The Seeker

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Now Selena’s laughter dismissing her words rang in Charlotte’s ears as she looked at Mellie. “We don’t have a choice, Mellie. Either of us. It’s the only way we can keep you safe. And maybe Grayson too.”

  When Mellie simply kept staring at her as if she knew no words to say, Charlotte went on. “We won’t have to stay with the Shakers forever. Just for a while until Father sees through that woman’s pretense or we find another way.”

  “What about Nate?” Mellie sounded ready to cry.

  “I don’t know, Mellie. But you’ll be safe as soon as we enter the village. And free. I promised Aunt Tish that I’d set you free years ago. As soon as I could.” Charlotte reached over to squeeze Mellie’s hands. “This is the only way I can keep that promise now.”

  “Once I’m free I can go wherever I take a mind.” Mellie pulled her hands free and lifted her chin with a hint of defiance. “I guess so. You might make your way across the river to Indiana where it’s safer to be a free Negro. But what if one of those horrible slave trackers grabs you? They might not listen if you say you’re free. They could just tear up your papers and take you wherever they wanted.”

  “Massah Charles wouldn’t let them do that.”

  “He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know what’s happening here in his own house.” Her voice sounded shrill in her ears. Charlotte sat back and pulled in a slow, deep breath to calm herself. She had to convince Mellie. “You’ll be safe with the Shakers. With me. We’ll be sisters.”

  “We’s already sisters, Miss Lottie.”

  “Free sisters.” Charlotte stared into Mellie’s eyes. “Please. I don’t think I can do this without you.”

  Mellie mashed her mouth together a moment before she blew a burst of air out her nose and gave in. “All right, Miss Lottie. When do we leave?”

  “At daylight.”

  “Sneakin’ away like a couple of runaways.”

  “I don’t want to have to see her again.” They both knew who Charlotte meant.

  “I don’t know, Miss Lottie. This done feels like you’s givin’ up and that ain’t like you.”

  “I’m not giving anything up. I’ll be back. We’ll both be back.”

  “I always believed most everythin’ you ever tol’ me, but this time I don’t have no certain feelin’.” Mellie sighed as she stood up. A frown creased her face. “What about Mammy?”

  “I tried, but Father wouldn’t give me her papers. Said Grayson needed a cook. And it does. She wouldn’t dare bother Aunt Tish.”

  “We better pray that’s true,” Mellie said right before she slipped out Charlotte’s door.

  Pray. Charlotte shut her eyes, but no prayer words came. Instead her thoughts jumped from here to there and back again. She was feeling Adam Wade’s arms around her. She was remembering the words in Edwin’s letter. She was hearing Selena’s words pushing her out of Grayson. She was wondering exactly how one did join with the Shakers. Edwin said he was going to the Shaker village to find peace. And the Shakers prayed about everything, or so she’d heard. Perhaps if she gained nothing else in the weeks ahead, she’d learn how to pray to find her own kind of peace.

  Finally she whispered, “Give me courage to face tomorrow.” She sat there for a long moment with her eyes closed, listening to the steady ticking of her clock as she waited for some kind of answer. Nothing happened except that she became even more aware of the hard knot of fear inside her chest. She opened her eyes and stared at her face in the mirror. She was going to have to come up with her own answers for the morrow. The way she always had.

  Maybe that was her answer.

  11

  Charlotte’s heart began thumping in her ears and her hands grew stiff on the reins of the mare as the large stone and brick buildings of Harmony Hill rose up in front of them. Mellie’s grip on Charlotte’s waist tightened until Charlotte worried the buttons on her riding jacket would pop off. Mellie had been terrified ever since Charlotte made her climb up behind her on the mare. She’d never been on a horse.

  Now she whispered in Charlotte’s ear, “Where has we come to, Miss Lottie? I done feel like Jonah about to get swallowed by that big fish.”

  Charlotte knew what she meant. They were entering a different world. One where the buildings had no porches for sitting to catch the evening breezes or even a decorative gable to please the eye. Everything was plain and solemn. Including the people. Men and women walked between the buildings, but Charlotte caught no sound of talk or laughter. It was as if they were on the way to somebody’s funeral except nobody was wearing black. The women were dressed in like blue or brown dresses with large white collars that lapped across the front of their bosoms above a white apron. White caps covered their hair.

