Sins of a Shaker Summer (20 page)

“Oh, Rose, this is just like old times, being sent to work in the kitchen,” Gennie said, her voice slow and sleepy. “And you know how I hate it.”

“It's good to have you back, Gennie.”

“Uh-huh. Why do they need me, anyway?”

“Gertrude didn't show up this morning, and she isn't in her retiring room. You didn't by any chance see or hear her leave, did you?”

“No—I mean, nay, I didn't, but I'll ask around before I go to the kitchen. Rose, do you think this is related to . . . You aren't going to find another body on the holy hill, are you?”

“Dear Lord, I hope not.”

Rose decided against calling Josie; the fewer calls she made from the Ministry House, the better, since Wilhelm might hear her. Best to keep him uninformed as long as possible. For once skipping her morning routine of cleaning and prayer, Rose raced across the central path to the Infirmary.

Josie slept at the Infirmary to watch over her patients, which meant that sometimes she didn't sleep at all. But she always seemed cheerful. This morning she was already scurrying around the waiting room, dusting the dozens of apothecary jars and tins she used to mix her tonics and teas. She looked up in surprise when Rose rushed in the door, breathless and already sprouting dots of perspiration around the edge of her white cap.

“Is Gertrude here?”

Josie shook her head.

“Has she checked in with you at all since yesterday?”

“Nay. Rose, what is this about?”

“I'll explain later.”

Rose turned to leave, and Josie called her back.

“That doctor Grady sent came in very early this morning to examine Patience,” Josie said.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He said absolutely nothing. Just as if I wouldn't understand.” Josie pursed her lips in disapproval.

Rose wondered if there had been a different reason for the doctor's silence—such as orders from Grady—as she raced through the medic and kitchen gardens to the outside door of the dwelling house kitchen. She poked her head
inside, and Polly squeaked and jumped backward.

“Rose, you startled—”

“Is Gennie here yet?” A sense of urgency consumed Rose. She feared there was no time to waste.

“She just arrived. Is this about Gertrude?”

Rose stepped inside, spotted Gennie lifting a copper pan from a wall peg, and called out to her. When Gennie turned, she seemed to understand instantly. Not bothering to deliver the pan, she ran to Rose. To avoid the now curious eyes of the kitchen sisters, they stepped outside and closed the door.

“Here's all I found out,” Gennie said. “Sister Theresa said she thought she heard Gertrude's door open early this morning, before the wake-up bell. She didn't think anything of it, of course. Gertrude might just have been visiting the bathroom, but Theresa couldn't go back to sleep, and she didn't hear Gertrude's door close again. That's all.”

“No sounds of illness?”

“No sounds at all except a little moving about in her room and then the door opening. No one saw her at all when everyone started to tidy up the dwelling house and do the brethren's mending. That's when I left. Does that tell you anything?”

“It tells me she chose to leave, which is a relief in some ways.”

“And puzzling,” Gennie said. “I gather she wasn't at the Infirmary?”

“Nay.” But there had to be a reasonable explanation. Rose wished her heart would ease up so she could hear herself think. “Go ahead back to work, Gennie. I'll find Gertrude.”

“Two of us could look twice as fast.”

“You can't get out of kitchen work that easily. Put your hands to work, my friend.”

Gertrude could be anywhere in or out of the village. Sisters and brethren had been known to desert the Society in
the dead of night, sometimes with one another. But Gertrude? Nay, not possible. Clearly she had been struggling with some burden during the worship service, but for her to desert her kitchen responsibilities was almost unthinkable. She would put aside a mere personal problem until her duties had been completed.

Rose found herself walking west on the central path. Toward the holy mount. Try as she might, the best explanation she could think of for Gertrude's behavior was that she knew something about Patience's death.

When she had nearly reached the village entrance, she veered off to the right, found the creek, and followed it to the holy hill. She hadn't entered from the south before. A dense cluster of sugar maples led to a sunny clearing, then more trees at the base of the hill. The atmosphere was peaceful, idyllic. In calmer times the clearing would be a lovely place for a picnic, with clumps of woodland flowers dotting the landscape. She had no time for such thoughts now, though. If she did not find Gertrude here—and it was only a guess that she would—she'd have to comb the village as quickly as possible.

