Sins of a Shaker Summer (23 page)

Andrew raised his eyebrows a fraction—just enough to convey skepticism. Rose tightened her lips in a grim line.
She had told only part of the truth, and he seemed to know it, but she would risk no more. No matter how innocent he appeared.

“If Gertrude is your only worry,” Andrew said, “then there is no reason not to let me help you by taking a look at the herb jelly. If something from our shop got into it, either Benjamin or I might be able to identify it. Would you be more comfortable having Benjamin do it? Or perhaps both of us?”

“I'd prefer to keep everything as quiet as possible. Since you already know about Gertrude, I'll ask you to examine the jelly yourself, with me there.”

“Good, then how about now? There's an unused room in the Trustees' Office where I do some additional research when I have trouble sleeping. We can be free from prying eyes and ears there.”

“I'll get the jelly and meet you in your office in ten minutes.” Rose turned to go toward the Center Family Dwelling House kitchen and saw a familiar figure with white hair, standing just outside the Ministry House, looking in her direction. As she stared back, Wilhelm pivoted back toward the front door.

“Have a seat, and I'll see if I can do this quickly,” Andrew said, reaching to lift a ladder-back chair from some wall pegs. He placed the chair right next to his at the worktable, and Rose pulled it farther away. With careful movements, as if the jelly's secret might escape, he unscrewed the jar lid. He leaned over and sniffed the contents. A quick frown creased his face.

“Peppermint,” he said. “And something else.”

“What mixtures do you all make with peppermint in them?” Rose asked.

“Quite a few. We use peppermint to mask bitterness or an unpleasant odor which might discourage people from taking the medicine, especially if it's an infusion or in powder form.”

Andrew poured a small glob of jelly onto a flat plate and spread it around with something that looked like a wide wooden butter knife. He sniffed again and shook his head. Keeping his face close to the plate, he reached out for a magnifying glass, which he slid in front of his eyes.

“There's definitely something else in here,” he said. “Some of the herbs were thrown in without being crumbled, and presumably after the cooking was completed. There are some larger bits that I might be able to identify if I can rinse off the jelly. I think I even see what might be pieces of flower petals. I'd like to hold on to this for a while.”

When Rose hesitated, Andrew lifted his gaze to her face. “What is it, Rose? You still don't quite trust me, do you? Why?”

Might as well tackle the topic now, Rose thought. “I spoke with Sister Lilian at Mount Lebanon a little while ago.”

Andrew blinked several times but otherwise showed no reaction. “And?” he asked.

“And I'm well aware that I'm repeating gossip, but there are some issues you and I need to discuss.”

“I see. Such as . . . ?”

“Such as your relationship with Patience.”

Andrew laughed. “My relationship with Patience. Strained, I would have to say. Why? Do you suspect me of having something to do with her death? Wasn't it an accident?”

“That was the deputy's conclusion. But I was referring more specifically to Lilian's comment that some Mount Lebanon Believers thought there might be a special relationship between you and Patience.”

“And did Lilian offer any evidence to support the rumor?”

“Nay, she did not,” Rose admitted. “She sounded as if she did not believe it herself.”

“Because it is unfounded. Patience was creative with
herbal cures, and I respected her for that, but she and I could not even be called friends. What else are you wondering about me?”

“I'm wondering how your family died.”

Pain seared across his face, and Rose instinctively reached out, then pulled her hand back in the same movement. “I'm so sorry, Andrew, that was brutal of me, blurting it out like that. Please forgive me.”

“You have a right to ask,” Andrew said. “And if it will help you trust me, I will tell you anything you wish to know. As for my wife and sons, there was nothing mysterious about their deaths; only unnecessary. I know the rumors—that I used my pharmaceutical knowledge to poison them, either because I could no longer support them, or I'd gone crazy after losing my job, or, according to my less charitable neighbors, because I wanted to be free of them so I could start over. None of it was true.

