The Innocent (17 page)

“The rains always come.” Sister Edna studied the western horizon for a moment. “Clouds can come quickly when storms approach.”

15

By the time Carlyn reached the garden, she had stopped shaking. She didn’t think she lacked courage. After all, she had faced down Curt Whitlow time and time again, but it had been a shock to come upon him in the village. Not on the main road as one might expect, but hidden back in among the buildings and talking of being the devil. Brother Henry had appeared to believe it could be true.

As much as Carlyn disliked Curt, she had never thought him the devil. Wicked. Sinful. But he also had weaknesses. His fear of Asher. She smiled a little, thinking of his bandaged arm and then felt ashamed.
Pray for those
who persecute you.
The Scripture poked her conscience. She forced herself to think a prayer for his arm to heal, but she felt as insincere as Sister Edna accused her of being.

“I am relieved to see you, Sister Carlyn.” Sister Berdine looked up when Carlyn joined her in the garden. “I was beginning to think Sister Edna might have thought of a penance for you worse than picking these beans.”

“I like working in the garden.” Carlyn bent down and began filling her basket.

“It’s all right for a few hours, but not all the livelong day, every day. My back is ready to break.” Sister Berdine blew out a breath as she knelt down. She didn’t even pretend to pick the beans. “Well, are you going to tell me why Sister Edna kept you so long?”

“She didn’t. After she pointed out my usual lackings, she told me to come back here. But somehow I went the wrong way.” Carlyn didn’t want to talk about Curt Whitlow or think about the odd conversation she’d heard. It was enough that she’d told Sister Edna. She had no desire for his name to cross her lips again. “The Shaker pathways are like a labyrinth.”

“And it is easier to wander around in the fall sunshine than to be forever bending over a bean plant.” Sister Berdine pulled off a couple of bean pods.

“Nay, I did not tarry of a purpose,” Carlyn insisted.

“Well, if you didn’t, you should have.” Sister Berdine dropped the beans in her basket, then stood to stretch her back. “Life is too short not to steal a few moments of joy now and again.”

“Do you know joy, Sister Berdine? Here in Harmony Hill?” Carlyn didn’t stop picking the bean pods, but she did slow her hands to keep from rattling the drying leaves so she could hear Sister Berdine’s answer.

“Yea. More than I expected.” Sister Berdine leaned down with her head close to Carlyn’s. “Much more than I expected. In spite of a certain sister who is continually harping on this or that.” Sister Berdine grinned over at Carlyn. “She seems even more ready to harp about your shortcomings than mine,
though my faults are just as glaring. Unless I miss my guess, she envies your pretty face.”

“You are not serious.” Carlyn shook her head. “That certain sister worries only about beauty of the spirit.”

“So she says, but I think there is more to that certain sister than she wants to reveal.”

“Isn’t that true for us all?”

“Perhaps for you, Sister Carlyn, but me, I am an open book.” Sister Berdine sighed. “A very boring book without a colorful cover.”

“Nay, nothing boring about you.” Carlyn laughed softly. “But did you know that sister you’re talking about was married when she came to the Shakers?”

Sister Berdine stopped picked beans and stared at Carlyn. “You jest.”

“That is what she seemed to tell me. She said she was older than I am now when she came into the village and left her other life behind.”

“Well, if she could find a man to marry with her sour face, perhaps I should not have given up so soon.” Sister Berdine riffled through the leaves looking for beans. “Then again, it could be I have come to the perfect place. There are many brothers here. Unattached and available.” She gave Carlyn a wicked smile.

“Brothers don’t look at their sisters with such thoughts.”

“Keep in mind, they are not really our brothers. Do you not note the brethren with their broad shoulders and strong arms?”

“I try to not look at the brothers at all.”

“You must be an unusual woman, my sister, but then you have already tasted the joys of matrimony,” Sister Berdine said.

“Or the sins of such, Sister Edna would say.”

“Did you think it sinful to be married?”

