Part 28 (2/2)

Susannah stood now in her small sitting-room fiercely facing Smith and his new satellite. She still adhered to the plain Quaker-like garb that her husband had liked, and the muslin kerchief crossed upon her breast was a quaint pearl-like frame to the beauty of feature which had slowly but surely, in spite of adverse circ.u.mstance, come to its prime. Smith's stalwart figure and the decrepit form of his friend were both clad in sleek broadcloth. They wore the high white collar and stock of the period. In Smith's light hair there was not a gray thread, nor were there many wrinkles in his smooth forceful face. The old man was gray and wrinkled; he cringed and leered as Susannah rated them for the proposition they had made.

But the answer to this proposition did not lie in her hands; before she could compel Smith to withdraw it, or know if his mind was tending towards that obedience, Elvira, curious to see the strangers, entered.

Elvira raised a coquettish finger and told Smith that he was a very naughty man. This was a new freak in her conduct toward the prophet.

Light and frivolous as she had become, the t.i.tle of prophetess, coveted among Mormon women, had been conferred upon her because some strange power of divination governed her freaks.

”A very naughty man.” With her delicate prettiness, decked in what gewgaws she could afford, Elvira stood shaking her forefinger. ”You don't know why? Oh, fie! you know very well, naughty, naughty creature.”

Smith had the air of some unwieldy animal trying to adapt itself to the unexpected gambols of a light one. The first supposition was that Elvira had in some way learnt the object of his mission, so he began to declare it with a reproachful look at Susannah. ”Our sister Halsey,” he said, ”does not wish you to wear jewels and beautiful clothes, and yet it is said in the Scripture that the clothing of ladies should be even of wrought gold.”

”Naughty creature,” she cried, ”don't quote the Scriptures to me. I am not the lady you are thinking about. I am not the lady that you come here to see.”

So intent they all were upon her and her affairs that this statement was somewhat puzzling. The only sign that Smith gave that he gathered any sense out of the vivacious nonsense she was pleased to talk was that he precipitated his explanation.

The brother by his side was very rich; it had been foretold him in a vision of the night that when he had professed the Mormon faith a pretty wife would be his reward. Smith had had it borne in upon his mind that Elvira was the lady designed by the vision. ”For,” said he unctuously; ”the Holy Scripture saith that the solitary shall be set in families.”

Elvira laughed. ”How very amusing,” she cried. ”And into what family shall our sister Susannah be set?”

Smith frowned. ”Our sister Susannah,” he said, ”is not solitary, but is surrounded by her spiritual children, to whom she imparts her own learning and goodness, to the great benefit of the Church; and I cannot but think, Sister Elvira”--the severity in his voice was growing--”that you are a great care to her, for she toils hard to give you even such poor raiment as you are now wearing, not wis.h.i.+ng to accept of the bounty of the Church, while she would be an example of industry to others.”

The hard truth of this statement, combined with the commanding voice and manner he now a.s.sumed, controlled Elvira. She stood for some minutes meekly contemplating her senile and smirking suitor. Susannah protested and warned her, but in caprice, as sudden as it was unexpected, Elvira decided to comply with the prophet's request without further persuasion or command.

When left alone with Susannah she only shrugged her shoulders and said, ”I saw that I should lose my soul if I didn't; the prophet was so determined. Why should we bicker and consider, and why should I fly round and round, like a bird round the green eyes of a cat, or try to escape half a dozen times like a mouse when it is once caught, when I know from the beginning that Joe Smith will curse me if I don't do his will?”

”You are quite mistaken. He was not determined; he told me that he only wished to lay the matter before you and let you decide for yourself.”

Elvira let her white eyelids droop until but a narrow slit of the dark eye was visible. ”La! child,” she said.

”And you cannot seriously think that Smith's curse, even if he were barbarous enough to denounce you, could make the slightest difference to your soul's salvation. You often talk that way, but you cannot seriously think it, Elvira.”

But here Susannah struck against a vein of darkness in her companion's mind which it seemed to her had lain there like a black incomprehensible streak since the awful day of anguish and ma.s.sacre at Haun's Mill.

”Don't speak of it,” cried Elvira with a shudder. ”Don't you know that Joe Smith is our prophet, and that he holds the keys of life and death?

Didn't Angel Halsey die to teach us that? Weren't we baptized into it by being dipped in blood?”

She sat shuddering in the dusk and repeating at intervals ”dipped in blood,” ”dipped in blood.”

Whether Elvira was mad or not, Susannah had no power to stop this nefarious marriage. The prophet had departed hastily out of reach of her indignant appeals, and there was no one whose interference she could seek. In vain she besought Elvira, using both argument and pa.s.sionate entreaty. With precipitate waywardness the strange girl was married by Elder Darling, in the shed of the t.i.thing house.

No letter came from Ephraim Croom or from his friends.

After Elvira's departure Susannah began to save out of her little income, trying to put by enough dollars not only for the eastern journey, but to give her respectable support afterwards until she could obtain employment. She had little heart for the object of her saving; she might, she knew, be going to ignominy and starvation, for with the stigma of Mormonism upon her, she felt that it was unlikely that she would be received with credit in any town where she was friendless and unknown.

Although the community prospered greatly, Smith did not again interfere to increase Susannah's school fees. Emma began to talk largely of the splendour of Nauvoo, reading from her husband's letters of the Nauvoo House, a huge hotel, which was being rapidly and grandly built for the perpetual occupation of himself and family and the entertainment of all such as the Church of the Saints should delight to honour.

Susannah found it hard to understand why Emma was not taken to Nauvoo even before the great house was built for her reception. It was indeed commonly reported among the Gentiles at this time that the prophet had secretly espoused other wives; but a malignant report of this nature, together with accusations of drunkenness and rank dishonesty, had persistently followed the sect from its beginning, and, as far as Susannah knew, were now, as before, totally untrue. This special report, however, reached Emma in an hour of depression, and she came to Susannah for sympathy, shaken with grief and indignation.

<script>