“I was desperate to keep them alive and healthy. But when my job disappeared, I hadn't been paid for two months. I'd kept working, hoping things would turn around. We used up what little savings we had, and we had no other family to turn to. We were running out of food. Inevitably, Vera and the boys all got colds. I'd saved some herbs and other items from the drugstore, so I made up cough syrups and poultices and anything else I could think of, but it wasn't enough. By the time I'd begged a doctor to make a charity visit, they all had pneumonia. They died within days of each other.” Andrew began straightening the tins and apothecary jars on the worktable as if neatness helped him make sense of his tragedy.

“I buried them,” he continued softly, “and then I really did go crazy for a while. I wandered the streets for days, barely knowing who I was, or caring. That's probably how the rumors started. More than once I blamed myself for not saving my family. To some it looked like I had a guilty conscience. But it was only grief.”

For the first time since putting her signature on the covenant,
Rose deliberately broke one of the Society's rules; she reached over and lightly touched Andrew's hand as he stacked one herb tin on top of another. “I'm so very sorry,” she said. Andrew's hand twitched as if she'd applied an electrical current. He raised his eyes to hers. She withdrew her hand, but not so quickly that she might insult him or take back her expression of sympathy.

“Thank you, Rose.”

Rose nodded, but he had already busied himself with tidying the worktable. “You may keep the jelly as long as you need to,” she said. After a few moments of silence, she turned to leave.

“You know, there is much I love about being a Shaker,” Andrew said. Rose stopped but kept her back to him. “But I do miss the kindness of a woman's touch.”

Rose closed her eyes. She sent herself deep into her own breath and watched it flow in and out of her lungs. It kept her still, which was her prayer.

“I will let you know what I find, if anything, in the herbal jelly,” Andrew said, with a casualness that sounded forced.

“Thank you,” Rose said, and she left.

TWENTY-ONE

I
N NEED OF QUIET
, R
OSE HAD JOINED THE FAMILY IN THE
dwelling house dining room for evening meal. She avoided glancing toward the brethren for fear of catching Andrew's eye. Instead, she ate slowly and prayed silently. She longed for the privacy of her retiring room. She reminded herself that one hundred years earlier, she would have had no privacy, even in her room. Privacy meant decline, so she supposed she was wrong to value it. Still, the yearning grew stronger as she piled her utensils and napkin on her empty plate.

But privacy would have to wait. Wilhelm caught up to her as she walked back toward the Ministry House.

“To bed so soon?” he asked. “I haven't noticed thee laboring in the fields. What is tiring thee so?”

“Is there something you wished to say to me, Wilhelm?” She did not turn her head to look at him, but she could sense his jaw tightening.

“The purging ceremony,” he said.

“What about it?”

“There has been a change of plans.”

“Oh?” She didn't dare hope he had decided to cancel or postpone it.

“I no longer wish for your confession to come first,” Wilhelm said. “Andrew will go first.”

Rose did not trust herself to speak.

“I'm sure his confession will be of great interest to thee.” Rose could hear the smirk in his voice. “In fact, it may serve as a model for thy own confession.”

As they approached the Ministry House, they split to enter through the separate doors. Rose hurried up her staircase to her second-floor retiring room without daring to glance back at Wilhelm.

Rose sat at her open window far into the night. She stared at the summer stars, imagined she saw Mother Ann's face among them, and prayed to her. Her emotions were in a jumble. She knew she had some serious thinking to do, but there wasn't time. Either Andrew had confessed already to Wilhelm about their touch, or the elder had guessed enough to order Andrew to confess publicly. Either way, the danger was great for both of them. Their sins were tiny, but much more would be assumed, and they might both lose their positions in the Society.

She could give up being eldress, she told herself, but she wouldn't let Andrew be humiliated because of her. She had touched his hand, not the other way around. Wilhelm was willing to use one of the brethren as a pawn to force Rose to step down; that was all this was about.

