she realized that he had not actually promised to stay away from Gretchen.

  NINE

  DURING THE SILENCE OF THE NOON MEAL, ROSE HAD TIME TO gather her thoughts. Gretchen’s tidbits about the Griffiths sparked her curiosity. She wanted to find out more, as fast as possible. However, she did not dare say so to Gretchen, who would surely conclude she had permission to talk again with Earl Weston. The Griffiths themselves would probably be secretive, if she were to ask them her questions directly. She could talk to Matthew and Archibald, but no doubt Wilhelm would consider her questioning the brethren an invasion of his responsibility. Still, it might be worth a rebuke.

  The gentle slurping of soup and an occasional sniffle were the only sounds in the Center Family dining room. Across the room at the brethren’s table, two heads were not bobbing over their soup bowls—Matthew and Archibald leaned slightly toward each other as if whispering a message. Rose noted that the chairs on either side of them were occupied by Earl Weston and Gilbert Griffiths.

  Archibald nodded. As his wide, round face turned forward, he caught Rose staring at him. His gaze dropped to his plate. Matthew seemed not to have noticed. Rose made her decision—she would question them.

  The brethren were first to finish their meal, and they left silently. Rose squirmed with impatience. As soon as the last morsel at the sisters’ table had been eaten—by Elsa, as usual—Rose placed her napkin over her empty plate and stood. All the sisters—and, more slowly, the New-Owenite women—followed her lead.

  As Rose lifted her chair and swung it upside down onto its wall pegs, she noticed that one of the front rungs was cracked. She remembered that the stool in the kitchen, the one she had plunked Mairin on top of, had been in need of repair, too. Why shouldn’t she bring them to the attention of the brethren at the Carpenters’ Shop? Surely that would not irritate Wilhelm.

  The sisters who had sat on benches pushed them under the table and waited as the others re-hung their chairs. They all followed Rose from the room, silent and in single-file. The chattering began as soon as they emerged into the sunshine and parted for their afternoon work assignments. Rose took advantage of her long legs to scurry ahead and avoid conversation as she made for the Carpenters’ Shop.

  Matthew and Archibald were deep in their work by the time Rose opened the shop door. She noted, with disapproval, that they were also deep in wood chips and shavings, which they had not cleaned up from the morning and probably before that, as well.

  Both men glanced up at her, then went back to their tasks. They were mending and refinishing furniture, and other pieces lay about the workroom, in various stages of disrepair. All the objects were old, some probably dating back a century or more, when the Shakers made most of their own furniture and tools, often developing new, more efficient designs. Archibald smoothed the nicks out of an oval candle stand, the tip of his tongue protruding from his mouth. Matthew’s long, thin fingers worked at the more difficult repair of a table swift with a cracked slat. Rose knew the weaving sisters still used table swifts to wind yarn into balls, but surely they had several newer, unused ones in storage in the Sisters’ Shop.

  “I see you are mending one of those lovely old maple candle stands,” she said to Archibald, whom she knew to be the more pliable of the two brethren. “We don’t use them so much anymore, do we?”

  Archibald started when she spoke, and he took several moments after she’d finished to digest her words. Though he was a young man, no more than twenty, his face looked puffy, as if he were unhealthy or not sleeping well. Matthew paused to listen.

  “Some want ’em again, I guess,” Archibald said.

  “Oh really? Who?”

  Archibald shrugged. Matthew bent again over the new slat he was shaping.

  “Did Wilhelm suggest that you fix these old things?”

  “Yea,” Archibald said. He cast a furtive glance at Matthew.

  “They are such wonderful pieces,” Rose said. “I’m glad to see them used again. You are bringing that table to a lovely shine, Archibald.”

  “Thank you, Eldress.” Archibald flashed a quick, nervous smile, clearly pleased. For once, he showed no need to check his response with Matthew. Rose wanted a chance to talk with Archibald alone, and she had an idea.

  “Matthew,” she said, “there are a couple of repairs that need to be done in the Family Center Dwelling House.”

  “We’ll get to them later.”

  “I know you’re busy, but I was hoping you could go over now and at least retrieve the items. I believe they might be unsafe to sit on, and they are both in frequent use.” Rose explained the cracks in the chair and stool, knowing that only Matthew had the skill to assess and complete such repairs. “If you could even just take time to examine them—you would know better than I how dangerous they really are.”

  Rose had reached for just the right combination of deference and command, and apparently she’d succeeded. Without a word, Matthew put down his work and left, surly but obedient. He would likely give the items a cursory
look and carry them back to the Carpenters’ Shop. She had perhaps fifteen minutes.

