Simply Dead

by Eleanor Kuhns

  Her admission sent a wave of sympathetic understanding through Rees. He knew she didn’t want to expel any of the children. The fees supported her and she was probably barely surviving as it was. ‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘Let me talk to my wife. Maybe there is some solution that will answer.’ He didn’t see one now but sometimes Lydia was able to find some compromise.

  The widow nodded, tears forming in her eyes. Rees looked away, embarrassed. ‘Come children,’ he said, stretching out a hand to the three youngest. ‘Let’s go home.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jerusha refused to sit in the wagon bed with her siblings. Instead, she sat on the front seat next to her father. Although she was no longer weeping uncontrollably, her body still quivered with hiccups and every now and then she sniffled. When Rees reached out an arm to pull her close she stiffened slightly and then relaxed against him. She was, he thought, still just a little girl.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Those boys were waiting for me outside,’ Jerusha said, her voice hoarse with tears.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ he said, trying to speak gently. Something was not right. ‘That can’t be the entire story.’

  Jerusha stiffened once again and then all the air went out of her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Babette and I quarreled again. I-I slapped her,’ she admitted.

  He nodded, not quite sure what he should say. ‘I understand why,’ he said at last. ‘But you shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘But why not? If Simon were here …’ She broke down into sobs once again. Rees knew he was in over his head. This time he kept silent.

  By the time Rees reached the farm Constable Rouge was already there, sitting at the table and eating eggs. ‘Oh no,’ Lydia cried when she saw the wet and muddy state of Jerusha’s clothing.

  ‘Babette’s brother,’ Rees explained, pushing the children to his wife. ‘We’ll talk about this later.’

  Lydia’s mouth tightened and she nodded. Her nod seemed more of a threat than agreement but she changed the subject. ‘Constable Rouge just finished telling me about your visit to Morton’s shop on Gray Hill,’ she said. ‘And Mr Wootten’s daughter.’

  ‘I think she ran away to Zion,’ Rees said.

  ‘That would explain why Mr Wootten and Jake were both seen in Zion,’ she said, her forehead puckering.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Once they knew Pearl was there, they went after her.’

  Lydia turned around to Jerusha. ‘Change your clothes, my dear. We’ll speak about the school later this evening. But now I must ask you to watch the babies for me while I accompany your father to Zion.’

  ‘Do you think this is wise?’ Rees asked in a low voice, pulling his wife to one side.

  ‘Jake and his brother know Hortense is no longer with us,’ she said. She turned to her daughter. ‘You understand how important this is, don’t you?’ she asked.

  Jerusha nodded. ‘Of course. I can do this.’ She squared her shoulders.

  ‘But I don’t want any of you to go outside,’ Lydia added. The girl nodded, her expression serious.

  Rees was surprised to see how his daughter pulled herself together to handle this responsibility. Was it because watching the younger children was familiar? Or was it because she wanted to prove to herself she was strong and capable and that she could be trusted to care for her younger siblings? Whatever the explanation, he was very pleased.

  While Jerusha ran upstairs to change into dry clothing, Lydia collected her own cloak. As soon as the girl returned to the kitchen, in a clean dress and with her face and hands freshly washed, Lydia nodded to Rees and went through the door.

  ‘What happened to the girl?’ Rouge asked as they crossed the yard. ‘She was muddy.’

  ‘She is being bullied by one of the other girls in school,’ Rees said. ‘I arrived just as Babette’s brother and his friend were pushing her into a puddle.’

  Rouge nodded slowly. ‘Do you think it wise to leave her alone here?’ he asked, darting a sideways glance at Lydia. ‘Maybe her mother should remain here.’

  Of course, Rees thought. The constable always demonstrated discomfort and a certain suspicion in the presence of Rees’s outspoken and capable wife.

  ‘Jerusha needs to feel not only useful but competent,’ Lydia said. Her stiff tone told Rees that she understood what was really behind Rouge’s question but preferred to reply only to the spoken words. ‘Being put in charge of her younger brothers and sisters will help her recover her confidence.’ She turned to look at Rees. ‘But we will have to find a more permanent solution.’

