Dorothea settled the bonnet on her head and tucked in first one raven braid, then the other. With each movement she made I ached.
“I’m here every day, and I’d be glad to play for you,” I said.
She gave no answer, and I was about to let her walk away when I thought again of what Josiah had said the night of my conversion, that the blessed were those who seized the gifts the Lord put before them.
“May I call on you?” I said, forcing out the words.
She had already gone a few steps, but at that she stopped. “I thank you for my bonnet, Mr. Ames, but my father doesn’t allow callers.”
“I’ll plead with him,” I said.
“That wouldn’t be any use.”
“I’ll wait by your farm, then. I can walk you to town or to the Temple. If you don’t want me, just send me off.” At this her face colored. I had gone too far. “I apologize,” I said. “I did not mean—”
“Come next Wednesday,” she said quickly, her voice pitched at a whisper: her mother had emerged from Teague’s and was calling her. “I make no promises. My father might not let you in.” Then she ran to her mother, and the two of them walked up the street until they disappeared around the other side of the bathhouse.
I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY FORTUNE. I had been bold, and the Lord had blessed me. On the agreed-upon Wednesday I left Pickle’s work yard an hour early and walked to the Bainbridge farm.
Since my meeting with Dorothea I had spent my spare moments carving hands. With the clearest blocks of scrap pine I could find, I sat by my lamp each evening and whittled. I planned to present the best of the lot to Dorothea and had worked out what I would say. “Might I exchange this rude carving, which I have gripped so delicately all week, for its truer, purer model?” The sixth hand came as near to perfect as I could get. I clutched it by its fingers now as I walked, warming it with my flesh.
The Bainbridge farm lay in the remoter, southern quarter of the island, beyond the village of New Nazareth. I found the cabin at the end of a track that led first through a birch wood and then into a clearing planted with potatoes. As I walked I had assured myself of victory, but now that I approached the Bainbridge cabin I grew nervous. What if Dorothea’s father refused me? I considered methods for clandestine courtship. Secret meetings, a hollowed tree for depositing notes.
These imaginings proved unnecessary: though he received me coldly, Bainbridge let me in.
“Mr. Ames,” he said upon opening the door. He led me to the cabin’s crude parlor, where Dorothea sat working on a stocking. A paperboard screen and blankets slung over strings were all that divided the cabin into rooms. On the walls hung a few newspaper illustrations of Mexican scenes, from the recent war. A glass hutch filled with dull china stood across from the door, and the rest of the furniture took the form of trunks, save for the chairs gathered around the hearth. I was offered the one next to Dorothea while Bainbridge sat across from us, beside his wife. Dorothea glanced up, then returned to her stocking, and Bainbridge stared at the two of us while his wife poked at the fire. Every attempt I made at a pleasantry — on the weather, on the last Sabbath’s sermon — was met with a “hmph” by Bainbridge and silence by Dorothea and her mother.
This continued for some time, and I despaired. Was my love to founder so quickly? Then Bainbridge rose to visit the privy, and, at a nod from her mother, Dorothea spoke. “I’m glad you came,” she said, putting down the stocking and grinning up at me. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”
“I had to.” With that I offered her the wooden hand and made my speech. Her cheeks reddened, and she took the hand and gave me hers in return. Dorothea’s mother had focused her eyes on the small fire and was pretending to ignore us. I wondered then if she had argued for me. For a full five minutes I clutched Dorothea’s hand. She pulled it away only when the scrape of the back door announced her father’s return.
Once a week, all through the rest of May and into June, I called on Dorothea. Each of my visits followed the same pattern. We would sit in silence as her father watched us, me with my hands folded, Dorothea working on a stocking. Then, once Bainbridge absented himself, her mother would turn away, pretending to contemplate some particular coal, and I would present my gift — another hand, so that I might hold both, and after that a piece of polished burl I called her cheek, which I gave Dorothea in exchange for a kiss of its original. In those rare free minutes we would talk of our days or play teasing games with one another. Once she read me a poem, and another time she made me keep silent while she searched my face. The moment I left her I ached as if fevered, and with each visit it seemed our souls were being knit together.
At our sixth meeting, though, I found her altered.
As before, she worked on a stocking while her father sat with us, but when he left, rather than wake into the girl I had come to know, she stared into her lap. Her mother, sitting across from us as always, ignored the fire and twisted a handkerchief in her fingers.
“Dory,” I said. But she didn’t look up. “Dory, what is it?”
Then came the scraping of the back door — her father returning sooner than usual. In a moment he was standing over me and telling me it was time to leave.
“I hope you got to say your good-byes,” he said once we were outside. “That’s the last of your calls, Mr. Ames.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “My intentions are honorable.” I wondered if this was what concerned him. “I hope to marry Dorothea.”
“I won’t permit it,” he said.
His flat refusal surprised me. I stood there more flabbergasted than hurt.
“Sir,” I said, “there must be something I can do.”
“Nothing,” he said.
“But, Mr. Bainbridge,” I protested, “surely—”
“You’ll get my permission the day you’re raised to the Order!” he shouted, and his face grew fiery. He meant to say I had no hope. The Order of Maccabaeus was the highest honor ordained by Josiah. It had as yet no members. I could not understand Bainbridge’s stubbornness, and to distract my sick heart — for with each passing moment hurt pumped in — I spent my long walk home cursing him and his arrogance.
IT WAS SOME WEEKS AFTER that last meeting with Dorothea — lost weeks, despairing weeks — that Josiah summoned everyone to the Temple. For four days he had kept himself shut in the Chamber of the Most Holy. While I had been courting Dorothea doubts had been spreading across the island. According to The Book of Truths, with the passing of spring we were to have left the Years of Preparation and entered the Years of Manifestation. By now thousands were supposed to be arriving each week. Instead there had been only a trickle of new converts. And where were the promised wonders, the signs of the New Age? Why hadn’t angels appeared on Mount Nebo, or fire broken the sky to devour the homes and stores of those sliding into apostasy? Some were saying our faith had fallen short, that we need only trust more in the Lord. Others whispered that Josiah and the elders were in secret taking new wives, like the Mormons of Utah, and the Lord was displeased. Still others, couching their words in the claim that they were merely repeating what they’d heard, accused Josiah of fooling us all with humbuggery. The doubts could no longer be ignored, and at the most recent Sabbath Josiah had announced he was going into the Chamber of the Most Holy to beseech the Lord to show him where we had erred. Each day I had prayed for him. My faith had never wavered.