  Of course Charlotte had seen Shaker women before. She’d ridden carriages through Harmony Hill on the way to Lexington on occasion, but then she’d just looked upon them as an oddity. She’d never given the first thought of someday being one of them.

  Even now, riding her mare with Mellie behind her, it still seemed an impossible thought. A laughable thought. Her in Shaker dress, meekly walking to some task she’d been ordered to do. She wasn’t concerned about the idea of work in spite of how Mellie had looked at her when she first talked of going to the Shakers. Charlotte could work. She wasn’t a vapor-prone Southern belle who could barely manage to raise a glass of tea to her lips without a servant’s help.

  At the same time, she had never had tasks imposed on her. She was the one who ordered her life. That was the reason she was ready to pretend to be a Shaker for a few weeks. To get her life back. She could learn some new ways to make that happen.

  The new ways had begun that morning when she had eased open the stable door to keep it from creaking as night began to give way to the first gray light of dawn. She hadn’t wanted anyone to see them leaving. Not even Willis. She was afraid Selena might find a way to hold it against him and add his name to her list for Perkins.

  When she had held the lead rope out toward Mellie to hold while she got the saddle, Mellie had stepped back. “I can’t hold no horse.”

  “Of course you can. All you have to do is stand still and hold this rope.” Charlotte grabbed Mellie’s arm and placed the end of the lead in her hand before she turned to get the reins and saddle. She had never saddled the mare without help from Willis, but she knew how. Willis had taught her. He’d said a person shouldn’t be riding if that person didn’t know how things worked on a horse.

  Mellie stared at the mare with evident fear, ready to give up their plans. “This ain’t gonna work, Miss Lottie. I can’t ride no horse. I’ll fall off and break my head for sure.”

  “I won’t let you fall off,” Charlotte said as she pulled the cinch tight. She hadn’t picked the sidesaddle because she didn’t see how Mellie could ride with her on that. Sometimes when her father was in Frankfort and she wanted to ride across Grayson’s fields jumping fences, Charlotte got Willis to bring out a regular saddle for her mare. It was far too easy to get unseated making a jump in a sidesaddle. Nevertheless it was highly improper for a lady to ride astride a horse even if her riding habit skirts were sufficiently full to modestly drape all the way to her ankles. Proper or improper didn’t seem to matter today.

  “I knows you won’t aim to, but there’s some things even you can’t make happen, and me stayin’ on this horse might be one of them.” When Charlotte just looked at her across the mare’s back without saying anything, Mellie went on. “And what about Massah Charles? What’s he gonna think when he hears you’ve run off from Grayson?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte answered honestly. She’d left a letter with Gibson to be posted to her father explaining where she was without dwelling on the reasons why. Right now with his total infatuation with Selena, he’d refuse to believe anything bad about the woman anyway. He’d think she was doing this because of Edwin, and she supposed there was some truth in that. Just not the truth her father would assume. Certainly she had no broken heart. Only ruined pl
ans. Not ruined, she corrected herself. Sidetracked. She didn’t mention Mellie at all in the letter. There was no need.

  Here in the heart of the Shaker village, Charlotte thought about her father opening her letter, and she worried that she might not have chosen the best words. Or made the best plan. Still, she had no choice now but to see it through. For Mellie’s sake if nothing else. By the time Gibson gave the letter to Perkins to post and then it made its way to her father in the Capital City, Mellie would be free with nothing Selena could do to change that. Charlotte could bear a week or two of captivity here with these strange people to assure that.

  Even so, when she stopped to ask one of the Shaker men how to go about joining with them at Harmony Hill, her voice trembled, and the mare, sensing her unease, danced to the side. The man looked to be quite old, but his movements were quick as he reached out to take hold of the bridle and calm the horse with a soft-spoken command before he answered Charlotte.

  “We welcome all who would live the perfect life, my sisters,” he said with solemn kindness. “Let me take your horse and I will call one of the sisters to help you.”

