Heritage of Lancaster County 03 The Reckoning (3 page)

Had it not been for the fact that Katherine was adopted, the intermarrying and crisscrossed bloodlines deep in the Hollow might've made them cousins, if not a mite closer.

What are you doing today, Mary? wondered Katherine. Do you have any idea just how much I miss you ?

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CHAPTERTWO

What if somethin' could be done to lift the Ban off Katie just a bit?" Mary Stoltzfus asked her mother. "It's much too harsh, seems to me, not being' able to communicate with her and all." She didn't mention anything about not being able to write letters to her friend, of course. Still, she would've liked to be able to do so, without going behind the bishop's back about it, the way she'd up and done once already.

Her mother turned from the woodstove, where she was steaming carrots. "If we ease up on Katie Lapp, where will that put Daniel Fisher?"

"Jah, 'tis a knotty problem, I 'spect." Mary thought of her best friend; missed her more than words could tell. Yet she was anxious, today more than any other, to hear Mam's feeling on the matter. Mostly because she was supposed to spend the afternoon with Katie's former Beau--the man her wayward girlfriend had stood up on their wedding day back in November.

John Beiler had invited Mary to accompany him on a ride into town. Just where they were headed, she did not know. But, to her thinking, it wasn't so much the place the horse and carriage would be taking them as the fact that they were going anywhere together that was a godsend.

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"Daniel's gonna be under the Ban in a bit.., soon as the six-week probation's up," Rachel was saying. "Unless he hightails it back here and offers a kneeling confession. Not so likely, I 'spect, what with him having five years to think

on his sinful ways."

"Prob'ly so."

"No prob'lys about it," retorted her mother. "Word has it, that boy's as rebellious as ever. Believin' he's saved and all. Why, it'sa out-n'-out manifestation of pride.., nothin' less."

Mary sighed. "Dan's not a boy anymore, Mamma. He's a grown man with ideas and opinions. Can't go blamin' him for wanting to follow his heart." She'd almost said his Bible but knew that sort of talk would get her in more than just hot water. No, for a girl who'd grown up with a consuming desire to do the right thing, this was a startling notion. She would voice it to no one. Not to Mamma, and never to the bishop.

Bishop John Beiler was the divine answer to her prayers, widower or no. She had more sense than to risk losing her chance to be courted and married, not with her twenty-first birthday fast approaching. Besides, she'd fallen in love with John's ruddy-faced grin, his twinkling gray-blue eyes, and all five of his children. Even Levi, that eight-year-old rascal of a boy.

Thing was, she was worried sick what Katie might think if she ever got wind of Bishop John's growing interest in her. Would she just assume that Mary thought the widower was fair game, having been spurned as he was?

Mary shuddered to think what it might do to their friendship if Katie ever did return to Hickory Hollow to make amends. What then? she wondered. Surely, Katie--who had adamantly insisted on being called Katherine May-field before she ran off in search of her real mother--surely she'd overlook her best friend's relationship with John

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Beiler. If she understood anything about forgiveness and love, she would.

Besides, now that Dan Fisher was out searching for Katie, who knew what still might happen between the two? Mary brushed away the romantic notion with a sigh. Ach, what she would give to be a little mouse in the same room as the unfortunate lovers, when and if they found each other again.

Mary went about setting the table, even though the men wouldn't be coming in for lunch just yet. Dat and her married brothers had gone over to the Gordonville Print Shop to see about picking up some curriculum for the Amish school. They'd planned to return around noon--another gut hour or so away.

"Do ya think I oughta bring it up with Bishop John?" Mary ventured.

"About Katie's Meinding?" Rachel looked up from the stove, a curious expression on her face. "Puh, ya must be jokin', daughter. Besides, it would do no good spoilin' your chances--"

"Mamma, please..." Mary felt her pulse race. The afternoon's buggy ride was a secret and must be kept so. John Beiler had promised to pull his carriage off to the side of the road and wait for her.

Just past the wooden bridge, near the clump of fir trees, he'd told her two days ago when she'd bumped into him quite by accident at Preacher Yoder's General Store.

