The Seeker (33 page)
“Some questions don’t have answers, do they, Adam?”
“I don’t know. Maybe our lot is to seek the answers.”
Long after Adam left Jake to return to his hotel room, the questions with no answers whirled in his head. He tried to push them aside so he could concentrate on getting his sketches ready before Sam Johnson’s man knocked on his door at first light. He didn’t have to have answers, only illustrations. But as he flipped through his sketches, the sounds of exploding shells and men dying echoed in his ears, and he wanted to rip the drawings into a thousand pieces. He shoved aside the scenes of death and pulled a writing tablet toward him.
Dear Charlotte,
You won’t mind if I don’t call you Sister Charlotte, will you? Thinking of you as a Shaker sister will take some time. It appears that how that came to be will remain a puzzle at least for now. Tell me of your life there. It has to be very different from that of a Southern belle, but as I told you at Grayson, even then you were not like most young ladies I have had the pleasure of meeting in drawing rooms across the South.
I realize you have probably not had time to receive my earlier letter, but this night as I sit in the capital surrounded by a wounded army, I seem to need to put pen to paper again to you. To tell you of the first real battle of the war at a stream called Bull Run near the town of Manassas in Virginia. The Rebels won the day. It appears the Confederates aren’t as ready to be beaten as the Union generals had hoped. I have a sketchbook full of the most horrible scenes of war. My pens seemed to be dripping blood on the paper. I will send you a couple of sketches, but you can see more in
Harper’s
if the Shakers read such. And it sounded as if they do if they saw their stairways on those pages.
Here in Washington the generals will meet and the soldiers will be given new guns to replace those left behind on the field of battle. The armies will meet again and I must be there to draw more pictures. It is what I do.
It is good you are in a place where peace can bloom undisturbed like roses in a garden. Tell me of your garden and I will let my hand trace the flowers you see and hope that once the battle smoke clears there will still be flowers to pick in our own personal gardens.
Yours, Adam
He folded a picture of the army lining up for battle and then one of the carriages of onlookers, wagons, and soldiers all vying for a place on the road north as they retreated. Last he picked up a small book where he sometimes jotted bits of scenes to keep the sights fresh in his mind. He drew the bench under the dogwood tree beside Grayson’s veranda. The one where he was sitting when he first saw Charlotte. She would know.
Charlotte settled into the routine at Harmony Hill. Up with the rising bell, work at whatever duty she and Dulcie were assigned, kneel in prayer, partake of the bountiful meals in silence, attend the meetings, and give ear to the teachings Sister Martha pushed at her. And each time Charlotte’s eyes fell on Aunt Tish in her Shaker dress with a smile of freedom lighting up her face, she felt glad to turn her hand to whatever task the Shakers asked of her. She felt no trace of resentment in her heart when she looked ahead at the months she’d promised to Sister Altha.
Sister Martha told Charlotte she need give no thought to that promise. “The Ministry had no part in the words of Sister Altha speaking of your service in exchange for our Sister Latisha. That is not the Believers’ way. We have ever believed in the freedom of choice. While it is our hope that those who come among us will choose the way of salvation, no one is forced to stay here against her will. Our sister erred in asking such from you and has confessed her wrong thinking.”
Sister Altha might have confessed, but Charlotte saw in her eyes that she still considered Charlotte bound by her words. Charlotte didn’t tell Sister Martha that. The deal was between Sister Altha and her—no one else. Sister Altha had gotten the Ministry to do what Charlotte asked. Charlotte could do no less than what she had promised in return.
She didn’t think about what would happen if Adam Wade did actually come seeking her at Harmony Hill the way she often dreamed he might. At night when sleep was slow to come, she lay in her narrow Shaker bed and remembered Adam seeking her out in her mother’s garden. That didn’t mean he would ever really search for her again. Adam Wade was a man of the world who had enjoyed a pleasurable dalliance with a pretty girl. She had no reason to imagine anything more, but she did. And the imaginings were sweet.
The first letters and sketches came in August. Sister Martha carried them to Charlotte. The summer heat sapped Sister Martha’s strength, and although climbing the stairs to Charlotte’s room made her breath come hard, she brought the letters there to Charlotte during the time of rest after the evening meal.
It was a diversion, she said. “A gift to lighten the burden of my advanced years. You and the letters from the artist.”