Rose split off from the creek and circled around the hill to the side where Patience had been found. As soon as she rounded the curve, she knew her hunch was correct. Two feet appeared, wearing the black cloth shoes of a Shaker sister. They lay on the ground, soles up. Rose's breath caught in her throat, and she ran toward the figure lying prone, arms splayed outward, facedown on the grass.

“Gertrude!” Rose cried, falling to her knees beside the sister. She reached out to touch Gertrude's cheek, and her hand was knocked aside. She sat abruptly on her side as Gertrude screamed and rolled over. It took several moments for Rose to comprehend that Gertrude was very much alive and terrified. They stared at one another, wide-eyed and openmouthed.

Rose recovered first. She grabbed Gertrude's wrists and pulled her to a sitting position, then threw her arms around
the startled woman. “Dear Gertrude, when I saw you lying on the ground, just like Patience, I was so frightened,” she said, choking on her tears. She sat back and held Gertrude at arm's length. “What on earth are you doing here at this time of morning?”

Gertrude's shoulders slumped and her face crumpled. “Oh, Rose, I've been such a fool,” she said. “Honestly, it would be better if I
had
been dead.”

“Nonsense.” Rose took a large hand in her own and squeezed it. “Tell me everything.”

“Could we consider this confession?”

“Of course.”

“My back hurts,” Gertrude said, wincing. “I'm not as young as I once was.”

“Nor I. Let's walk while we talk.”

Rose stood and helped the older woman. They walked in silence until they reached the shade of some oaks and maples. Decades of fallen leaves had matted some areas into the semblance of a path, which they wandered slowly.

“I was praying when you found me,” Gertrude said finally. “I have broken my vow.”

“Which one?”

“My sacred vow never to do violence to another human being.” Gertrude's already prominent chin jutted out even farther; she was ready and willing to take her punishment.

“Gertrude, are you saying that you had something to do with Patience's death? I simply can't believe that. Why? How?”

“Well, I must have killed her, that's all.”

Rose blinked, thinking she hadn't heard right. “Why must you have killed her? What are you talking about? Did you or didn't you?” She resisted the impulse to shake Gertrude by the shoulders; she seemed confused enough.

“I feel so terrible, Rose. I can't eat or sleep or work, and when I tried to pray, I just fell on the ground like Patience. It's all my fault. Even if I didn't mean for it to happen—and I didn't, Rose, you have to believe me. Even
so, it's my fault, and I have to take responsibility.”

Rose sucked on her bottom lip to keep herself from shouting in frustration. Gertrude needed to approach confession at her own pace; that was clear. Pressuring her would only increase her anxiety and slow the process.

They had reached the creek. Rose led the way, so they would not leave the privacy of the holy hill too quickly. Gertrude halted suddenly and stared into the water. “Patience was quite horrible to me,” she said. “You have no idea. No one does. When Hugo got sick, she said it was my fault!”

“Gertrude, surely you can't believe you are responsible for Hugo's death. He had been failing for a long time; you know that.”

“She said it was my cooking.”

“Your
cooking
?” Rose said, forcing herself not to laugh. “And you believed her? What, in the name of Mother Ann and all the angels, could your cooking possibly have had to do with Hugo's illness?”

Gertrude frowned as if the question had not occurred to her before. “Well, I don't know, truly I don't. I mean, everyone eats my cooking, don't they? Except you and Wilhelm, of course, when you eat at the Ministry House. And none of you gets sick from it, do you?” She searched Rose's face with red-rimmed eyes.

“Of course not. Patience's accusation was ridiculous. I can't imagine why . . .” Rose frowned as her voice trailed off.

“What? Rose, what are you thinking?”

“I was just remembering the afternoon Hugo became ill. He came into the kitchen while we were talking. He had missed the noon meal and was looking for a snack.” Rose laid a comforting hand on Gertrude's arm. “There was one item he ate that no one else has tried, as far as I know.”

“Oh dear,” Gertrude whimpered. “Not my lovely peppermint jelly.”

