The Refuge

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Sitting in the shade sounds better than picking beans.” Mona scratched her arms. “I hate picking beans. It makes me itch.”

  “The vines are itchy, but the beans taste good when on our plate.” I smiled at her. “Thank you for delivering Leatrice’s hug.” I reached out toward her. “Come here. I will give you a hug to return to her in case you see her before I do.”

  To my continued surprise, she stepped into my embrace with something near eagerness, and I gently wrapped my arms around her while standing a bit sideways to not squash Benjamin. Even so, he was part of the hug and when he cooed, Mona’s face lit up.

  She scowled to hide her pleasure as she pulled free. “We better go. We’ll be late.”

  Each mealtime since then, Mona came faithfully to assist me. Sister Tansy was aware of Mona taking Leatrice’s place, but she made no mention of it. I think she, the same as I, hoped Mona would continue to move away from the anger that so often spoiled not only her days but the days of those around her.

  Mona didn’t speak of Leatrice again until a week had passed. The August day was sultry hot. With Benjamin a warm bundle against my chest, sweat rivulets slid down my sides under my arms. Even Anna Grace was fussy because of the heat. I would have been happy with a heel of bread and a jar of water in the shade of an oak tree, but instead we walked through the village with the noonday sun beating down on our bonnets.

  Mona swished her skirts back and forth to fan her legs. I thought she might do one of her spinning twirls, but she stuck to business and pushed Anna Grace. The movement of the wagon made Anna Grace hush her crying, but Benjamin whimpered in the wrap. Poor baby had to be sweltering. I lifted him out where he could at least get a breath of air.

  “It’s too hot,” Mona said. “They should let us go play in a creek.”

  “That would be good.”

  “We could go. Just the two of us.” She shook her head. “I mean the four of us.”

  “We could. But we would have to miss our meal and I don’t know where there is a creek.”

  “I wonder if there is one on Leatrice’s farm.”

  “There could be.”

  “Do you think Leatrice is happy now?” Mona didn’t look at me, but I heard a lonesome longing in her voice.

  “I’m sure she is. She was eager to go home.”

  “But she won’t have any sisters there. She might be lonely.”

  “She has her father.”

  “Fathers can be very busy,” Mona said. “She said he worked with horses.”

  “True. But she also has her grandfather to look after her.”

  “Nay.” Mona looked over at me. “Leatrice’s grandfather came into the village. To live here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yea. I saw him once when he came to visit Leatrice. At meeting, the elder spoke his name and had him stand where everyone could see him. He looked different in the Shaker clothes, but it was the same man. I am very good with faces. Didn’t you see him?”

  “I don’t go to the meetings. Because of the babies.”

  “That is fortunate for you.” Mona made a face.

  I couldn’t keep from smiling. “You don’t like the songs and dances?”

  “I don’t like anything about this place.” She hesitated, then added, “Except Anna Grace. But she’s not a Shaker. She’s a baby.”

  “What about Benjamin? He’s a baby too.” I pulled the wrap up to shield him from the sun.

  “He cries too much.”

  To prove her right, he made a fussy cry and pushed against me. “Poor Baby Benjamin.” I rubbed my hand up and down his back. Sister Genna said he cried so much because he was frustrated with being so small. That he wanted to grow faster to be big enough to leave the village. Those were surely her own thoughts as living the Shaker life seemed more difficult for her each day. She often yanked on the collar of her dress as though she needed more air. Perhaps she did, since she claimed the Shaker village was suffocating her.

  I too noted that feeling of being trapped with no escape, but each time I dwelt on the memory of Ellie’s sure prayers and added my own. The answer would come, Ellie had assured me, but would it be an answer like the one she had received? Not quite what I would want most. But as long as I got to be mother to my baby—my babies—then the answer would be good.

  I prayed Mona would find a good answer too, a way to be happy. She bent down beside Anna Grace to point toward a butterfly floating past. Some of my prayers for Mona had already been answered. She appeared to truly love Anna Grace in spite of her angry shove of the cart a few weeks ago.