Her mother went back to stirring the carrots. "Don'tcha worry none. I won't breathe a word. Wouldn't do any gut for somethin' to leak out 'bout you and the bishop."

Mary agreed, and her face grew warm with the romantic thoughts tumbling through her head.

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Rebecca Lapp was so weak in the legs, she wished offand on all morning that she were a fattened sow left to lie in the sun, wallowing in the muddy grief of her life. But she headed down to the cold cellar beneath the house, where hundreds of quarts of vegetables and other foodstuffs were stored for the winter.

Standing there in the dark, damp place, she momentarily forgot what vegetable she'd had in mind for the noon meal. "Oh, what'sa matter with me?" she mumbled, fighting back tears. "Will I never stop thinking of my Katie?"

Locating her flashlight in the pantry cupboard, Rebecca allowed her eyes to roam over the cellar, coming to rest on the handcrafted pine cupboard in the corner--a constant reminder of the weeks before Katie's shunning and the ultimate hiding place for the satin baby gown.

Ach, how she longed for the soft, perty thing. Missed it so. If she could just hold it next to her heart again. Hold her daughter, too. If she could only be near the girl, her precious Katie...

How long had it been since she'd heard the forbidden guitar music creeping through the walls Of the Dawdi Haus next door? How long since she'd kissed Katie's tear-streaked face?

Shivering, she turned back to the task at hand and chose some green beans and corn from the orderly pantry shelves. Samuel, Eli, and Benjamin would be mighty hungry, wondering why a hot, hearty meal wasn't awaiting them, hardworking men that they were.

She turned and trudged upstairs, one foot in front of the other, till at last she stood at the top, winded and tired. Leaning against the door momentarily, she sighed and caught her breath a bit before letting herself into the warm, savory kitchen. Oh, she wished for a day when she might search out and find the entrance to a place of wholeness in her mind. How far off was such a day? How long before

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she'd start adjusting to life without her little girl?

Sadly, she pried open the canning lids and dumped both the corn and the beans into a large pot, completely by accident, before realizing what she'd done.

Ella Mae Zook sat at her daughter Mattie's kitchen table, surrounded by quilting squares stacked in groups of nine. She was making ready to teach Sally Beiler, one of her younger great-granddaughters, the arrangement of a "Ni- nepatch"--the simplest quilting pattern. "You'll catch on in no time," she promised. "Watch me once."

The girl paid close attention, and when it was her turn to try, the Wise Woman jumbled up all the squares again, handing them over to Sally. Carefully, the youngster positioned the fabric on the long wooden table so that one dark square lay next to a lighter square, in the familiar tic-tac-toe pattern.

Across the room, Mattie stood at the cookstove, seasoning a pot of creamed potato soup. Every few minutes, she came over to check on Sally's progress.

Without ever glancing up, Sally asked, "It wonders me . . when do ya think Bishop John and Mary Stoltzfus'll end up tying the knot?"

Ella Mae harrumphed, feeling the need to set the conversation on course. "No need to be speculatin' on such things. If it's God's will, they'll get together in all good time. Won't matter just when, I should say."

"If they do," Mattie added. "You know the poor man is probably still heartsick over Katie Lapp, what with the way she jilted him . . . on their wedding day, no less. Why, if it was me, I'd be laying low on the subject of marriage, I 'spect."

"Well, it ain't you, so just let it be," Ella Mae advised.

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"The man needs a good mother for his children, and he's smart enough to make up his own mind. Mary, well.., bless her heart, John Beiler's the man of her dreams."

"Ach, ya mean it?" Sally spoke up, blushing slightly. "You think she's been dreaming 'bout the bishop?"

Mattie shook her head, muttering as she walked back to the simmering potato soup. But Ella Mae kept on, attempting to smooth things over, without divulging any secrets. "You know, sometimes it just seems that one person fits right fine with another. Belongin' is what it's all about, I do believe."

Right then, the old woman thought of Daniel, wondering how the dear boy was doing. He'd come to visit here lately, knocked hard on the door of her side of the house-- come straight back from the dead--inquiring as to Katie's whereabouts. Ella Mae had filled him in as best she could. 'Course, she didn't have much hope of his ever finding the shunned girl, not as awful crowded as New York was. But true love sometimes wins out over great odds, she thought. Lord willin', that would be the case.