  ‘I know. We can’t have her coming home every day in dirty clothing.’

  ‘Besides, she no longer wants to attend school.’ Lydia’s forehead wrinkled. ‘I confess I am not quite sure what we should do.’

  Rees nodded. He wavered between allowing his daughter to stay home – God knew Lydia needed the help – and insisting Jerusha remain in school. He couldn’t help remembering how excited she’d been at learning to read.

  ‘But for now, tell me why we are returning to Zion to speak to Pearl?’ Lydia’s question broke into Rees’s thoughts.

  He assisted her into the wagon. ‘I think she may be Josiah Wootten’s daughter,’ he said. He patted his horse. Poor Hannibal was shivering in the cold; Rees had forgotten to throw the blanket over the gelding and then had remained inside far longer than he intended. ‘At the very least, I’m certain she knows something.’

  ‘I, for one, would not blame her for running away,’ Lydia said.

  ‘I don’t,’ Rees agreed. ‘But her father is searching for her. That’s why he went down to Zion in the first place – to look for her. And then he saw Hortense …’ Lydia shook her head.

  ‘Perhaps …’ Her voice trailed away. Rees looked at her curiously. But before he could ask what worried her Rouge spoke.

  ‘Enough talking,’ he said, kicking his horse. ‘Let’s go,’

  During the summer the Shaker Brothers tended the fields and their livestock. But with the beginning of the cold weather, they went inside, devoting more time to making the brooms, whips, boxes and baskets they sold to the World. Rees found Brother Jonathan in the wood shop. When Jonathan looked up and saw not only Rees but also Lydia and Constable Rouge behind him, the Brother’s expression changed from mild surprise to alarm.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong now?’

  ‘Nothing serious,’ Rees said quickly. ‘But we must speak to Sister Pearl again.’

  Brother Jonathan regarded first Rees and then Rouge. ‘Why?’

  The constable looked at Rees.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he said cautiously, ‘that Pearl knows more about the Wootten family than she has confessed to us. If so, we need to know it.’

  Jonathan put down his tools. ‘Very well. Wait here. Allow me to find Sister Esther. She’ll know.’ When he went outside he shut the door even though it was almost as cold inside as out.

  A few minutes later Jonathan returned with Esther behind him. She smiled at both Rees and Lydia. ‘Brother Jonathan says you are looking for Sister Pearl?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rees said.

  ‘She should be in the laundry today. Follow me, please.’

  Rees and his two companions followed the Shaker Sister down the main road to the little bridge. The traffic on the main road had trampled the snow flat and the warm sun had melted large patches down to the dirt. But when they crossed the stream and turned toward the laundry house the going became much more difficult. Here, in the shadow of the trees, the snow had not melted and in some places the drifts lay knee deep. Rees extended his arm to Lydia.

  The smell of wet cloth penetrated the tree break surrounding the shed, reaching all the way to the bridge over the stream. And, when Rees and his companions broke out of the trees, they saw that despite the snow all the branches and bushes were festooned with sheets. Esther went directly to the laundry and opened the door. She turned back and gestured impatiently.

  It was almos
t impossible to walk inside the small structure. The space was crowded with racks, all draped with damp body linen drying in the heat from a fire blazing in the fireplace. A line of irons marched across the brick hearth.

  One of the older Sisters came forward to greet them, her brows lifted. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘We’re looking for Sister Pearl,’ Esther said.

  ‘Oh, she never came today,’ the Sister said.

  ‘Never came?’ Esther repeated, her voice lifting in a question. ‘But where is she?’

  The other Sister smiled slightly. ‘I don’t know. I certainly did not think much of her absence. Pearl dislikes the laundry and escapes the work as much as she can. This is not the first time she did not arrive for her chore.’ Rouge’s sudden gust of knowing laughter attracted everyone’s disapproving attention. When Rees frowned at the constable he shrugged, grinning. He clearly assumed he understood everything now. ‘I planned to discuss this problem with you; Pearl’s behavior exhibits serious disobedience,’ the Sister continued.

  ‘But she was here yesterday?’ Esther asked.