  Charlotte’s hands tightened on the reins for the barest moment before she pulled in a deep breath and forced a smile as she surrendered the reins to him. She expected him to step up to help them off the mare, but instead he pulled his hat down low on his forehead and turned his back on them.

  “I’ll lead you to a block where you can dismount.” He kept his face straight forward as he led the mare to a round wooden block in front of a large brick building.

  Charlotte slid out of the saddle down onto the block and then helped Mellie dismount. The man kept his eyes averted as he promised to send someone to help them before he led the mare away.

  Mellie sank down on the wooden block as though her legs would no longer hold her up. She looked up at Charlotte. “You sure we’s doin’ the right thing, Miss Lottie?” Her voice carried the same tremble Charlotte’s had a moment earlier.

  “As sure as I can be.” Charlotte tried to sound sure as she sat down beside Mellie and took her hand, but inside she felt anything but confident. She stared down at her fingers clasped around Mellie’s dark hand and wished Aunt Tish were there with them. She would tell them they were doing the right thing. The only thing.

  The next mornig when Charlotte had given up on sleep, she climbed out of bed in the pre-dawn darkness and pulled on her riding habit. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about what she was getting ready to do. She simply eased her bedroom door shut and crept down the stairs to the kitchen where Mellie and Aunt Tish waited. Shadows cast by the lone candle Aunt Tish carried hovered on the wall behind them and then seemed to leap and dance after them when without a word they moved toward the door. A lump formed in Charlotte’s throat at the sound of Grayson’s back door clicking shut behind her, but she refused to cry. There was no reason for tears. This was all temporary. She’d be back soon enough.

  But Mellie had fallen on Aunt Tish’s neck and wept as she begged her, “You’ll tell Nate where I am, won’t you, Mammy? You’ll tell him I didn’t have no choice. I don’t, do I?”

  “No choice but freedom, Melana.” Still holding the candle, Aunt Tish stepped back and grabbed Mellie’s chin with her free hand to raise her face up until she was looking straight into Mellie’s eyes. “You keep that in the front of yo’ mind and think on it.”

  “Yes’m.” Mellie choked back a sob before she went on. “But what’s the good of bein’ free without you? Or Nate?” Mellie’s voice trailed off as she pulled away from Aunt Tish’s hand to look toward the slave quarters.

  “I’ll be next.” Aunt Tish let her eyes slide over to Charlotte. “And then who can know what might be happenin’ after that? What with ever’body saying a war is comin’ ’cause of how Mr. Lincoln talks ’bout freedom for the people.”

  Freedom. That’s what Charlotte felt like she was giving up as she and Mellie followed two Shaker sisters up the steps into the brick building and down a broad hallway with polished wood floors. Lines of blue pegs on both walls held candle sconces, cloaks, and hats. The room they were shown into was small and bare except for a lone table. Two chairs were suspended on the blue pegs that lined this wall too, but nobody offered to lift down the chairs for anyone to sit.

  Charlotte fought the urge to run back out the door as she waited for someone to speak. Both women looked to be well past their middle years, and as they solemnly studied Charlotte and Mellie, Mellie’s old crone description wormed into Charlotte’s thoughts. She couldn’t imagine either of these women ever dancing or singing. In worship or not.

  Sister Altha spoke first. She was tall and thin with angular features. The few strands of hair that peeked out around her white cap were steel gray. She looked at Mellie and then settled her sharp eyes on Charlotte as she said, “You are not our usual novitiate. What has made you consider this choice? Are you concerned for the condition of your soul?”

  Charlotte searched for words to say that wouldn’t be false without giving the real reason she had come knocking at the Shakers’ door. She had the uneasy feeling the woman in front of her would know immediately if she spoke lies. Finally she said, “All right-minded people should surely worry about their souls, especially in these uncertain times with war on the horizon.”

  Sister Altha moved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “We have no part in wars. Our testimony is for peace now and always. No Christian can use carnal weapons or fight, and so we have separated ourselves from such conflict and live in peace with all.”

  “Peace seems a good way, but how will you keep the cannons from your land if the armies decide to come?” Charlotte asked, truly curious about how they planned to maintain peace in the midst of war.