Sally silently worked at her grid of niae patches while Ella Mae observed, still struggling with unsettled feelings over the whole notion of Daniel's being alive and all. Where had he been all that time? And how was it that Bishop John had up and slapped the Ban on him, almost the minute the People found out Daniel had not drowned in that sailing mishap years ago?

Oh, and they'd faulted him for "finding salvation, full and free," Dan had told her as he sat sipping tea in her little kitchen. A body could see he was telling the truth, too. His face purely shown with a radiance, and when he asked to see her Bible, she gave it to him gladly, listening with eagerness as he read one verse after another.

One passage stirred her very soul. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.., and this is

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the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

The promise of salvation right there in the Scriptures! It was ever so clear. Daniel knew he was saved.

By the time he'd said his good-byes, she was altogether convinced that Dan was telling the truth about his finding eternal life in Jesus Christ. Himmel! The more she thought about this Meinding business, the less it made any sense.

Daniel parked the rental car out some distance from the entrance to the Mayfield mansion. The circular drive was configured in such a way as to allow for several parking spots along the side before the grand bend led up to the paved walkway, now dusted with a layer of snow.

Refolding the map, he placed it on the seat next to him and stared through the windshield at the fine English-style country estate. To think that his Katie had come here to find her birth mother! What a grand and beautiful place it was. The startling information was still in the process of seeping through to his brain, thanks to his sister Annie and beloved old Ella Mae. It gave him no insight, however, into the girl he'd once-known and loved. Her parents were and always would be Samuel and Rebecca Lapp, the kind and generous folk who'd raised Katie as their own. What could have happened to make their adopted daughter want to abandon them and go on such a search?

The answers, he knew, were bound up inside the rambling, vine-covered dwelling. Inside Katie's heart, as well. If only he might unlock those secret rooms and find his sweetheart girl waiting there.

Yet the Wise Woman had warned him, "She's not the girl you grew up with. Katie's suffered great pain; is more headstrong than I've ever seen her. If you find her, best go

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gentle on her . . . let her take her time tellin' you her side of things."

Oh, he'd gladly give Katie all the time in the world. Beginning right now.

Prayerfully, he opened the car door and walked the long drive. Up past lantern-shaped lights that lined the walkway on either side, to the portal. "Dear God in heaven, help me. Help Katie and me," he whispered, running his fingers through his beard, still wondering if he'd made the right decision by keeping it intact.

Without further delay, he reached for the brass door knocker.

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Katherine sat with her back to the blazing fire. She had spent the morning playing her guitar and singing freely, allowing her voice to fill the sitting room, one of the several comfortable places to relax in her private suite. She had kept the arrangement of furnishings the same as when Laura was alive: overstuffed chairs and a cherry sofa table placed so as to accentuate the Tibetan area rug, a favorite of her birth mother.

Flitting from one song to another, Katherine let her mind roam back to Pennsylvania, settling on the letter Mary had written in mid-December. She had read it so many times now, she had it nearly memorized.

It's all I can do to keep myself from sneaking off down the lane for a visit

She knew just what her friend must've been feeling as Mary penned those words. They both had missed out on friendship by losing touch with each other.

Katherine curled her toes inside her house shoes, despising the bishop--that wretched man who might're become her husband if she hadn't had the gumption to walk out on their wedding service. She stopped singing, stopped strumming her guitar. John Beiler had cut her off from her

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loved ones, her People. A typical shunning was one thing, but declaring that none of them could speak to her or she to them! The memory stung like a hundred angry wasps.

Getting up, she strolled to the windows, still carrying her guitar as she looked out at the snow-covered lawn and formal gardens. Hundreds of barren trees--beech, fir, and maple--stood at graceful attention over the rolling acres as far as the eye could see.

A light snow had begun to fall. The enormous flakes seemed to suspend themselves momentarily, high in the air, as if holding their breath before consenting to drift to earth. The overcast sky and the mood of the day reminded her of midwinter days in the Hollox; when snow-encrusted country roads were sliced deep by narrow carriage wheels and trampled over by one trotting horse after another.