  The laundry Sister nodded. ‘Yes. But she might as well not have been. I caught her staring into space, lost in a daydream, several times.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lydia said, moving forward. ‘Do you think she was daydreaming? Or was it possible she had something on her mind?’

  The Sister offered Lydia a cold smile. ‘Does it matter? She was not working. “Hearts to God, hands to work.” Pearl has great difficulty with the second half of that lesson.’

  ‘Who might know where she’s gone?’ Rees asked.

  The Sister hesitated. ‘Glory might,’ she said finally. ‘They share a room.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rees said with a nod. ‘The girls are friends.’

  ‘Everyone here is both friend and family,’ replied the Shaker in a repressive tone.

  ‘Thank you,’ Esther said, with a quick glance at Rees. ‘Is she here? Or assigned elsewhere?’

  ‘Here. She arrived first this morning with a cartful of laundry.’ The Sister nodded approvingly. ‘She is a hard worker and will make an excellent Shaker someday.’

  As she stepped away and disappeared in the direction of the large tub, Rees experienced a flashback to his arrival in Zion last year. When he had come to this building he’d found a body floating in the washtub. He shuddered involuntarily.

  Both Esther and Lydia glanced at him. ‘I’ll fetch her,’ Esther said.

  While she went in search of Glory, Rees and Lydia stepped outside. Rees took in a deep lungful of the cold air; it had been almost too warm inside.

  Footsteps thudded on the stone inside. Rees looked up as Esther and her charge stepped outside. Glory, her mouth turned down with reluctance, glanced at Rees and then quickly turned her gaze to her clasped hands.

  Although Esther, an escaped slave who had found a refuge in Zion, was not a small woman, Glory was still several inches taller and probably a stone heavier. ‘I told Sister,’ Glory said, ‘that I haven’t seen Pearl since breakfast.’

  ‘But you share a room?’ Lydia asked.

  Glory nodded. ‘Usually we walk together to the Dining Hall but we didn’t today.’

  ‘Why not?’ Rees asked.

  ‘She left early. She said she had someone she had to speak to.’ Glory raised her eyes from her hands and met Rees’s gaze. ‘She did that sometimes.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She paused but burst into speech once again when the three pairs of eyes trained upon her did not waver. ‘I thought it might be one of the Brothers.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Rouge said loudly.

  ‘You walked to breakfast alone?’ Lydia asked Glory, ignoring the constable.

  ‘No. I met some of the other Sisters and walked with them,’ the girl replied.

  ‘Did you see Pearl at breakfast?’ Rees asked.

  Glory bit her lip. ‘I’m not sure. I think so. But she wasn’t at my table. And we are not supposed to allow worldly concerns to distract us.’

  ‘Just so,’ Rees said, put off by the girl’s pious tone.

  ‘Where would Pearl go?’ Lydia asked. ‘I mean, if she wanted to be alone?’

  Glory shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We weren’t really friends. We’re not supposed to have special friends,’ she added virtuously.

  Rees wondered if Glory made these solemn pronouncements because of Esther’s presence or if she really believed them.

  ‘So, after breakfast?’ Lydia prompted.

  ‘I went to the laundry shed,’ Glory said. ‘I’m assigned to laundry this week.’

  Esther turned to Rees and Lydia and nodded slightly.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rees said.

  ‘Go back to your work,’ Esther said. As she watched the young Sister run back inside, the Eldress said, ‘She doesn’t know anything. She’s been here all morning.’

  ‘So where is Pearl?’ Lydia said.

  ‘Probably keeping some young man warm,’ Rouge said. When three pairs of disapproving eyes turned to him he shrugged.

  ‘We’d better find the girl, and soon,’ Rees said, a hollowness forming in the pit of his stomach. He recalled only too clearly his search for another missing girl last year here in Zion. He had found her alive, that was true, but he still had nightmares of finding her dead.

  ‘Before we believe the worst,’ Lydia said, putting her hand on her husband’s arm, ‘maybe we should search her room?’ Esther nodded in agreement.

  ‘I’ll meet you back here,’ Rees said.