  As soon as she was sure Matthew was out of earshot, Rose turned to Archibald, who watched the door with the panic of an abandoned puppy.

  “I’d love to see what you are doing,” Rose said brightly. “How are you getting the wood so smooth?”

  The fear faded from Archibald’s face as he ran his hand over the top of the candle stand. “I just keep at it, is all,” he said, with a touch of pride.

  “Do you think Wilhelm might use it himself?”

  Archibald shook his head. “What he told us was, we needed to get all the old stuff fixed up for the South Family Dwelling House.”

  “You mean the building our visitors are staying in?”

  “Yea.”

  “But there are only seven of them now, and they will be leaving soon, won’t they? Is Wilhelm hoping to use the dwelling house for future guests?” With anyone else, Rose would worry she was giving the impression that she and Wilhelm never consulted one another, but Archibald was unlikely to notice anything amiss.

  Archibald looked confused for a moment, then brightened. “Elder Wilhelm said them folks might stay,” he said.

  “Stay? Do you mean, permanently?”

  “I guess.”

  So Wilhelm was certain he could convert the New-Owenites en masse to Shakerism. He was so confident that he had begun to furnish a dwelling house for them to live in. Rose wondered if the New-Owenites were aware of the steps being taken for their future.

  “Archibald, you’ve had dealings with our guests, so let me ask you. What do you think of them?” Rose asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Rose hesitated. Questions to Archibald would have to be simple, so she needed to be sure what she was after. “Do you believe they are good people or bad people?”

  “Oh, good people, very good. Gilbert is really nice, and Celia is mighty pretty.”

  “And Hugh? I was gone until Monday evening, so I never got to meet him. What was he like?”

  “He was a nice man. He used to talk to me a lot.”

  “Oh? What did you talk about?”

  Archibald looked scared and guilty and confused, as if he might have broken a vow but wasn’t sure. “Well,” he said, “I guess it was about learning and religion and such.” He smiled shyly. “Hugh said 1 was smarter than I thought, and I ought to get some learning. I only went through the second grade, and once I come here, I was too old to get more schooling.”

  “Would you like more schooling?”

  Archibald nodded. “But there ain’t much chance of that. Matthew says I’m too slow. Second grade’s about the best I could do.”

  “We can arrange for more schooling, Archibald. Matthew just isn’t aware of that. You could take a few hours a week to study with one of the brethren. Would you like me to talk to Wilhelm about it?”

  Archibald’s face lit up, and he nodded vigorously.

  “Then I’ll do so at the first opportunity,” Rose said. “Is that what Hugh suggested? That you ask for more learning?”

  Archibald frowned in concentration. “Sort of,” he said. “But Hugh said I’d never get more learning with the Shakers, and I could come to him if that’s what I really wanted. He said he’d give me lessons. Matthew said he’d give me some time away from the shop to do my learning, even though he didn’t think it would make much difference.”

  So Matthew was encouraging contact between Archibald and the New-Owenites, even at the expense of work. Rose wondered just what Matthew’s own ties with the group might be. “Did Matthew say why he thought you should study with Hugh?”

  Archibald grimaced, as if trying to remember. “Well, just that Hugh was smart and a good person to know. I wanted him to help me be smarter. I always wished I’d’ve been born smarter. That’s why my ma and pa left me here, because I couldn’t pick up schooling like my brothers, and they figured I wasn’t smart enough to be on my own.” Archibald’s tone was matter-of-fact, as though he thought it understandable that his parents would abandon him to strangers rather than go to the trouble of raising a slow child.

  “Did you spend any time in lessons with Hugh?” Rose asked.

  Archibald looked guilty. “Yea, some. You won’t tell Wilhelm, will you? Matthew said Wilhelm shouldn’t know.”

  “Nay, I won’t tell Wilhelm, but I urge you to consider confessing to him yourself.” It was the right thing to do—and it wouldn’t hurt if Wilhelm began to understand that conversion can work both ways.

  Archibald nodded and averted his eyes. Rose doubted he’d ever work up the courage to confess to Wilhelm.

  “What did Hugh teach you?” she asked.

  Archibald brightened. “Well, mostly he would tell me how I could’ve been smarter if I’d’ve been raised up in a different place, but I can still get smarter anyway.” Archibald seemed unaware of how insulting to the Shakers Hugh’s words had been.

  “We only had two real lessons,” Archibald said. “He told me about some rocks and plants and . . .” The guilty look returned. With jerky motions, Archibald started pushing around the woodworking tools on the workbench.

