Palmyra

by Susan Evans McCloud

  “They are only boys yet, for mercy’s sake!”

  “Old enough to know their own minds. Old enough to choose the direction their lives will take.”

  “Lawrence Swift will never allow it. You know this.”

  “Peter will go, with or without his father’s consent.”

  “Georgie, do you think that is wise?”

  “I think it is terrible! I think a boy should have a father he can turn to. Do you believe Gerard has kept the word Randolph forced him to? Peter has been patient and long-suffering; more than you will ever know. But he has no freedom here. In his way he, too, must step away from his father and make his own path through life.”

  I knew she was right. But—this path! This kind of a parting! “Then . . .” The wheels of my mind began turning. “All this time he has been . . . you have known . . . I detest the way this new religion has come between us!” I cried.

  “I do not blame you. If I could only change things, soften things, Esther.”

  I wrapped my arms around Georgie’s slight body. I thought my heart would break.

  I offered to go with Georgie, as I knew she hoped I would, to face Tillie. She was very quiet when we told her, but her features hardened like stone. “It is wicked,” she said. “Anything that parts friends and families is wicked.”

  “Don’t say that, Tillie. You do not know whereof you speak.”

  “I shall forget you, Georgie. And I shall forget Peter.”

  “Tillie!”

  “That is the only way, isn’t it? Oh, I shall keep you both fresh in my memory, all the grand years together. But you will be dead to me in the future, won’t you, after you walk out of here.”

  Her words chilled me. She did not relent; not then, and not a week later when we gathered with the wayfarers to say our last farewells.

  “You do not need me there,” she explained, “to throw a wet blanket over everything. I have already made my peace with the past and accepted the future.”

  “You have not accepted the future, my dearest.”

  “In my own way, I have.”

  Peter would be eighteen in three months—I had no idea he had reached such a great age!

  “It would not be worth my father making efforts to stop him,” Tillie explained. “But he will not anyway. His pride prevents him.”

  “Yes, I would guess that,” I replied. “What of your mother?”

  Tillie’s face went gray, but the lines of it twitched and hardened as they had been doing of late. “My mother has taken to her bed; she is powerless to deal with things any other way. Whenever Peter tries to talk to her she says only, ‘I cannot bear to listen to you. How can I ever forgive you for breaking my heart?’ ”

  “She has learned well, from years of living with your father,” I replied unthinkingly.

  Tillie grabbed my arm hard and shook me. “As you think I am doing from living so long with Gerard, Esther? Do not demure—I can read it in your eyes!”

  “I can swear to heaven it was not in my thoughts,” I replied evenly. “It is a thing you are worried about, is it not, Tillie?”

  I wanted her to dissolve into my arms in a fit of good, healthy crying. Instead, she turned away from me. “I do not wish to talk of that now,” she said.

  The first part of the journey to Ohio is to be made by flatboat along the Erie to Buffalo. There has been much to-do about this migration of Joseph Smith’s Mormon people out of the state of New York. Many of the newspapers are giving it front-page coverage, though I noted that Eugene did not elect to become involved in the matter, or to personally pen one word concerning it, either way.

  I had wondered if Randolph would be envious of this adventure upon which his brother was embarking. But he was indeed content with his place at the mill and the work he was doing with Josie’s orphans right now. The old sense of intimacy between the brothers was back again, and it wrung my heart to observe them throw their arms about one another in a last tearful embrace.

  I have done all my hugging, all my crying, ten times over. But here by the boats, with the taste of the water in my lungs and the far horizon stretching away to the unknown, the reality of it strikes me with renewed force. It is all I can do to not break down like a baby.

  “Be careful.” . . . “How many cats are you dragging with you, Georgie? Looks like half a dozen.” . . . “Write as soon as you are settled.” . . . . “We will pray for you.” . . . . “Kiss Emmeline every day for me.” . . . The last minutes are agonizing!

