The Gifted (35 page)

Then my sorrow increased because I knew she was not going to listen, but I pushed the truth toward her of how sin would separate her from the Lord and from us here, her beloved sisters and brothers. From me.

Our former sister’s voice was very soft as she said she did love me, but that her heart desired a different kind of love. I knew she did not only mean the love of her worldly father. So I closed my eyes and let my heart pray for her then. Without words, for I knew not what words would be acceptable. I have lived in the world, but I have never known the sort of love her heart was seeking. That love that brings strife and conflict.

This night I must confess there is conflict in my heart as I sorrow her leaving. Eldress Frieda is right. I sinned to allow our former sister to take up such a large place of residence in my heart. I sinned.

I must remember Mother Ann’s instructions to labor to make the way of God my own. Let that be my inheritance, my treasure, my occupation, my daily calling.

On the morrow I will return to weaving bonnets. On the morrow I will work with my hands and honor God with my labor. I will look toward the day of meeting and the joy of exercising the songs. I will whirl the sin from my heart and seek the way of God. And I will pray in my heart that all my sisters do the same. Especially my former sister whom I loved too much.

22

They went to the town first. Jessamine knew about towns and cities. Her granny had told her stories of exotic sounding cities across the ocean. Places where real princes lived. At the Shaker village, she’d seen maps in the schoolroom and had imagined how the towns indicated by those black dots might look. But since she had come straight from her granny’s woods to the Shaker village, she had never actually been in a town.

One could encounter evil in towns. She did know that much, for it took much work and vigilance to keep Satan from the borders at Harmony Hill. So there was little doubt the old devil slipped around undetected in the towns, lying in wait for the unguarded.

That’s how Jessamine felt as they rode into the town of Harrodsburg. Unguarded. Exposed to whatever evil might be lurking in the shadows. She thought it might be best if she kept her eyes downcast as she sat silent by her father, but she could not. Instead she grasped the edge of the carriage seat and leaned forward to take in every new sight. She eagerly read the signs on the stores crowded side by side close to the street. She had never thought to imagine the stores without yards like those surrounding their buildings in the village.

And the people. She could hardly believe what she saw. Men stood talking together or taking their ease on benches along the street as if they had no duties for the day. The women appeared to move with more purpose as they went in and out of the stores. Some wore bonnets but others had on jaunty hats. A few had no head covering at all. Their full skirts of figured material were held out in sweeping circles with what had to be an overabundance of petticoats. Most surprising of all, some of the men and women walked side by side with the men’s hands under the women’s elbow. Touching. Comfortable. With no sign of worry that sin might overtake them for practicing such familiarity.

Jessamine reminded herself she was no longer in Harmony Hill. If nothing else proved that, the commotion in the street did. In Harmony Hill there was noise, of a surety, but it was the sound of commerce. Tasks being done. Hammers pounding. Brooms sweeping. Kettles rattling. Oxen yokes creaking. At Harmony Hill she would never hear shouts for no cause other than to yell a greeting to someone across the street or see dogs barking at the carriage wheels.

“If you could only see your face, Jessamine. I don’t believe your eyes can get any wider.” Her father smiled over at her.

She sat back and lowered her gaze. He would think she had no knowledge of proper behavior. “Forgive me. I suppose I am too eager, but I have never before seen a town. At least none other than our Shaker village town.”

He touched her arms softly. “Please, look. I am enjoying seeing the town afresh through your eyes. Although I can’t imagine there’s much to see in this little burg. Wait until you see the likes of New York City.”

“Do you have a house there? Or here?” She had not once considered where they might live. She had simply taken her father’s hand and trusted him to show her the world.

“I have no house anywhere, but never fear, there are many places where a man and his daughter might reside,” he said. “Places, I daresay, more accommodating than that where you have spent the last decade of your life. The eldress told me a preacher brought you to them when you were less than ten years old.”

“He thought it best. He promised they would be good to me. And that I could go to school. Granny had taught me to read and write already, but he said there were many other things to learn. Things I could not learn living alone in the woods the way I wanted to do. I didn’t want to leave Granny.”

“But the eldress said Granny had passed on before you came to them.” He frowned a little as he looked toward her.

“Yea, but I thought to tend her grave. I was very young and had little understanding of what it took to live, but the old preacher told me I couldn’t stay in the woods. He was sorry for me, but he said winter would come and the snows and I would freeze or starve.” She breathed out a small sigh. “I know now he was surely right. The Shakers took me in as a sister and did all the preacher promised they would do. I missed Granny and my trees, but the Shakers were exceedingly kind to me. They showed me much love.”

Her heart still hurt at the sight of Sister Sophrena’s tears when they spoke words in farewell. She understood her sister’s worry. She shared some of that worry about the world. But how could she not go with her father? It seemed meant to be. First the letter and then him appearing in front of her eyes. Nay, more than appearing. Holding his arms out to her. Claiming her as his daughter. To Sister Sophrena, to the Believers, that was a worldly feeling to be shunned. But to her, it was a gift straight from the Lord in answer to prayers she hadn’t even known to pray.

“Are you regretting your decision to come away with me?” He sounded concerned.

“Nay.” She looked up at him. “I have ever wondered about the world. It has been a thorn in the flesh of dear Sister Sophrena for many years. My wondering and imagining about things I did not know. And in truth, I have fallen from grace among them many times. No times as badly as the last few days.” She blinked to keep back tears. “Now I suppose I have fallen forever from their graces.”

