The ladies’ eyes whispered to each other in glances behind her back. She’s getting worse, the poor thing.
“There she is!” Ardelia sang out loudly, already two cocktails into the evening. “Darling, you look like you need a drink!”
Ten minutes later, the bell rang for dinner. With the eight guests arranged about his table, Walter sat back, his hands folded over his pronounced belly, and beamed at the sight of his dining room. He’d demanded the oversize cavern from the architect with exactly this sort of evening in mind. Still, his smile held the melancholy of nostalgia, as if the evening surrounded by friends were a last supper.
“Is she even Christian?” The question came at him from the banker’s wife to his right. Georgina had just told of how their maid, Ella, had healed a scratch on little Walter’s leg with some herbs and a foreign prayer. I’m telling you, it worked like a charm.
Walter shrugged as though the religious beliefs of his housekeeper had never crossed his mind. “You know, I haven’t dared to ask.”
The woman ran an absentminded hand over her pearls. “I can’t say I’d be comfortable with her as a governess, myself. Have you ever considered hiring someone else?”
“Are you kidding?” Walter laughed. “She’d put a curse on the house! I’m pretty sure her family back in the old country were gypsies!”
This titillated his end of the table, but Georgina wilted in protest.
“No, no,” she murmured softly, shaking her head. “She’d never. Ella is wonderful. Little Walter just adores her. I really don’t know what I would—”
Something broke her thought. A sound only she could hear. She turned her head to the phantom murmur on her right. Is it a cry?
“I’m sure she’s quite lovely, darling. Besides, don’t we all need a little witchcraft from time to time?” Ardelia arched a brow wickedly, casting sly glances around the table, daring the bourgeois collection of guests to protest.
The banker’s wife ignored the quip. “Georgina? Are you alright? You look a bit peaked.”
Georgina didn’t answer. Her glassy eyes fixed on the far wall as though she could see through it to the timbers beneath the plaster. The wooden strands of the house strummed a silent tune, a song playing somewhere just beyond her reach.
“Darling?” Walter’s voice cut through the tension gathering around the table.
Georgina blinked away the fugue. “Yes?”
Just then, Ella appeared at Walter’s side and whispered, “Your guest is here.”
“Ah. Wonderful!” Walter stood up and addressed the guests. “We have an unusual treat this evening, folks!”
Georgina stiffened, a finger curl falling over her cheek. Knowing Walter, it could be anyone.
He left the dining room, a hush of intrigue roiling in his wake. Incorrigible Walter! He just loves his surprises. He returned several moments later with an elderly woman on his arm.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my esteemed honor to introduce Miss Ninny Boyd. She is one of the original Shakers from the North Union Settlement. She tells me she went to grammar school not far from where we are sitting right now.”
A wave of surprise and delight swept through the guests. How amazing. You don’t say? Can you imagine?
The old woman’s watery eyes scanned the painted faces of the society ladies and the boozy grins of the men until they found Georgina. “I am so sorry to have interrupted your meal. Forgive me,” she said in the quavering voice of the ancient.
Georgina dropped her fork.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Walter said, pulling out the spare chair for her. “Waiters. Please get our honored guest something to eat.”
The hired staff went scrambling back to the kitchen. Ninny sank her small hunched frame down into the chair, not taking her eyes off Georgina, who grew paler by the moment.
Ardelia leaned in, leering as though the old woman were an animal at the zoo. “Miss Boyd, you simply must tell us everything about the Shakers!”
“There is hardly much to say.” But there was. Please forgive me, but there is much I must tell you, her eyes pleaded with her frail hostess. The proper words failed the old woman.
Georgina sat stricken, refusing to meet the woman’s urgent gaze.
One of his golf partners turned to Walter. “How on earth did you manage to meet a Shaker, old man?”
“Georgina was clever enough to meet the dear woman the other day. Isn’t that right, darling?”
Georgina’s lips had gone nearly white. She took a sip of wine to stall for time and collect herself. She cleared her throat. “Yes. I met Miss Boyd in the flower garden.”
Ardelia gaped in amusement. “In your flower garden here? Behind your house? What on earth were you doing back there, Miss Boyd?”
Ninny shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I had not been back in this valley for so very long. I suppose I came to pay the past its due.”
“What past, darling?” Ardelia pressed.
The old woman sat there, shrinking in the light of their collective gaze. She realized with some consternation that she would have to find the words for it. Her voice, thin as thread, rose with growing doubt. “The dead do not rest so easy here, I fear.”
“The dead?” Ardelia arched an eyebrow.
An uncomfortable hush fell over the table. Georgina cocked her head at a sound no one else could hear. Only Ninny seemed to notice.
“Ha! Fascinating!” Walter said in his booming voice, slapping a loud hand on the table. Georgina jumped at the impact. “Georgina, love, why did you not tell me of Miss Boyd’s mission? I love a good ghost story! Do tell us, Miss Boyd. Can we get you any wine?”
“Oh, dear.” Ninny’s eyes fell to her lap, her dire warning reduced to a parlor game. “I couldn’t possibly.”
Walter nodded. “Of course. How foolish of me. Surely these sorts of spirits were frowned upon in the old Shaker community.”
“There was no drinking permitted? Even before the law, I mean?” the banker’s wife put in.
Ninny folded her hands in her lap in the manner she’d been taught all those years ago. “No. Mother Ann frowned on such things, I’m afraid.”
“Mother Ann?” Ardelia said with a glimmer. Peasant witchcraft, it said. “Who was she?”
“Mother Ann foretold Christ’s Second Coming . . . her divining brought the Believers to the Valley of God’s Pleasure here. They say angels whispered in her ear.” Ninny’s voice dropped to a near whisper itself. Nothing was going as she’d hoped.
“My. And do you believe this as well?” the banker’s wife asked.
Ninny’s sagging gaze settled back on Georgina’s porcelain face. “I believe God speaks to those that listen.” Please, you must listen.
“Is it true that the Shakers were opposed to marriage, Miss Boyd?” Ardelia sipped her wine, daring the old woman to discuss the lack of sex in her religion. It was common knowledge that the Shaker commune had died off largely due to celibacy.
Ninny kept her eyes on Georgina—the hostess sat stiff as a board in her seat, as though listening to whispers of her own—and then the rude question registered. Marriage. “We believed many things that were unfashionable at the time. I can’t say this other world fits my heart better.” She shook her head at the enormous crystal chandelier hanging over them. Her eyes narrowed at the ceiling as though counting the timbers hidden beneath the plaster until she’d entirely lost her train of thought. Suddenly dismayed, she frowned at her host. “Did they mill the trees here when they built the house?”