  Alexander is there with Josephine, whose sobbing has a good seasoning of the old self-pity in it, but Eugene has refused to come. Phoebe, too, is alone, with little Esther, like a doll, standing quietly beside her and holding tight to her hand. In the end, when I feel myself going faint and the faces on the crowded boat begin blurring, it is Randolph’s one good arm that holds me up and leads me back to the buggy and sees me safely deposited at home.

  There I do weep, until my sobs become dry, painful gulps and all my hot tears are spent.

  Chapter 23

  Palmyra: March 1832

  My baby arrived as regular as clockwork. And although everyone kept telling me what an easy time I was having, I was quite overwhelmed by how painful childbirth can be. No wonder women are laid low for such a long time afterward. No wonder it is something spoken of in hushed whispers of respect, even awe. For, in giving birth, one has touched the far reaches of existence, the chasms of the Infinite, and the deepest recesses of the small, vulnerable human heart.

  A daughter! How generously God in his heaven has blessed me. Her hair is as auburn as mine, and it curls at her neck and ears like her father’s. She has his delicate bone structure, and I swear that already her eyes are green. I wish to call her Lavinia, and Eugene has agreed to it. If only Georgie could see her! If only—I will not torment myself with “if onlys,” not now.

  My mother cannot help herself. She feels it is weak and wrong for her to rejoice in this birth when her favorite daughter is still deprived of this blessing. But—a girl child. She holds the baby in her arms so gently. Jonathan is old enough to hold his tiny niece, and when my mother allows him the privilege he is quite overcome.

  “You must come and help me with her,” I tell him, “sing to her, if you’d like, and read her your favorite stories.”

  “The way you did with me. And, oh, she will love it, as I used to!” He smiles at me. His smile has grown quite angelic since his brush with death. My mother is convinced it has set him apart in some way, and perhaps she is right.

  The struggles Eugene’s mother faces are deeper, more painful. My mother felt guilty at rejoicing; this unhappy woman is incapable of it. I feel sorry for her. I would like to bring her pleasure. I would like this innocent child, so new from heaven, to serve as a source of healing and comfort. But she will not have it so. I try to put away from me the pain her pain causes, and immerse myself in my child.

  Surely Eugene makes this an easy, delightful enterprise, for his daughter has altogether enchanted him. He will scarcely let her out of his sight. I remember now his earlier hunger for children and wonder at it and what the source of this longing might be. I, too, have allowed the floodgates of my heart to swing open and pour all my love, my aching tenderness, out on this child.

  “You are not disappointed? You do not wish I had produced a son instead?”

  “A son to be as pig-headed and cross as his father? No son could compare with this little vixen, who is nearly as beautiful as you.”

  I revel in his happiness and in the effusion of kindness it seems to produce. I am happy, too; much like those first months of marriage when the world, suddenly of no consequence, had melted into no more than a backdrop against which our lives—precious and wondrous—were daily played out. If possible, this time is even better. Our daughter’s pure spirit hallows the very air she breathes and keeps us in a constant state of amazement and joy.

  This, as well as many other things, took place before we heard a word from Georgie. But I
thought of her often, especially on one particular day in early summer when Josie showed up on my doorstep, distraught and weepy.

  “I cannot do it!” she wailed, refusing to sit, but pacing the kitchen floor, her long skirts trailing. “I try, Esther, but they do not take me seriously, and they are learning nothing at all.”

  “The school, you mean?”

  “Yes. And Alexander has refused to allow me one more boy until I get things organized and in order again.”

  “I think that is wise.”

  “You would! You do not care about them as I do.”

  “We will put our heads together and think of something.”

  Just as I spoke the words I heard a knock at the door. Some would say Providence, some happenstance; Georgie would have said, “The Lord provides, in one way or another. He is mindful of us.”

  Be that as it may, my little friends, Latisha and Jonah Sinclair, happily entered and were drawn into Josephine’s dilemma, for such is her way. To our surprise, they offered assistance; they were eager at the idea of helping.

