Saints (51 page)

He couldn’t hear what they had to say. They talked only briefly, and then Harriette went off westward, alone. It was a good sign and a bad one: good because it meant Dinah wanted to be alone, bad because Harriette was no fool, and might guess why Dinah was so rude as not to invite her in.

As soon as Harriette was gone, Joseph started for the door. But he stopped short of it. Cold as it was he could not bring himself to knock and go inside. He was afraid, and had a thousand reasons for his fear; a thousand reasons, and only one that he believed: What if she wouldn’t have him after all? He saw a candle lit near the oilcloth window; he told himself he dared not go inside when candlelight might reveal to a watching stranger his face at the door. The candle went out, and still he hesitated, not wanting to startle her immodestly as she undressed. But at last the cold breeze mocked him more than he could bear. Had he come as a husband or as a beggar to her door? If the latter, he should waste no more time, and go away. If the former, it was his right to go inside.

He came to the door, prepared to knock, and then saw the shadow of the latchstring in the moonlight. She had left the way clear for him to come in tonight. He had been a fool to wait. He pulled the string softly; the latch rose inside. He pushed the door gently, and it would not budge; pushed it harder, and it fell open suddenly, throwing a gust of wind into the room. He heard the leaves of a book turn in the breeze; he stood, trying to get used to the sudden firelight.

“Joseph,” she said sleepily from the bed.

He couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, now that he was here. “I came to dedicate your house.”

“Yes,” she said. “Come in.” But there was no hint of gladness in her voice. He was at such a pitch of expectation that her near monotone sounded like coldness rather than the timidity she really felt.

He closed the door behind him, and drew the latchstring in. “It was careless of you to leave the door like that. You never know who might come in at night.”

“I left it for my husband.”

She sounded so distant. She didn’t want
him
, he realized now. She didn’t love him the way he loved her. She just wanted to obey the Lord. It would be torture to her, having to receive him in her bed, and he couldn’t bear to know she felt that way. “I wouldn’t do this if the Lord hadn’t commanded it.”

Her smile grew even thinner. “Be obedient then,” she said, “and do your duty.”

He turned away from her, faced the fire, and carefully undressed. He knew he looked brutish to her, coming in from the night for this purpose only. This wasn’t how it should be between husband and wife; but how could he handle things any other way, without being discovered? He sat on the foot of the bed and pulled off his boots, took his feet from his trousers and put the clothing on top of a nearby trunk. He felt timid, embarrassed as a virgin, and so to deny that feeling he turned to her, the fire hot on his back. “You know that I’ll never go to prison again. I’ll never come to you if there’s the slightest risk that I’ll be caught.”

“I know,” she said softly, her eyes deep and red with reflected fire.

“Until the world is ready to endure the Principle, I’ll have to deny you. If we conceive a child I’ll never say it’s mine. If a member of the Church should accuse you of adultery, I can’t speak up in your defense.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” she said.

“Even if they excommunicate you, Dinah. Do you understand that? For the safety of the whole church, for my life’s sake we can’t tell.”

“I can bear anything,” she said. She opened the sheets for him, and he joined her on the bed.

He was angry at himself for having wanted her, and it hurt him that she did not want him, too. But he knew it was better this way, without illusion, without lies. He hated liars, couldn’t bear to be one, though he knew as he took her that he was lying to Emma. It made him angry. It made him abrupt and quick, ungentle with her, so that even the way he took her made him ashamed. He could see in her face that his manner had caused her pain, that she regretted this night’s work; he rolled to the side of the bed, turned his back to her, and hated himself for lying to Dinah even in the way that he had lain with her. Even if she did not want him, he wanted her now more than ever, for her body had been sweet and beautiful, her kisses fiery, and he loved her so much that he yearned for her even now, when he had just possessed her.

“Joseph,” she said. “Don’t you want to love me, even a little?”

Did she doubt
him
? “A little?” he asked. “Enough that I risked ruin to come. Enough that I think of you so often that I’m constantly afraid I’ll say your name without meaning to. Enough that when I took the plate from your hand today I wanted to bend and kiss you in front of everyone.”

“I wish you had,” she said.