  While the two women crossed the hall, Rouge and Rees went outside. They crossed the road and went up the steep hill by the smithy. Rees’s ankle began to ache as he struggled up the steep incline. He began to slow down. Rouge reached out to grasp Rees’s arm and draw him up the hill.

  The cottage in which Lydia had been living when he had first met her appeared even more dilapidated than it had a year previously. With the winter’s frost, all the flowers that had filled the front yard were dead, the tall stalks brown and dry and crackling in the breeze. Rees went up the flagstone walk. The door, swollen with the recent snows, was even more difficult to open than before. Rouge joined Rees in throwing their combined weight against the wooden panel. It finally exploded inward, the door jamb shattering from the stress.

  Inside, except for the sound of dripping water all was silent. Even the swarm of bees was gone, although Rees suspected they had found a home nearby. When he peered into the small room to the side he found the source of the dripping water: the roof was no longer whole and melting snow came through the ceiling in one slow drip after another.

  Of Pearl there was no sign.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Both men left the sad abandoned cottage and started down the hill to the village. Although only mid-afternoon, the sun and the temperature were already dropping. Shadows stretched across Zion’s main street. Soon it would be dark.

  As the men joined Esther and Lydia in front of the Dwelling House, Rees asked, ‘Find anything?’

  ‘Pearl’s second dress and her cloak are gone,’ Esther said.

  ‘Do you think she’s run away?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe—’ Esther began but Lydia cut her off.

  ‘No.’ Lydia shook her head, her cheeks flushed with the cold. ‘I looked under the mattress and found these.’ She held up a small bag.

  ‘The girls aren’t supposed to own possessions other than their clothing,’ Esther said. ‘When people join they contribute everything they own to the community.’ Rees nodded. Pearl would have been expected to do the same. Yet, somehow, she had managed to hang on to her treasures.

  ‘But the young girls try to keep the things they cherish,’ Lydia said. ‘And they hide their belongings wherever they can.’ Rees took the cloth sack from his wife and spilled the items into his palm. A necklace of carved wooden beads, earbobs inset with red stones and a small Bible comprised the sum of Pearl’s few possessions. Lydia fingered the wooden beads and
then held the earrings up to the light. ‘These are not glass,’ she said. ‘They are true gems; rubies, I think.’

  Rouge leaned over Rees’s shoulder for a better look. ‘Mon Dieu, they look expensive.’

  ‘Pearl had them when she came to us,’ Esther said, eyeing the earbobs.

  ‘So why didn’t she take them with her?’ Rees said.

  But Lydia’s attention had shifted to the necklace of wooden beads.

  ‘I expect she is meeting a boy,’ she said, holding it up by one bead.

  Esther stared at it. ‘I’ve seen that previously,’ she said, her forehead wrinkling. ‘I just don’t remember where.’

  Rees inspected the necklace as well. He knew he had never seen it but still he felt a tickle of familiarity.

  ‘This is a simple thing,’ Lydia said, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Not worth anything, not like the earrings. They are valuable.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter right now,’ Rees said. He could see the conversation going off at a tangent. ‘Where is Pearl? She can answer all of these riddles for us.’

  ‘Probably no longer in Zion,’ Esther said.

  ‘We can’t be sure of that,’ he said. ‘If she is still here – and caught outside …’ His voice broke and he started again. ‘We must find her. It’s already growing dark.’ And it was already cold. Once the sun set any creature caught outside could freeze to death.

  Spurred on by the urgency in his voice, Esther collected several Brothers as well as a group of Sisters. While the men searched the barns, the orchards, the hired men’s quarters and everything else outside, the Sisters scoured the Dwelling House, the School, the kitchen and all the outbuildings including the Weaver’s House and the laundry.

  By the time the searchers began returning to the center of the village, it was almost too dark to see. ‘The girl is gone,’ Esther said, as the searchers began drifting away to finish chores and prepare for supper. ‘She’s probably in Falmouth by now,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘I pray that is true,’ Lydia said, her brow furrowing. ‘But did she run away? Or was she taken? Surely if she’d chosen to leave she would have collected her bag of treasures.’