CHAPTER XXVI.
_How the Red Came Back to the Blood to be a Snare_
The watchful eyes of the Bishop had seen truly. Not only was the redcoming back to the blood of Martha, but the fair flesh to her meagreframe, the spring of youth to her step and living fire to her voice andthe glance of her eyes. Her husband was pleased. He had made a newcreature of the poor, worn wreck found by the wayside, weak, emaciated,reeling under her burden. He rejoiced to know he had done a trueservice. He was glad, moreover, to know that she made an admirablemother to the little woman-child. Prudence, indeed, had brought themcloser to each other, slowly, subtly, in little ways to disarm the mosttimid caution.
And this mothering and fathering of little Prudence was a work by nomeans colourless or uneventful. The child had displayed a grievouscapacity for remaining unimpressed by even the best-weighed opinions ofher protector. She was also appallingly fluent in and partial to theidioms and metaphors of revealed religion,--a circumstance that wouldnot infrequently cause the sensitive to shudder.
Thus, when she chose to call her largest and least sightly doll the HolyGhost, the ingenuity of those about her was taxed to rebuke her in waysthat would be effective without being harsh. It was felt, too, that heroffence had been but slightly mitigated when she called the same doll,thereafter, "Thou son of perdition and shedder of innocent blood." Notuntil this disfigured effigy became Bishop Wright, and the remainingdolls his more or less disobedient wives, was it felt that she hadapproached even remotely the plausible and the decorous.
A glance at some of the verses she was from time to time constrained tolearn will perhaps indicate the line of her transgressions, and yetavert a disclosure of details that were often tragic. She was taughtthese verses from a little old book bound in the gaudiest of Dutch giltpaper, as if to relieve the ever-present severity of the text and thedistressing scenes portrayed in the illustrating copperplates. Forexample, on a morning when there had been hasty words at breakfast,arising from circumstances immaterial to this narrative, she might bemade to learn:--
"That I did not see Frances just now I am glad, For Winifred says she looked sullen and sad. When I ask her the reason, I know very well That Frances will blush the true reason to tell.
"And I never again shall expect to hear said That she pouts at her milk with a toast of white bread, When both are as good as can possibly be-- Though Betsey, for breakfast, perhaps may have tea."
With no sort of propriety could be set down in printed words theoccurrence that led to her reciting twenty times, somewhat defiantly inthe beginning, but at last with the accents and expression ofcountenance proper to remorse, the following verses:--
"Who was it that I lately heard Repeating an improper word? I do not like to tell her name Because she is so much to blame."
Indeed, she came to thunder the final verse with excellent gestures ofcondemnatory rage:--
"Go, naughty child! and hide your face, I grieve to see you in disgrace; Go! you have forfeited to-day All right at trap and ball to play."
Nor is it necessary to go back of the very significant lines themselvesto explain the circumstance of her having the following for a half-day'sburden:--
"Jack Parker was a cruel boy, For mischief was his sole employ; And much it grieved his friends to find His thoughts so wickedly inclined.
"But all such boys unless they mend May come to an unhappy end, Like Jack, who got a fractured skull Whilst bellowing at a furious bull."
Nor is there sufficient reason to say why she was often counselled toregard as her model:--
"Miss Lydia Banks, though very young, Will never do what's rude or wrong; When spoken to she always tries To give the most polite replies."
And painful, indeed, would it be to relate the events of one sad daywhich culminated in her declaiming at night, with far more thanperfunctory warmth, and in a voice scarce dry of tears:--
"Miss Lucy Wright, though not so tall, Was just the age of Sophy Ball; But I have always understood Miss Sophy was not half so good; For as they both had faded teeth, Their teacher sent for Doctor Heath.
"But Sophy made a dreadful rout And would not have hers taken out; While Lucy Wright endured the pain, Nor did she ever once complain. Her teeth returned quite sound and white, While Sophy's ached both day and night."
Yet her days were by no means all of reproof nor was her reproof everharsher than the more or less pointed selections from the moral versescould inflict. Under the watchful care of Martha she flourished and washappy, her mother in little, a laughing whirlwind of tender flesh,tireless feet, dancing eyes, hair of sunlight that was darkening as shegrew older, and a mind that seemed to him she called father a miracle ofunfoldment. It was a mind not so quickly receptive as he could havewished to the learning he tried patiently to impart; he wondered,indeed, if she were not unduly frivolous even for a child of six; forshe would refuse to study unless she could have the doll she calledBishop Wright with her and pretend that she taught the lesson to him,finding him always stupid and loth to learn. He hoped for better thingsfrom her mind as she aged, watching anxiously for the buddings of reasonand religion, praying daily that she should be increased in wisdom as instature. He had become so used to the look of her mother in her facethat it now and then gave him an instant of unspeakable joy. But thesound of his own voice calling her "Prudence" would shock him from thisas with an icy blast of truth.
