Jane Was Here (22 page)

I suppose it will be some days before we may go out, and so Letty will not be able to deliver this note to Mrs. Seeley’s until the streets allow. I fear you have no conception of our New England winters, being from Philadelphia. They are very long, and during February, the roads are nearly impassable, and thus even if your leg heals by mid-winter as the doctor predicts, you may yet be hindered from journeying to Hovey Pond until the April thaw. Will you come to detest Graynier and its sad denizens? Even its scatterbrained young women?

But I must write on a more serious theme, because you have had the goodness to send me a second tract – again printed by your father’s press! I picture you as you describe: a young man dutifully setting the type for Mr. Artzuni’s pamphlet, pausing to read what it said, and how the Holy Spirit rose from the prophet’s words and entered your being! How brave you were, to defy father and mother and family, to quit the comforts of home and confer your soul to Gabriel Nation. (Please do write more about the dangers facing your community in Texas when you established your tabernacle there! It makes such an exciting narrative!).

Alas, Mr. Artzuni’s words did not produce such a supernatural effect in myself. Still I find some of his points to be intriguing, directing me to Bible verses with which I am unfamiliar. (I confess I am not as acquainted with the Holy Book as, for example, the works of Mr. Poe, but I have begun to reform!) In particular, I was drawn by the quotation from the Gospel of Luke, wherein Jesus said that those who will be resurrected to Heaven will not marry or be offered in marriage, and they become the equal of angels, and cannot die anymore. Does he (your Prophet Mr. Artzuni) mean that those who join Gabriel Nation, and become equal to angels in advance of resurrection, will be immortal here on earth? and like the angels in heaven they do not marry, even if they love each other? I suppose immortality might be desirable, though I must think on it more. To never be married would be sad. Were you compelled to make this sacrifice when you pledged yourself to the Gabrielites?

Your letters inspire me to read the Good Book more closely. Indeed everyone is surprised to see my head bent over its pages for hours on end. Rebecca teases me, and I cannot say rightly if Father is pleased – rather, mystified. I confess that my mind drifts often. I must bring more effort to my learning.

Your sincere friend,
Jane Pettigrew

Dear Mr. Trane,

Today you would have been pleased with me. I received a visit from Bethesda Jarley, a friend from Miss McKeown’s Instruction for Young Ladies, a boarding school in Haverhill where I was taught French and Latin languages, Music, Drawing, and Painting, as well as English studies. (I had great hopes to become a teacher myself, but Papa preferred I remain at home.) My friend had hidden in her sleeve a copy of Mr. Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” proposing to lend it to me in the strictest secrecy. I reproached her indignantly for reading anything so preposterous, blasphemous and immoral. Her eyes fairly popped out of her face! For she knows how I adore Mr. Hawthorne’s books. I felt proud that my change of heart, which I owe to your influence, is so well perceived by those who assume they know me well.

“Well!” said she. “You may call Mr. Hawthorne’s story preposterous, but even here in Graynier we have our own Hester Prynne!” She then proceeded to relay her gossip: that young Master Ellis Graynier has brought dishonor to a female domestic of the village and the unfortunate girl is forced to repair to Boston where she must bear the fruit of her sin alone and repudiated. (Dear Mr. Trane, if I were, like you, preferred by God to attain the power of angels, I should have a great deal of work to perform here in Graynier, where believe me Satan is prolific!)

I would not hear the rest, but professed a headache, upon which Miss Jarley left (I did not tell her that I had previously read Mr. Hawthorne’s book – at the Widow Seeley’s – but this, I promise, preceded your arrival and your salutary effect on my character, God be praised.)

I wish so much that we could continue our discourse in person. We should then have enjoyable debates over some of the Gabriel Nation principles such as the abjuration of marriage, prohibition of dancing &c. and I should advance more quickly in my understanding of your faith. Unhappily, whenever I have petitioned Father for permission to visit my dear companion Mrs. Seeley, he replies that as long as she houses a certain guest who propounds dangerously radical doctrines I must avoid her premises. I protested that if Mrs. Seeley is favorably disposed to the gentleman then he must be above reproach. Father declared that Widow Seeley was always partial to a good-looking fellow, which I thought most unchristian considering what a great friend she has been to the Pettigrews, and I said so. He did not answer, but fixed me with a look that conveyed suspicion. Perhaps I did protest too much and seemed overly eager to his eye. The consequence is that he binds me closer to the hearth than ever, and seems both anxious and mistrustful whenever I propose to go out.