  “I’ve enough education to at least get those lads started,” Jonah rumbled. “And ’Tisha here can read stories to them. Even poetry, eh, love—the way she does to me.”

  Of course! I should have remembered that Tillie and her brothers and sisters had received the very best in education: tutors to offset the limitations of the village school, and their father’s library to draw upon. I had always looked down on Latisha, just a bit, because she was a little sister and tended to be foolish by nature. I realized she had grown up and had proven herself in many ways, while I still regarded her as little more than a child.

  Josephine was interested. We sat down right then and there and drew up a tentative schedule. Latisha would come in the mid- afternoon, when the boys’ workday was finished. Jonah would fulfill his portion of instruction in the evenings. Between the two of them . . .

  “What about Randolph?” Latisha suggested. “He took to schooling better than any of the rest of us. He can make history come alive, as though he were telling a story.”

  I could believe that, after what I had experienced with him. I looked at my sister to see what she might be thinking. I had never seen Josephine so excited! She was on fire and could not be patient. We all piled into her carriage and rode back to the mill to discuss the matter with her husband, and to try to persuade Randolph to take a part.

  Alexander was amenable to the idea and behaved most graciously to the young, enthusiastic couple. Randolph was, as I had expected, a bit more difficult to convince.

  “I’ve my work, and I like it,” he maintained. “Why upset the apple barrel now?”

  “Because you are needed!” Josie cried.

  I thought he looked at her oddly. “I do not perceive it,” he answered her. “I am too close to the age of these fellows. They would accept no instruction from me.”

  “As though I am an old lady,” Latisha rebuked gently.

  “You are a female—a pretty, young female; that makes all the difference, you know.”

  I worked my way close to him and said into his ear, “You have a fine, perceptive mind and much hard-won experience upon which to draw. You could do these boys more good than Latisha and Jonah put together, and you know it.”

  He turned his mouth to my ear. “I am afraid.”

  “I know it. Nothing in this world worth doing comes easily.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Josephine demanded and, for an instant, I saw a gleam of real jealousy in her eyes. No—it was not jealousy. I believe it was something more akin to remorse and pain.

  “Miss Esther here has just convinced me to take a go at it.”

  There were general cries of pleasure and affirmation. I stepped aside and let the current take a turn around me while I prepared to nurse Lavinia. But I believe, in my own way, I was as happy about what was happening as Josephine was.

  A letter from Georgeanna finally reached us near mid-summer. “Arrived safely,” it read. “This is the frontier in many ways, Esther. There is not enough housing, not enough employment. More and more Saints pour in daily, and places need to be found for them.”

  I could not picture the chaos to which she was alluding, nor the sense of confusion and upheaval suffered by those who had left homes and an ordered way of life behind them—for what?

  “We are short on food and short on room. The only thing we enjoy in abundance is love—such an outpouring of love one to another, such an outpouring of the Spirit, that no one feels to complain.”

  If it were anyone but Georgie writing, I would have suspected her rhetoric at once. But Georgie was practical, straightforward, and she had never embroidered the truth, not to my knowledge. I simply did not want to hear these things! I suppose in my heart I did not want her to be happy there. I wanted her to try, fail, admit defeat in her usual cheerful manner, and return to the fold. She was so far away! And all her thoughts, her attentions—her affections—were fixed upon things I did not understand and could not share.

  When I told Phoebe I had received a letter from Georgie she smiled a bit wistfully. “I also,” she said. Though she did not offer to share it with me, I assumed the two correspondences to be very similar. There may have been mention to Phoebe of things personal in nature, concerning Simon and her marriage perhaps. But we were together, and we indulged in a lovely long chat, a nostalgic stroll through the past where things have not changed. And the memories somehow served to strengthen and compensate for the inefficiencies of the present.

  When I told Tillie I had received a letter from Georgie she looked past me as though I had not spoken, and replied nothing at all. Her behavior distressed me, and vexed me more than a little, especially since the closeness between us had deepened during the past many weeks.