  I flapped the wrap up and back to fan Benjamin and pretended not to notice Mona’s smile. She was not yet ready to give up her angry front completely. As I waited for her to begin pushing Anna Grace again, I thought about Leatrice’s grandfather joining the Shakers.

  I don’t know why I was so surprised. I had never exchanged more than a simple greeting with the man. Flynn Keller was the one whose path had continually crossed my own here in this village. His words and smiles were what had cheered my heart.

  Mona brought me back to the moment. “Leatrice would like that butterfly.”

  “Yea. Butterflies are so light and free.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever see her again?”

  “Perhaps. I think she lives nearby. So they might come visit her grandfather.” Hope of that rose within me and I gave my head a mental shake to stop my foolish thoughts.

  Mona was silent as she pushed Anna Grace’s wagon. When she did speak, I could tell it was something she had been thinking about for a while. “Did her grandfather have to come to stay in her place? So that she could leave?”

  “Nay. We are not prisoners here.”

  “I feel like a prisoner sometimes.”

  As did I, but I didn’t say those words aloud. “Anyone is free to leave. If they have somewhere to go.” I reached and touched her shoulder. “And are old enough to make their way.”

  “You are old enough,” Mona said.

  “Old enough but without the somewhere to go.”

  “Oh.” Her forehead wrinkled as she considered that. “So you are stuck here forever.”

  “I pray not.” I kept my voice soft. It would not be good for any passing near to hear my words. “I am praying for a way to open to me.”

  Again she considered my words before she spoke. “Then I will pray the same.” She looked across the field at the woods in the distance. “Do you think we could go live in the woods? Perhaps in a cave and eat nuts and berries.”

  I did not laugh, but I could not keep from smiling. “For now we will pray for something better.”

  I did note how she said “we” and how I said the same in answer. An answer to my prayers had just become even more difficult, but didn’t the Bible say nothing was impossible with God? Dear Lord, let that be true. I sent the words heavenward and tried to have faith an answer would come for these children and for me.

  Two days later an answer came for Sister Genna. She had seemed different for a few days. She kept smiling when she thought no one was watching her. She held Benjamin even when he wasn’t being fussy. She got down on the floor to play with Anna Grace, who had started to crawl.

  She was joyful. Even when she was holding Benjamin whom she loved, I had never thought her joyful. But now something had happened that she was not sharing with me. At least not yet. I waited, for Sister Genna was not one to be pushed.

  On Thursday evening, she came back to the room early from the worship practice. It was my turn to stay with the babies.

  “I told Sister Helene I wasn’t feeling well.” Sister Genna’s eyes were sparkling when she came back into the room but not with any kind of sickness fever.

  She looked so happy I knew there could be only one reason. “You heard from Jeremy.”

  “Yea.” She did a spin much like the devout Shaker sisters often did in the exercise of the dance. “I got a letter a few days ago. Someone wrote it for him since he does not
know his letters. There were few words, but enough. Be ready. I am coming.”

  I hugged her and we danced in another little circle. Sister Helene would have been proud of us. Or not, since we were celebrating that which was considered sinful among the Shakers. The reuniting of a man and wife.

  “So how do you know when to be ready?” I asked as she turned from me to the chest.

  “He found me in the garden today and I sneaked away to talk to him for a few minutes before I was missed. He promised to return tonight. At midnight.”

  “Why midnight?” I frowned. “You could have simply walked away as Ellie did.”

  “There are complications.” She shifted her gaze away from me as if she did not want me to see her eyes.

  “What complications?” I asked.

  “I will tell you when I am ready to leave.” She pulled things from the chest and folded them into a bundle.

  I stepped closer. “Those are Benjamin’s clothes.”

  “Yea.” She sighed and her shoulders drooped as she turned back to me. “You must understand, Sister Darcie.”

  I knew her intent. “You cannot think to take him.” I turned to pick him up from his cradle and hold him close. “You cannot feed him.”