“If they truly care for you, they won’t stop loving you simply because you are no longer one of their group.”

She didn’t answer because that would be exactly what happened. They, or at least Sister Sophrena and perhaps Sister Annie, might not stop caring about her, but they would consider her completely lost with no hope for redemption. They would not talk about her except to mourn her choice. Unless she turned from the world and went back among them. Sister Sophrena had held out that possibility to Jessamine.

“You can return, my sister. We will be here for you now as we were when you were but a child,” she had whispered into Jessamine’s ear.

Her father’s voice brought her back to the present. “This looks to be the place.”

He stopped the carriage in front of a house with a small sign in the window advertising dressmaking. When her father climbed down from the carriage, she had to grab the seat as the carriage bounced down and then leveled again. She had imagined riding in a carriage, but she had never imagined such bounces.

So much she didn’t know. All at once she wanted to ask a dozen questions about where they would live and how long it would take to get there and why hadn’t he come before. She bit the inside of her lip and held the questions in.

After he tied the horse to a hitching post in front of the house, he held his hand up to her. “Come, my daughter. You can’t go to White Oak Springs in a Shaker frock.”

White Oak Springs. The place she had been so curious about the day she and Sister Annie were in the woods. The day they had heard the gunfire and found the stranger. Could he really be taking her there? And would Tristan Cooper be there? And what about Sister Abigail? It all seemed too impossible to believe. Perhaps she was merely dreaming it all.

She took a deep breath and smelled the horse’s lather. She felt her father’s hand holding hers. A man’s hand in hers. Strong and capable but with slender fingers that did not show the calluses of labor she’d noted on the hands of her Shaker brothers when they held them up during the exercising of the dances. Of course, she’d never touched them. But she was touching her father’s hand now. She was not dreaming. Her father was real.

He smiled at her as she climbed down out of the carriage. She had yet to call him by any name. She feared Father would sit oddly on her tongue even though she had welcomed him as such the moment he spoke her name at the Trustee’s House. Nor did it seem right to speak aloud the name the eldress had used. Mr. Brady. All her life, she had thought of her father as the prince who loved her mother. The name her granny gave him. Jessamine could hardly call him that without him thinking the Believers had bent her mind in some unusual way when actually, it was her own unusual bending Sister Sophrena had done her best to unbend.

Edwina Browning met them at the door and ushered them into the house with quick movements that belied the thickness of her waist. Garments hung all about the walls in varying stages of completion. So many wonderful colors that Jessamine felt she was standing in the midst of a rainbow while her father talked to the woman about what she needed.

The woman eyed Jessamine and took in her dress and apron. “So you got smart enough to shake loose from those Shakers.” She laughed, pleased with her own wit.

Jessamine’s lips turned up in an uncertain smile that brought even more amusement to the woman’s eyes.

“A real innocent, aren’t you, dearie?” the woman said. “How long you been out there with those people?”

“Ten years,” Jessamine said.

“Way too long. Time to shed that bonnet.” She reached up and jerked off Jessamine’s cap. “Look at that hair and those eyes. I’ve got the very piece of goods to make a fine dress that will get you plenty of notice. You’ll catch a man quick as anything.”

“That is not one of my concerns.” Jessamine shot a look toward her father who had backed up to stand near the door as if needing an avenue of escape from so many articles of feminine clothing.

His smile was sympathetic, but he didn’t appear upset by the woman’s words. Perhaps in the world, such talk was common.

The woman tapped a fingertip covered with a silver thimble on Jessamine’s cheek. “Your mouth says one thing, but I’m thinking those eyes will be saying something else soon enough. Especially after the gentlemen at the Springs see you in that dress I’ve got in mind to fashion for you. The midseason ball will be next week, but it could be I might be able to work it up in time. For a price.” Mrs. Browning shot a look over at Jessamine’s father.

“Any price for my daughter,” he said. “But she needs some things ready to wear now. Perhaps two or three day frocks as well as something for the evening.”

She narrowed her eyes on Jessamine again as she pursed her lips. Then without asking permission, she circled her hands around Jessamine’s waist. “This slender with no corset. I should be so fortunate.” She looked straight at Jessamine. “Do you ever wear a corset?”

Jessamine blushed. She knew a corset was an undergarment. She’d heard some of the sisters speak of their torture, as they told of how to be a true lady in the world, one had to wear the undergarment laced so tightly it was hard to draw breath.

“Nay.” She stared down at the floor. Surely even in the world it wasn’t proper to speak of underclothing with a man present.

The woman laughed and so did her father but with no sound of meanness. “Mrs. Browning, you’re embarrassing my daughter. She is not very acquainted with the ways of the world, so I must ask you to be gentle with her.”

“Right enough, sir. I’ll watch my tongue.” Mrs. Browning peered over at him. “Why don’t you leave us alone to do the fittings? Me and your Jessamine will get along just fine.”

He pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. “Very well. I’ll trust her to you then while I see to my horse.” He stopped and looked back before going out the door. “I’ll pay double your price for anything she can carry away with her today.”

After the door shut behind him, Mrs. Browning said, “Now aren’t you the lucky one to have such a generous father? But how does it happen you were with those Shakers if that is true?”

“He knew not where I was,” Jessamine said.

“Well, that I can understand. Those people hide away their women out there like as how they’re doing something they’re fearing regular folk to know about. Is that true? I mean, I’ve heard all manner of tales. For instance, do those old preacher men call on a different girl every night for their entertainment?” The woman winked at her. “If you know what I mean.”