  “Have you no room in your heart for Georgie?” I asked.

  “She left us; we did not leave her,” was Tillie’s inane reply.

  “You sound like a child; more petty than we ever were when we were girls together.”

  “I do not wish to speak of it, Esther—you know that!”

  Her sharpness closed my mouth, but it also threw a terrible gray shadow over my heart, which was difficult for me to forgive—as Georgie’s leaving was, and always would be, for her.

  As the summer progressed into an unhurried autumn, Tillie and I were in one another’s company more and more often; it was a natural thing: we both had daughters now, something very wonderful and tangible in common. What grand times we shared! Some of the lightheartedness we had known as girls seemed to return to us, and we spent many long, lazy hours doing nothing at all but enjoying the children, the sunshine, and the flowers—and in that order, I will admit!

  It was a relief to put conflict, troubles, and heartache behind us. I could not help noting how calm Palmyra had grown since Joseph and his “Mormonites” abandoned us. People settled back into a common routine and seemed to be content to mind their own business again. Odd that religion can stir such hatred and cruelty in people. Even Gerard appeared to have toned down a bit, and reconciled himself to the largess allowing bygones to be bygones, at least as far as his wife’s old friendships were concerned.

  “Gerard and his friends feel they have won,” Tillie said once. “They drove the Smiths out of here. It proves their superiority, and it maintains their power intact.”

  Power! I thought. What an empty word in the minds and mouths of little men who cannot live without it.

  But, except for that once, we never spoke of the matter. And we never spoke about Georgie. Tillie may be wondering as much as I how she was faring; but she had set her own perimeters, and she would not pass. This much she has learned from Gerard, I thought, this determination to follow one’s own prejudices without any glancing to left or right. Such a quality can be admirable; but I was quite certain it was not working for the good in this case. However, I would not be the one to test or question something I had no power of changing; I had gained enough wisdom
through the last months to at least realize that.

  So the year ended on an even note, with many of our affairs looking hopefully upward. My mother spent many hours in my company and began to develop an affection for her granddaughter, which is good, since Jonathan will soon be spending part of his days in school. Eugene has been taken on as an editor at the Wayne Sentinel, and his work is noticed and praised because of its quality. He is happier; and, therefore, Lavinia and I are happier, too.

  Our Christmas festivities this year included nearly a dozen of Josephine’s orphans, some of whom are apprenticed out to various establishments in the village and making their way quite nicely.

  I was grateful for the calm, restoring months as they passed; I am even more grateful now. This season did not come for naught; it was given for no frivolous reason: without the renewal it worked in me I would not have had the courage, nor even the strength, to do what I am asked—no, entreated—to do.

  It has been nearly a year since Georgeanna and Nathan left. It has been close on a year since my baby was born. When the letter arrived with Georgie’s return address and someone else’s handwriting, I knew at once that something was terribly wrong. I sensed it, as one senses the tension in the air and the subtle changes in light as a summer storm approaches.

  “Forgive me,” Nathan wrote, “but I must beseech you to come, Esther, if it is at all possible. Georgie is ill unto death and needs proper tending. She is in need of family, too. Our little Emmeline was killed in an accident a month ago, and it has gone hard with Georgie. Money for your fare is enclosed, if you can see your way to do this. Forgive me for asking so much. But I shall be eternally grateful if you find it possible to come to us in our great need.”

  I must have sat with that letter clutched in my hand for an hour. When at length I arose, I had my course laid out before me, and my mind was at rest.

  “You cannot, Esther. It is madness, and I forbid it.”

  “You cannot forbid it; it would be wrong for you to do so. Georgie is a part of me—in a way so real and interwoven with my own being that, if she died, some of myself would die, too.” My husband waved my protests aside with an impatient movement of his hand. “If positions were reversed—if it was I dangerously ill, dangerously in need—would you not want Georgie to come?”