  She stared at me. “I cannot nurse him, but I can feed him the gruel and other food. I won’t let him go hungry. If needed, I can find another wet nurse.”

  “I am more than a wet nurse. He is my baby as much as Anna Grace.”

  “Nay, not as much. You cannot say as much.” Her voice was gentle as she stepped nearer and put her hand on the baby’s back. “You do love Benjamin. I know you do, but you must know I love him more. He is a gift from God given directly to me, just as your Anna Grace was a gift to you after your Walter died.”

  I tightened my arms around Benjamin. She was right about Anna Grace being dearer to me than Benjamin. I had to admit that truth. Anna Grace was my child. The visible truth of my love with Walter. But at the same time Benjamin became dearer to me each day. My breast ached at the thought of no longer having him in my arms.

  “You can’t take him. I cannot let you.”

  “But you must, my sister.” She put an arm around me. “You know this child is not destined to be a Shaker.”

  “Being a Shaker is not such a dreadful thing.”

  “If you are not a mother or a baby.” Sister Genna gently moved me over to the bed where we could sit together. She did not try to take Benjamin. “We need to talk this through before Sister Helene comes to the room. She would never understand, but you must.”

  “What is there to say?” I sat him out on my knees and supported him in a sitting position. As his gaze fastened on Sister Genna, he smiled and reached for her.

  She lifted him away from me then. “There is always much to say but as much that cannot be said.” He grasped the strings of her bonnet, but she paid no mind, although he jerked her bonnet askew. “Even should I not steal him away, they will. You will not be allowed to keep him much longer. Not him. Not Anna Grace.”

  “Nay, I still have time.”

  Her gaze on me grew more intense. “A few months at most. You know that is true. It is only because Eldress Maria is so fond of Anna Grace that they have not already moved the babies to the Children’s House and only let you come feed them. But soon they will decide they are old enough to wean and they will take them then. Completely.”

  “I won’t let that happen. I will leave first.”

  “So you might and I wish you Godspeed should that happen, but you would have no claim to Benjamin. They would never let you take him. He is not your child.”

  “Nor yours.”

  “Nor mine by birth. But mine nevertheless.” She kissed the top of his head. Then she handed him back to me. “Give him to me, Sister Darcie. Let him be my son.”

  His weight in my arms was so familiar. “Will your husband think you have betrayed him with another if you show up with a baby?”

  “Nay. I did not have long with him today, but enough time to tell him about Benjamin. Even without seeing him, he is ready to be his father.” She leaned her head over against mine. “Please let this be.”

  “But he will be hungry.”

  She reached over and stroked his head. Again he smiled and kicked his feet in pleasure. “I talked with Sister Lettie. Not now, but weeks ago. I didn’t know Jeremy was coming, but I wanted to be ready in case those prayers you and Ellie offered up for me brought him back. And they did. For that, I am thankful. You prayed when my heart was too discouraged to hope.”

  She shut her eyes a moment as if praying right then. I kept quiet and waited.

  She opened her eyes and went on. “So I asked Sister Lettie what would have happened to Benjamin if you had not been here already nursing Anna Grace. She told me Benjamin isn’t the first foundling taken in by the Shakers. At first they soaked a clean cloth in milk for the baby to suck on. Goat milk is best, she said.”

  “Does your Jeremy have a goat?”

  “Not yet, but we will find one to take west with us. Anyway, Sister Lettie said the cloth feeding did not work well. Nor did trying to spoon the milk into the baby’s mouth. But she said thank goodness and Mother Ann—her words, not mine—that Shakers knew how to come up with better ways to do things. She showed me a bottle with a narrow top and told how a leather tip with a hole in the end was tied onto it.”

  “But do you have such a thing?” I frowned at her.

  “I do. I slipped into Sister Lettie’s doctoring room and stole the bottle. May the Lord forgive me, but she has plenty of other small bottles should another baby be found on their doorsteps. Then I filched some leather pieces from the cobbler. They were probably too small to have any use for shoes.”