When the children of Amalon came to play with her, the little Nephis,Moronis, Lehis, and Juabs, he saw she was a creature apart from them, ofanother fashion of mind and body. He saw, too, that with some nativeintuition she seemed to divine this, and to assume command even of thoseolder than herself. Thus Wish Wright and his brother, Welcome, both herseniors by several years, were her awe-bound slaves; and the twindaughters of Zebedee Bloom obeyed her least whim without question, evenwhen it involved them in situations more or less delicate. With herquick ear for rhythm she had been at once impressed by theirnames--impressed to a degree that savoured of fascination. She wouldseat the two before her, range the other children beside them, and thenlead the chorus in a spirited chant of these names:--
"Isa Vinda Exene Bloom! Ella Minda Almarine Bloom!"
repeating this a long time until they were all breathless, and thesolemn twins themselves were looking embarrassed and rather foolishlypleased.
As he observed her day by day in her joyous growth, it was inevitablethat he came more and more to observe the woman who was caring for her,and it was thus on one night in late summer that he awoke to an awfultruth,--a truth that brought back the words of the woman's formerhusband with a new meaning.
He had heard Prudence say to her, "You are a pretty mamma," and suddenlythere came rushing upon him the sum of all the impressions his eyes hadtaken of her since that day when the Bishop had spoken. He trembled andbecame weak under the assault, feeling that in some insidious way hisstrength had been undermined. He went out into the early evening to bealone, but she, presently, having put the child to bed, came and stoodnear, silently in the doorway.
He looked and saw she was indeed made new, restored to the lustre andfulness of her young womanhood. He remembered then that she had longbeen silent when he came near her, plainly conscious of his presence butwith an apparent constraint, with something almost tentative in hermanner. With her return to health and comeliness there had come back toher a thousand little graces of dress and manner and speech. She drewhim, with his starved love of beauty and his need of companionship; drewhim with a mighty power, and he knew it at last. He remembered how hehad felt and faintly thrilled under a certain soft suppression in hertones when she had spoken to him of late; this had drawn him, and thenew light in her eyes and her whole freshened womanhood, even before heknew it. Now that he did know it he felt himself shaken and all butlost; clutching weakly at some support that threatened every moment togive way.
And she was his wife, his who had starved ye
ar after year for the lighttouch of a woman's hand and the tones of her voice that should be forhim alone. He knew now that he had ached and sickened in his yearningfor this, and she stood there for him in the soft night. He knew she waswaiting, and he knew he desired above all things else to go to her; thatthe comfort of her, his to take, would give him new life, new desires,new powers; that with her he would revive as she had done. He waitedlong, indulging freely in hesitation, bathing his wearied soul in hernearness--yielding in fancy.
Then he walked off into the night, down through the village, past thelight of open doors, and through the voices that sounded from them, outon to the bare bench of the mountain--his old refuge intemptation--where he could be safe from submitting to what his soul hadforbidden. He had meant to take up a cross, but before his very eyes ithad changed to be a snare set for him by the Devil.
He stayed late on the ground in the darkness, winning the battle forhimself over and over, decisively, he thought, at the last. But when hewent home she was there in the doorway to meet him, still silent, butwith eyes that told more than he dared to hear. He thought she had insome way divined his struggle, and was waiting to strengthen the oddsagainst him, with her face in the light of a candle she held above herhead.
He went by her without speaking, afraid of his weakness, and rushed tohis little cell-like room to fight the battle over. As a last source ofstrength he took from its hiding-place the little Bible. And as it fellopen naturally at the blood-washed page a new thing came, a new torture.No sooner had his eyes fallen on the stain than it seemed to him to cryout of itself, so that he started back from it. He shut the book and thecries were stilled; he opened it and again he heard them--far, loudcries and low groans close to his ear; then long piercing screamsstifled suddenly too low, horrible gurglings. And before him came theinscrutable face with the deep gray eyes and the shining lips, lifting,with love in the eyes, above a gashed throat.
He closed the book and fell weakly to his knees to pray brokenly, andalmost despairingly: "Help me to keep down this self within me; let itask for nothing; fan the fires until they consume it! _Bow me, bend me,break me, burn me out--burn me out_!"
In the morning, when he said, "Martha, the harvest is over now, and Iwant you to go north with me," she prepared to obey without question.
He talked freely to her on the way, though it is probable that he leftin her mind little more than dark confusion, beyond the one clear factof his wish. As to this, she knew she must have no desire but to comply.Reaching Salt Lake City, they went at once to Brigham's office. Whenthey came out they came possessed of a document in duplicate, recitingthat they both did "covenant, promise, and agree to dissolve all therelations which have hitherto existed between us as husband and wife,and to keep ourselves separate and apart from each other from this timeforth."
This was the simple divorce which Brigham was good enough to grant tosuch of the Saints as found themselves unhappily married, and wished it.As Joel Rae handed the Prophet the fee of ten dollars, which it was hiscustom to charge for the service, Brigham made some timely remarks. Hesaid he feared that Martha had been perverse and rebellious; that herfirst husband had found her so; and that it was doubtless for the goodof all that her second had taken the resolution to divorce her. He wasafraid that Brother Joel was an inferior judge of women; but he hadsurely shown himself to be generous in the provision he was making forthe support of this contumacious wife.
They parted outside the door of the little office, and he kissed her forthe first time since they had been married--on the forehead.
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 28