“But news of the war is distressing.” Charlotte looked up from Adam’s letter. She tried not to let Sister Martha note her eyes lingering on the sentences mentioning gardens even as her mind did welcome the thoughts he’d intended to spark with his words and the sketch of the garden bench. She thought of how she would write to him of the rose gardens at Harmony Hill. There would be no need to tell of stripping the blooms of their beauty.
“Yea, it is ever so with wars that men of the world seem prone to engage in. But here at Harmony Hill, we will continue to gather peace to our bosoms and pray to keep the war from our village.”
But days later, the Kentucky State Guard under the lead of John Hunt Morgan held a muster on the road that ran directly through Harmony Hill. The Guard leaders deemed the Shaker village a good central spot for men from the surrounding towns to join forces on the way south. Only weeks before, both North and South had promised not to recruit inside Kentucky’s borders, but the promise was ignored as the cocky young men noisily gathered to march to the aid of the Confederacy. Not so far away across the river bottoms, a man offered his farm as a place for Union recruits to be mustered into service. When word first came of that, a few young Shaker men had slipped away from the village to sign up to save the Union. The elders promptly went after them to fetch them back into the peaceful life at the village.
Charlotte pulled her bonnet forward and kept her face away from the young men in the street. She knew many of them from social gatherings and political functions, but she had no desire for them to recognize her in turn. As was their custom, the Shakers provided the men who asked with food and drink. The Believers never turned any wayfarer away hungry or in need.
“And these men are surely in need. If not of food then of spiritual rectitude,” Sister Martha said with a sad shake of her head when she came to get Charlotte from the hat-making shop to help with the extra cooking. “It is as Elder Quinton says. Such a grievous sorrow to see fine young men, though of the world, so ready to learn the best way to let out the heart’s blood of the ones they march against. You can see them out there practicing the thrust of their lances.” Sister Martha glanced over at Charlotte to be sure she was paying attention. “All the while calling themselves Christians. It cannot be. Mother Ann teaches us that.”
“Yea,” Charlotte agreed. If she had learned nothing else while with the Shakers, she knew the value they put on peace. And yet at the same time, they seemed to hunger for news of the conflict as evidenced by their desire for her to carry on a correspondence with Adam.
Sister Martha went on with the rest of her little sermon. “Our testimony is for peace, now and always. No Christian can use carnal weapons or fight. Not and be true to the faith. We oppose wars of households, and wars of nations. All wars are the result of lusts for lands and for women. Those who marry will fight.” She often repeated this teaching of Mother Ann along with other tenets as if by mere repetition she could plant the words in Charlotte’s heart where they might become as deeply rooted there as they were in her own.
And so as the war clouds grew darker and Charlotte obediently walked the Shaker way, the letters back and forth marked the weeks and months that passed.
August 11, 1861
Dear Adam,
It is not necessary for you to call me sister if the word sits uncomfortably on your tongue or does not flow easily from your pen. It has come to sound familiar to my ear. Aunt Tish, Sister Latisha now, has joined with us here and rejoices in the freedoms of the Shaker way. If you have the opportunity, please pass that news on to Mellie at your sister’s. Tell her she can write to us here if she wants. The Ministry allows letters as you surely already know since your letters have been given to me.
Elder Quinton read portions of your letter at meeting. We had, of course, already heard news of the Battle at Bull Run, and were greatly disheartened by the Union defeat as it seems you were as well. The Believers seek peace in their villages and they can see that the country at war around them will greatly disturb that peace.
Roses of all colors bloom here in the Shaker gardens. My mother’s garden bloomed with the same. I will hope the terrible smoke and fire of battle did not destroy every rose in the gardens you see.
As always,
Charlotte
September 15, 1861
Dear Charlotte,
Peace would be desired by many now, but it appears peace is far from reach. A new general has been put in command of the eastern army after the defeat at Bull Run. General McClellan is insisting on discipline among the troops even as more recruits are enrolled in the army every day. Discipline was greatly needed as many in our companies of soldiers were out of hand for some weeks after their return to Washington. It is rumored there won’t be another major campaign before spring as the army licks its wounds and the leaders come to understand the need for intense training.
I hear that the peaceful neutrality Kentucky so desired has been shattered and a provisional Confederate government has been established in the southern part of your state. Is there not another Shaker village in that area?