  “It sounds as if you have it all worked out.” I leaned down to put my cheek against Benjamin’s baby face. “Except how you will break my heart. To not only lose Benjamin but also you.” I raised my head to look at her.

  “I know, my sister.” She put her arm around me again. “But you would not deny me the happiness of being with my husband.” She leaned out to look directly at my face. “Or having my son with me. He is not destined to be that Shaker leader Sister Helene wants him to be. Instead, he will go west and grow up sturdy and strong to live life to the fullest.”

  “You are my sister and I love you, Genna, but you cannot take him. He is too young.” I was sure of my refusal. He was too small to make such a journey.

  Her lips tightened into a straight line. “Perhaps you are right. He is very young.” She let out a long breath and then reached for him again. “But at least let me hold him a while and then you can feed him before you go to sleep.”

  She gave in too easily. I knew it at the time. Sister Genna was not one to give up on what she wanted. So I was not surprised when a slight rustle of a skirt or perhaps a blanket awakened me in the dark of the night. Sister Helene softly snored as she slept on. She was a heavy sleeper who rarely awoke even when the babies cried. But I roused at the slightest whimper.

  Sister Genna knew that, so I sensed her holding her breath and watching me. I feigned sleep and prayed for guidance. A bit of Scripture came to mind. Be still and know that I am God. I did not know if that was the Lord’s message to me or not. But in spite of the sorrow swelling in my heart, I did not sit up and sound an alarm. Perhaps I should have. I can never be sure if I did right, but I could not break my sister’s heart. So I surrendered Benjamin to Genna.

  She came and stood by my bed. “I know you are awake, Sister Darcie,” she whispered. “I am sorry, but I cannot bear to leave him. I promise I will forever love him and care for him.” A tremble sounded in her voice. “You will always be my sister.”

  I gave up the pretense of sleep then and stood to embrace her and Benjamin. “And you mine.” Tears wet both our cheeks, but for once Benjamin slept soundly.

  Then they were gone, out the door like a shadow. I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stifle my sobs and went to the window to watch. I did not k
now how she would get out of the house, as the door was key locked at night to keep others out or perhaps to keep us within. With her resourcefulness, I had no doubt that somehow Genna had a key to open the door and escape the Shaker life.

  I could barely see her dim form move away down the road. I longed to pick up Anna Grace and run after her. Escape into the night as she was doing. But I had no Jeremy waiting for me in the darkness.

  “May the Lord watch over you both,” I whispered. Then I lifted my sleeping baby out of her cradle and lay back on my bed with her cuddled next to me to await the rising bell.

  33

  “Why did you not stop her?” Sister Helene was distraught. She may not have been comfortable tending to Benjamin, but she had felt ownership of the baby since she was the one to find him on the washhouse steps.

  “I could not.” Tears came to my eyes as I looked at the empty cradle. If he were here, I would be nursing him. By now he would be hungry.

  “Could not or would not?”

  She was as angry as I had ever seen her. Always she was patient and understanding no matter the wrongs I or Genna and Ellie did. She would simply forgive us as she gently instructed us in the proper Shaker way. But now two beds were empty in our room, along with the cradle of the child she hoped would become a Shaker leader. I wished my bed and Anna Grace’s cradle were as empty.

  “Could not,” I answered her, although I supposed would not was as true.

  “Eldress Maria is going to be very upset.”

  “Yea. I too am very upset.” I did not speak an untruth. I had already determined that I would not lie. I would admit knowing Sister Genna left. I would not deny seeing her with Benjamin in her arms. Granny Hatchell long ago told me that telling a falsehood or even sidestepping the truth only led to more lies. Best to be truthful and face the consequences for any wrongs done.

  “You should have told her she could not take Benjamin.”

  “I did tell her that,” I said. “She pretended to agree, but then she took him in the night.”

  “Without you knowing?” Sister Helene looked at me with raised eyebrows. She knew how lightly I slept.