“Not at all. Ambrose and I were very happy before the war.”

“Do you think he will come back to you?” Sister Berdine peered over at Carlyn.

“I don’t know. Probably not.” Carlyn didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, she studied the bean pod in her hand as though searching for an answer there.

“How long has he been missing?” Sister Berdine sounded sympathetic.

“Two years.”

“That is a long time.” Sister Berdine smoothed out the bean pods in her basket.

“Yea. A very long time.”

“And in that time, have you never been tempted to look at another man with longing?”

“No, of course not.” Carlyn jerked her head up to stare at Sister Berdine. “That would not be proper.”

“Much happens that is not proper, dear sister.”

“But I loved Ambrose.” A shaft of sadness shot through her when she realized she’d spoken as if that love was in the past. She changed her words. “I do love him.”

Sister Berdine reached across the row to touch her hand. “Of course you do. But if he does not return from the war—and don’t you think he would have already if he were coming back to you—then you can open your heart to love another.”

Sheriff Brodie’s face popped into her mind. Carlyn looked down to hide the blush crawling up into her cheeks.

Sister Berdine bent low over the bean row to peer at
Carlyn’s face. “It is good to know you have the natural feelings a woman was created by the Lord to have.”

“The Shakers say such feelings are sinful.”

“Words are easy to say. Feelings are not as easy to deny, and I haven’t been convinced the Lord wants us to deny them.” She picked a few beans. “Besides, we both know we aren’t here because we have swallowed the Shaker idea of celibacy. We are here because we were penniless with no good way to change that. But perhaps you are considering a better way open to you and that is what colors your face.” She bent to look directly at Carlyn again with a questioning look.

“Nay, I have no other way. I am married still.”

“Odd to cling to the idea of being married here where such unions are condemned,” Sister Berdine murmured. “Although some of the sisters I’ve talked to seem quite content to have their husbands as brothers instead of bedmates now. They tell me the union of matrimony can get tedious as the years pass. That I would not know, but would not mind finding out.”

“I did not find marriage tedious.”

“Then it is no wonder that you might wish to return to that happiness.”

“That is not a choice open to me.” With only a second’s hesitation, she added, “Which I have not once considered.”

And she had not. While it was true she had thought of the sheriff often since she’d come to the Shaker village, that was simply because of his kindness in taking Asher. It was Asher that made her wonder about the sheriff. Asher she wished to see.

Can you not be truthful?
Sister Edna’s question echoed in her head. Perhaps the sister was right. She couldn’t even be truthful in her own thoughts. But that didn’t mean she was
going to be unfaithful to Ambrose. Not as long as she did not know whether he lived or died. She shut her eyes to pull up the memory of his face. He seemed more distant from her since she’d come into the Shaker village. But that had nothing to do with Sheriff Brodie. It had only to do with her giving up her former life and embracing a future without the love she’d known with Ambrose.

“Not once?” Sister Berdine didn’t wait for her to answer. “I think your face tells another story. Is it one of the brothers here that has attracted your eye?”

“Nay. I told you I’ve barely noticed the brothers here.”

“I am not so good. I notice everything. And there is this one brother I’ve noted who seems to let his eyes drift my way and linger there whenever we are in the same room.” Sister Berdine touched her bonnet. “I think he likes the way I look in my cap and apron.”

Carlyn couldn’t keep from smiling then, partly with relief that Sister Berdine was not probing for answers Carlyn did not know. “But do you like the way he looks in a Shaker hat?”

“I am not concerned with his hat. As long as he wears trousers I like the way he looks.”

Carlyn laughed. “Don’t you dare run away in the middle of the night with some brother without telling me.”

“Worry not. Should that happen, I’ll be asking you to pinch me to be sure I’m not dreaming.” Sister Berdine began stripping off the bean pods with quicker fingers. “But now we’d best be busy. That certain sister is giving us the eye. She does not look happy.”

“Have you ever seen her happy?” Carlyn bent to her task.