Well, she wouldn't let him. However, she had only one idea for stopping him, and she had no guarantee that it would work. As it was, if she refused to participate, or to let the sisters participate, in the purging, she would never overcome the suspicions. Even dead, Patience now had more respect than Rose. She could see only one way. She had to determine how Patience and Hugo died, even if it meant more danger of embarrassment—or worse—for Andrew. If she could show that Patience did not die a martyr and an offering for North Homage's sins, the purging need not take place. If Hugo's death was natural and Patience's nothing more sinister than a tragic accident, so much the better. They could all go back to their quiet lives.

Her decision made, Rose began to droop in her rocking
chair. She had very little time to accomplish her task, and she would need rest. As if she didn't have enough to confess already, she flung her work dress over the back of a chair, instead of hanging it on a wall peg, and she fell into bed without bothering with a nightgown.

The enforced silence at breakfast was grating on Gennie's nerves. Rose hadn't shown up, and everyone seemed nervous. She knew about the impending purging, of course, and had never been so glad that she had decided to leave the Society for life in the world. In the world, she could keep her secrets. Not that she had any in the world; for her, secrets began to collect, it seemed, only when she returned to North Homage.

Gennie wanted something to do, something helpful for Rose. She couldn't return to the Medicinal Herb Shop, and Irene wouldn't welcome her back to the Herb House. What was left? She racked her brain until finally the sisters, almost as a body, stood to leave the dining room single file. As she reached the women's entrance, Gennie glanced over at the brethren and noticed Willy Robinson step through the men's door. Of course, she thought, she could talk to him all she wanted, since neither of them was a Believer.

Rose had told her Willy's story. If he went to work in the medic garden outside the shop, perhaps she could engage him in conversation and fill in a few blanks about his past and his reasons for being in North Homage. Beyond that, she had no plan as she ambled through the kitchen garden, casually following Willy to the Medicinal Herb Shop. As she'd hoped, he walked past the entrance and into the surrounding herb garden.

Forcing herself not to look eager, Gennie zigzagged through the kitchen garden, stopping now and then to bend over a squash or peer at a bean. She walked to the northern tip of the garden, which brought her nearly to the herb fields. Then she cut through the grass around the back of the Medicinal Herb Shop, so no one inside could see her.

By the time she approached the herb garden on the east side of the Medicinal Herb Shop, Willy was on his hands and knees, pulling tiny weeds from around a flourishing sage plant. Gennie paused and watched him for a few moments. He bent close to each weed and pulled carefully, tamping down the dirt afterward. Stringy pale brown hair hung over his face, nearly covering it. She had stood for several seconds before she realized that he had raised his eyes and was staring up at her.

Gennie flashed a smile to hide her embarrassment and picked her way over neat rows of herbs to join him. He straightened as she approached, his head sunk into his shoulders as if he expected to be disciplined.

“Hello, Willy, I'm Gennie.” She extended her hand, and he stared at it, then at her dress, his head sinking another inch. “I'm not a Shaker sister,” she assured him. “I'm a hired hand, like you. Don't you remember seeing me in the shop, helping Patience?”

“You ain't a sister?”

“Nope,” she said, purposely using worldly language. She was beginning to feel awkward with her hand stuck out, when Willy suddenly grinned and grasped it. His grip was powerful, and Gennie winced. Willy let go immediately.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Don't usually shake hands with a girl.”

“No harm done. Are you weeding?” Using her long skirt as a cushion, Gennie knelt beside the sage plant Willy had been tending. It was so much easier not to worry about keeping a proper distance.

“Do you enjoy this work?”

Willy nodded and bent again over the ground.

“You have a special feeling for herbs, don't you? I mean, I can tell by how careful you are not to disturb the roots. I love herbs, too, so it's nice to see them so well cared for.”

She knew she was chattering, but she hoped to slide into
her real questions more easily once she'd lulled him into a sense of comfortable conversation. She needn't have worried. He glanced up at her and smiled shyly. Encouraged, she slid a few inches closer and reached for a small blade of grass that had invaded the territory around the sage plant. Imitating the movements she'd seen Willy perform, she smoothed the soil after removing the interloper. Willy's smile widened.