  “It’s all right,” Rose said. “You can tell me anything Hugh said, and I won’t be angry or upset, I promise. Just tell the truth, and God will smile on you.”

  Archibald hunched on a stool, and his broad face puckered as if he might cry. Instead, he took a deep breath and said, “Hugh was really nice to me, but sometimes I didn’t understand what he was saying. Like when he talked about Wilhelm—you and Wilhelm.”

  “What did he say about us?” Rose’s voice was sharper than she’d intended, and Archibald flinched. “I’m not angry with you; I’m sorry if it sounded that way,” she added, softening her voice.

  “That’s okay. It’s just I think what he said was really bad, but I didn’t understand it. I wish I were smarter.”

  “You’re fine as God made you,” Rose said. She fought to control her impatience. “Can you remember the words he used?”

  Archibald frowned. “Sort of. He said that we weren’t being treated like real Americans.”

  “How? How were you not being treated as Americans?”

  “He said it was y’all, you and Wilhelm, and the Lead Ministry. Y’all just took over, he said, without a ’lection.”

  Rose puzzled through Archibald’s words, her mind searching for meaning.

  “Did he mean . . . an election?” she asked.

  “Yea,” said Archibald, with a broad smile. “I knew you’d understand.” His smile faded. “What’s a e-lection?”

  “It’s when people vote for who they want to be their leaders.”

  Archibald nodded, but the crease between his eyebrows told Rose he was still confused. Perhaps Hugh had been right that the Shakers had failed Archibald, Rose thought. He knew so little; perhaps they had given up on him too quickly, assuming he would always be secure in the Society. She would talk to Wilhelm about some special lessons for Archibald.

  Meanwhile, she had her answer. The New-Owenites were trying to discredit the Shaker leadership. Celia had intimated to the sisters that Rose and Wilhelm might be living in the flesh together, and Hugh had openly criticized them for not being elected democratically. Rose wondered how democratic Gilbert Griffiths’ ascension to leadership had been.

  Rose had just left the Carpenters’ Shop when she decided a walk through the nearby maple grove would give her a chance to think. She spun around and headed back past the side of the shop. The rasping sound of wood being sanded reached her through an open window. It was good to hear woodworking sounds again.

  “Off for a leisurely stroll?” said an all-too-familiar voice behind her. She turned with reluctance to find Wilhelm and Matthew walking through the grass toward her. Matthew was empty-handed. Of course, Rose thought, Matthew never had any intention of fixing broken chairs. He wanted to get rid of her influence, and the easiest way to do that was to fetch Wilhelm. Rose stood her ground and waited a
s the men approached.

  “The sisters should keep thee busy enough,” Wilhelm said. “There is no need to waste thy time giving work orders to the brethren. A word in my ear would have sufficed to get those chairs fixed.”

  Years of living in the same community as Wilhelm had taught Rose that to explain herself was to add kindling to his fire. She waited in silence.

  Wilhelm crossed his arms over his thick chest. “Or was thy purpose in visiting the Carpenters’ Shop more subtle? Matthew tells me thy questions were critical of our visitors. When he tried not to encourage thy gossip, he was sent away.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  Matthew stood a few steps back from Wilhelm, shifting from one foot to another. He stiffened as Rose glanced at him.

  This time, Wilhelm said nothing, and Rose let the silence stretch on. Matthew removed his broad-brimmed work hat and replaced it in the same movement. “Elder,” he said, “I got a lot of work to do, so if you don’t need me here . . .”

  Wilhelm started, as if he’d forgotten the brother’s presence. “I’ll handle this, thank you, Matthew. By all means, hands to work . . . and hearts to God,” he finished, in an undertone only Rose could hear.

  Matthew took off at a trot, and Rose steeled herself for an argument with Wilhelm. He no longer intimidated her, but neither did she enjoy these sparring matches. She decided to take the lead.

  “I, too, have much work to do,” she said, “and I haven’t time for a long chat. If you have a concern, speak your piece.”

  Rose wasn’t normally curt with Wilhelm, and he took a few moments to recover. But recover he did.

  “Need I remind thee that the New-Owenites are our guests, and—”

  “They are your guests,” Rose said, “not mine. I was not consulted.”

  “Thine absence, of course, made it—”

  “My absence made it easier for you to direct the village as you saw fit, without my interference. These New-Owenites seem to have caused nothing but trouble since they arrived. They roam around the village at will, turning Believers away from their faith, stirring up discontent, and for all we know, killing one another under our eyes. It is time for them to leave.”