“Nay, but then I have only been here a few months.”

Carlyn hid her smile as she pulled the dried pods from
the bean vines. It was good to have Sister Berdine working beside her. Carlyn stood to move up the row. Other sisters were bent to the task of picking the beans. It was not a bad thing to be surrounded by sisters ready with smiles and helping hands. She let her eyes drift out to the road. Whatever Curt Whitlow was talking about with Brother Henry, he couldn’t touch her here. She was safe as long as she stayed among her sisters.

She looked toward the end of the garden expecting to see Sister Edna frowning at Carlyn for taking such a long pause from her labors, but instead she too was peering out toward the road, her hands in her lap while beans waited to be hulled in the basket beside her. Carlyn wondered what questions she might be pondering. It was strange thinking of Sister Edna as someone with her own worries and perhaps sorrows, instead of simply an impossible-to-please taskmaster. Perhaps Carlyn should try to think of her as a sister the same as Sister Berdine and the others around her.

But then Sister Edna turned her eyes back to the garden. When she saw Carlyn watching her, a frown darkened her face. Carlyn bent back to her task as the woman started up off the bench under the tree, no doubt ready to scold Carlyn’s lack of industry. She was not a sister easy to love.

One of her mother’s Scripture lessons came to Carlyn. Something about there being nothing special about loving those who loved you. The true test of Christian love was to offer love freely to those who were hard to love. She was surely being tested with Sister Edna.

By the time they finished the last row, dark ominous clouds lined the western horizon.

Perhaps Sister Edna was right. Clouds did always come
in life, and no matter how one hid, the storms still came. Thunder rumbled nearer while they were eating the evening meal, and when they went to the upper room to practice the worship songs and dances, lightning flashed eerie shadows on the wall.

Sister Edna had not yet allowed Carlyn to join in with the dances. A wrong step by a novitiate messed up everything, as the dances were often intricate patterns of back-and-forth movements with lines of the men and women passing each other but not touching.

Sister Berdine was sometimes allowed to participate, but this evening, she claimed a sore back and stood with the watchers. It was not the back that was her problem, but the storm raging outside. With each crack of thunder, she clutched Carlyn’s arm a bit tighter.

“Do they not hear that?” Sister Berdine’s eyes were wide. “We would be safer hidden under our bedcovers.”

Sister Edna stepped up beside them in time to hear her last words. “Worry not. You have no reason to be frightened. Mother Ann will watch over us as long as we are engaged in our proper duties.”

“Yea.” Sister Berdine waited until Sister Edna moved away to whisper. “But we would be safer in our beds.” She let out a little shriek when a crash of thunder shook the windows.

“She is right.” Carlyn patted her hand. “In here, we are safe from the storm.”

Sister Berdine gave her a wondering look. “Are you not afraid, Sister Carlyn?”

“Not of nature’s storms.” Carlyn watched the lightning flash outside the window and thought of Asher. “But the thunder bothered my dog. He was afraid of little else, but
storms made him tremble.” She hoped the sheriff was letting him sleep by his bed on this night and hadn’t fastened him somewhere out in the storm.

The thunder had let up by the time they went down to their retiring room, but Sister Berdine barely let her knees touch the floor for her night prayers before she was burrowing down in her bed. The Shaker beds were narrow with little softness, and Sister Edna insisted the proper Shaker slept on her back with her legs and arms stretched out straight like a corpse. Another of the Shaker rules that made little sense to Carlyn. All that did was make for plentiful snoring in the room, the loudest of which came from Sister Edna. That was not all bad, for as soon as they heard Sister Edna snoring, they were able to turn and curl however they pleased under their covers.

This night Carlyn was slow to go to sleep in spite of the weariness of her muscles. Thoughts flashed through her mind like the lightning outside the window. Curt Whitlow in the village. Sister Edna demanding she confess sin. Sister Berdine’s talk in the garden. The storm. Asher, and yes, the man he was with.