I feel it unfair to be so young, and be unable to follow my own inner voice, which bids me to fly to 12 Graynier Avenue, where I might steep myself in the presence of that rare one who speaks directly to God, and perhaps receive some of that golden blessing by propinquity. And now my fingers are too numb with cold to write more!

Your devoted student,
Jane Pettigrew

Dear Mr. Trane,

Alas, our little plan did not succeed. My disappointment is keen. All seemed well, the weather warm, the snow abated, and I – seated beside good Mrs. Lang in the sleigh, her mare drawing us “at an immoderate rate,” shaking her bells in a jubilation like to mine as I inhaled the pure air of freedom – I flew then, loosed from the confines of my house, with my father’s permission to accompany Mrs. Lang to the shantytown with comestibles and clothing for the needy.

The errand itself presented no obstacle: indeed the unfortunates of that appalling neighborhood fell upon our supplies like crows. Some were delirious from lack of food. We learned that, on the third day of the storm, they had to burn stools and mattresses for fuel. Doctor Pincus was there, amputating a boy’s fingers because of frostbite. I cannot fathom why our Lord chooses some to receive His grace but denies it to others, His will be done. But we cannot know the thoughts of God, as Mr. Artzuni writes, unless we are in the Spirit of God, which advantage I have not yet earned.

As we trotted back through town, I quite casually asked Mrs. Lang to leave me off at Widow Seeley’s to return some books (just as you and I planned). She declared she had promised Papa to bring me straight home and she could not presume to deviate from that agreement. So home I went, casting a forlorn glance at Mrs. S.’s window where I knew you waited, but even the frost upon the glass conspired to keep you hidden.

I pray your leg is improved. And now it is snowing again.

Your disconsolate friend,
Jane Pettigrew

Dear Mr. Trane,

I have lacked a letter from you for so long, with the latest blizzard smothering the streets, and moreover poor Letty has been in bed with a cold. The delivery of this note signals her recovery! She and Rebecca have both been out in the snow, but Father continues to keep me nearer than ever. I am happy to coddle him, for he does need tending to, owing to a persistent congestion of the lungs, which he attributes to breathing the glass dust at the factory over the many years – nearly 25 – he has worked for Mr. Graynier. For this reason he has been more absent from work than formerly.

But even if not for his debility, he would hold me fast. I do believe it is because of my resemblance to my mother that he delights to look upon me and has always preferred me to my sister. I tell Rebecca often that this preferment comes at the cost of my freedom, and for that she must not be envious.

How tedious is January. All seems to stand still, and one’s inertia is maddening. I play the seraphine and sing until all scream at me to stop. I have darned every sock and embroidered every scrap in my workbasket. I have sketched and painted studies of every member in the household, in every angle and position – even Uli Haff, my father’s foreman, who visits to give Papa news of the factory when he is ill (though I think Mr. Haff comes also to see Rebecca, and I suspect he will declare his intentions soon! Uli is not handsome but a good, hard-working man, of strong German stock, and he will provide reasonably well for my sister. I shall be sorry, nonetheless, to have her move away. She is ever my dearest companion, to whom I confide everything, excepting in the case of our correspondence, as I believe she would not approve of such deception).

And so I read, I pace, I muse, I gnaw at my cage like the little mouse I captured in a box last week. In the end I freed him. Perhaps God will note my good deed and free me, too.

In years past I endured January with placid forbearance. But now that my being has been awakened by Mr. Artzuni’s prophecies, together with your dear notes of encouragement, I feel ever more restive and impatient to embrace Heaven’s instruction. Whatever it may be, I await His command!

Yet for all my zeal there has been silence. I read from no other volume except the Bible, yet the words seem stale and will not animate my spirit. Could God desire to shut me out?

Last week I tried fasting, as Mr. Artzuni advises, to facilitate the onset of revelations. I refused meals, pretending dyspepsia, and made light of everyone’s concern. By the third day I was compelled to take to my bed, so weak had I become. As I lay and awaited a signal of the Lord, I believe I dreamed, for I had a vision of falling into a deep pit, and a man whose face I could not discern stood above and kicked dirt down on my face. The howls of demons filled my ears as I lay in this earthen tomb, as if I were being buried alive – like the unfortunate narrator of Mr. Poe’s The Premature Burial! – and I awoke in terror, to the sound of my little mouse scratching behind the wall, like fingernails scraping at the lid of a coffin.

I ceased fasting, yet this image of Hell haunts me still. It seems to lure me away from the light, whispering that I am unworthy of Heaven.

You say that faith alone will lead me to sinless purity. Then it must be that my faith is incomplete, and the missing element is your guidance. God’s deliverance seems ever more distant in this month when the sun dwindles to nothing, and I have no word from you.