“I'm afraid so. But perhaps it's just a coincidence,” she
said as Gertrude's eyes blurred with tears. “When we've finished, we'll go get the jar and I'll see if I can find someone to identify its contents. Just to rule it out, you understand. Now, what else do you need to confess to me about Patience? Tell me more about her accusations.”

Gertrude nodded and gulped. “She said I didn't know how to use herbs properly. Imagine! I've been cooking for more than thirty years, and I've always used herbs, ever since I was a teen cooking for my papa, after my ma died. Why, I used to collect herbs from the hills, such like my ma did and her ma before her, down the line. We dried them ourselves and used them for tonics, too. Many's the time we cured the ague with one of our herb tonics.”

“So of course you are familiar with all sorts of herbs and their uses,” Rose said, keeping her voice light and encouraging,

“Yea, of course. Patience had no call to say what she did about taking my herbs away from me. Who does she think she is! Was, I mean.” Gertrude sagged against an oak tree.

“Patience wanted to take the kitchen herbs?”

“She wanted to take them all, right then. Never mind we were cooking evening meal and baking bread for the whole week.”

Rose was puzzled. “What was Patience doing in the kitchen during the workday?” Ordinarily the kitchen was the domain of the kitchen sisters, and others were discouraged from dropping by without a mission.

Gertrude avoided Rose's eyes. “Well,” she mumbled, “we weren't exactly in the kitchen. We were just . . . out.”

Rose sensed that silence would bring the story out, so she did not prod. Gertrude grew agitated under her gaze. She pushed away from the tree trunk, walked to the bank of the creek. She yanked off a length of high grass and began to twist it.

“I followed her,” Gertrude said finally, tossing the shredded grass into the water. “She'd dropped off some
basil at the kitchen and made that remark about my cooking being responsible for Hugo's sickness, and then she just walked out, and I was furious, as you can just imagine, so I told the sisters I had a quick errand, and I just walked right out the door. She was heading off this direction, walking in the grass, mind you, so I followed her a ways. I didn't want to call attention to myself. When I saw her go into the trees, I figured, well, that's just the right place to have a private talk with that Sister Know-It-All, so I went right in after her.” Gertrude's eyes looked inward at a memory that twisted her face in pain.

“Tell me what happened,” Rose said in a gentle command. “I promise, you will feel better.”

Gertrude nodded. “I followed her into the woods—you know, those trees back there.” She pointed to the area from which Rose had first watched Patience perform her solitary ritual. “I didn't know about this being the holy hill, even though I'd heard about such things before, so I was mighty surprised when I peeked around the trees and saw Patience twirling around like she was in worship service. I was hopping mad, but I just watched her for a while because . . . well, because I figured there might be a chance of catching her with it. You know, catching her with one of her false spirits,” Gertrude explained in response to Rose's puzzled frown. “I always believed she wasn't a true chosen instrument, but she sure enough seemed chosen by
something,
so it had to be a false spirit.”

With great difficulty, Rose resisted pointing out the theological unlikelihood of actually sighting a recognizably false spirit communicating with Patience. Enough time had been wasted.

“Did you interrupt her trance?” Rose asked.

“Yea, she just twirled and twirled, and I got madder and madder, so finally I stepped out and called her name. She stopped right away, so it wasn't much of a trance, anyway. I told her she'd no right to take my herbs and certainly no call to accuse my cooking of hurting Hugo. I said I'd go
right to Andrew and insist we got our herbs in the kitchen. Oh, Rose, she was just terrible. A Believer shouldn't be like that. She said I was a fool and a worthless Believer, and all sorts of horrible things, and . . .” Gertrude began to nibble on a thumbnail and curl in on herself like a child expecting punishment. Rose prepared herself to hear the true core of the confession.

“I hit her,” Gertrude said.

Rose struggled to hide her distress. She had expected to hear about harsh words or uncharitable thoughts, but not violence. Believers' vows of pacifism were so central to their faith that they had refused to serve in the Civil War and in the great World War, earning them the contempt of many of their neighbors. And Gertrude was hardly young and impetuous.