  “Mother Ann and the Eternal Father will protect us. But you will have time to learn of our ways of peace if you decide to stay among us.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Why we’re both here.” Charlotte looked over at Mellie, who seemed poised up on her toes as though any second she might break for the door. Charlotte reached over to lay her hand on Mellie’s arm.

  Sister Altha’s frown deepened. “You must be aware that none come among us with slaves. Such must be set free to make their own decision to live among us or not.” Her eyes shifted from Charlotte to Mellie, and a bit of regret came into her voice. “Nor can we take in runaway slaves against the laws of the land, no matter how wrong those laws may be.”

  Mellie spoke up. “I’m not a runaway. I belong to Miss Lottie.” Sister Altha’s face softened. “That will no longer be, my sister, if you choose to stay among us here at Harmony Hill. We belong only to the Eternal Father and Mother Ann.” Her eyes came back to Charlotte.

  “I have her papers.” Charlotte reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded paper. “I am ready to do whatever is required to set her free.”

  “That is good.” Sister Altha’s eyes narrowed on Charlotte again. “You say the right words, but are you truly prepared to give up your place in the world, your life of ease, to work among us?”

  “I am here to find out about the Shaker life. We both are.” Charlotte spoke the words as if coming to the Shaker village was something they’d been planning for months instead of a desperate midnight plan. She squeezed Mellie’s arm to give her courage before dropping her hand back to her side.

  “Once more the proper words, but I hear an unspoken undertone.” Sister Altha frowned. “Here in our Society of Believers we do not hide our wrongs, but confess them in order to receive forgiveness. If you have some sin you are running from, my sister, you must reveal it. Have you done some wrong that has compelled you to come among us?”

  Both sisters watched Charlotte intently while waiting for her to speak and explain why a young woman of her position would be presenting herself to the Shakers. Beside her, Mellie was as still as the sisters, as if afraid to breathe. Somewhere in the building outside the room, a clock gonged out the time. Charlotte counted. Nine strikes. The cloc
k fell silent and the same sort of silence seemed to seep out of the very walls of the room where they were standing. She had no doubt that the clock could strike its next hourly total before either woman broke the silence if she did not answer Sister Altha’s question.

  Charlotte swallowed and opened her mouth to tell as much of the truth as she thought wise, but Mellie, spooked by the women’s silence, jumped in front of her words. “Miss Lottie’s doin’ it for me. To save me. That woman Massah Charles married was gonna sell me down the river.”

  Sister Altha frowned. “How could that be if Miss Lottie owns you?” She looked at the paper Charlotte had handed her. “As appears to be the case. Melana, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Mellie sounded ready to cry. “But Miss Lottie thought it might happen. And if you knew Miss Selena, you might think so too. ”

  “Who is this Selena?” Sister Altha looked at Charlotte.

  “Perhaps I should explain,” Charlotte said.

  “That would be well,” Sister Altha said.

  “Selena is my father’s new wife. As you may know, my father is a state senator.”

  Sister Altha inclined her head a bit. “Is your father aware that you have come to Harmony Hill seeking admittance?”

  “I wrote him of my intentions,” Charlotte answered truthfully. The truth or at least part of the truth seemed the best story to tell. “He is very involved with the political situation of our state right now, and it may be a while before he can respond to my letter. In the meantime, his new wife and I have not seen eye to eye, and I thought it best if Mellie and I left. That it would be a way to keep peace in our family.”

  She used the word “peace” purposely, since the Shakers claimed such a fondness for peaceful living, but Sister Altha only lifted her eyebrows a bit as if she knew Charlotte was merely attempting to sway her opinion with words and not with honest feelings. After a slight hesitation, Charlotte went on. “I also had planned to marry Edwin Gilbey who has come among you, and he suggested, since he seeks to follow your way and thus will no longer consider marriage, that I might think about joining him here.” Sister Altha’s eyebrows shot up a little higher and Charlotte rushed on. “As a sister, of course. Plus I wanted Mellie to be safe from those who hoped to do her harm in order to injure me.”