Did she love him, then? When the Spirit had told him she was his, had it been true after all? Tears came to his eyes in spite of himself, tears of relief that his love for her was answered. He could not think what to say, and so he said, “You’re the first of my wives I’ve lain with, except for Emma.”

She laughed gently. “Then you’ve failed in your duty, haven’t you?”

He rolled over to face her. “I tried to do it for duty alone, but I can’t.”

She kissed the tears on his cheeks, touched them. “You are husband, brother, father, children to me now.”

“All of those?”

All of those, and one more she did not name: for the face she touched now was the face of God, the light that she had followed across the sea. “If I ever lose you, Joseph, I’ve got nothing left. But if you lose me, what have you lost?”

His answer was plain, and comforted her much.

He got up from the bed in darkness, dressed quickly in the cold, and put another log on the fire for her as he left. They said nothing, just kissed once more; she tried to get up from the bed to see him to the door, but he gently held her to the bed. “I want to look back from the door,” he said, “and see you there waiting for me.” So she lay there and he looked back at her, and she was glad when he looked at her body with owning eyes: you, she said, this belongs to you, all those years of Matthew, but all along I belonged to you. And when he was gone she lay tingling under the sheet and blanket and comforter, as if the cotton were the touch of his hand. She prayed that she would conceive a child for him. She prayed that a miracle would happen, and Emma would embrace her and welcome her as a sister, and the two of them would stand beside Joseph in a public meeting, both equally honored as his wife, both surrounded by the children they had borne for him. She prayed for it, even pretended that it was a vision. But she knew that it was not. He would always come to her in secret, and go again; she would have to put a lifetime’s marriage into a few hours each month, a few days each year.

She must have slept after he left, but she didn’t remember it. It was still dark when she got up and dressed, still dark when she headed eastward in a thin rain to open up the school and ring the bell. Her students came in noisily, happy with their uncomplicated lives, resentful at having to surrender themselves again to their teacher’s will. Dinah greeted little Joseph and Julia as calmly as ever, but she wanted to hug them for having helped her make her choice the afternoon before.

Today she was too happy to be stern. She tried, but her heart wasn’t in it. The children knew immediately and soon were out of hand, quarreling and talking back to her, and she finally slammed a book on the table so loud it sounded like a musket. The children were startled and fell silent. She laughed at their surprise and told them a story that she had heard from one of the older women at the factory in Manchester. Dinah changed details of the story so that it sounded as though it had happened in Illinois, and not too long ago—changed wishes to prayers, and told of a peddler and a medicine man instead of a curate and a libidinous monk. When the tale was finished, she had won the children back. And herself, too: she would not be impatient at the pain; life itself was change, and she could not live forever that one good night. It was day, and the children needed her, and no one in the world could share her joy, could share her grief.

Except for other plural wives. Let there be more plural wives in Nauvoo, she prayed silently as the day wore on. Let there be hundreds of women living the Principle of Celestial Marriage. Then we’ll have a sisterhood to uphold us, women to know that our babies are righteously born. Then young girls won’t have to watch in despair as all the men worth marrying are taken, one by one, forcing them to settle for the rest: the best of men can marry us all, and leave the swine to wallow with the whores.

Dinah and Harriette often talked about the Principle when they were alone, sharing the same dream of the City of God, where all the secrets could be opened.

“What I can’t figure out,” Harriette said one day, “is why the Lord is taking so long to get this under way. You have
your
husband, but mine’s still blind as a bat.”

“Yours?” Dinah asked. “Do you know who he is?”

“Why, don’t you know yet?”

“How could I?”

“It’s Charlie, of course.”

“Charlie! My brother! Your own sister’s husband!”

Harriette laughed. “I knew his worth before she ever set her cap for him.
I
was the one who pointed him out to her. He doesn’t know it, but I’m better for him than any other woman in the world.”

Dinah couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I’m not laughing at you—just at Charlie. He doesn’t suspect a thing, not a thing.”

“I suppose the Lord is waiting for him to learn how to be a good husband to one wife, before saddling him with two.” Harriette smiled her wise and frightening smile. “Or maybe he’s just waiting until he gets over being afraid of me.”

“He’ll always be afraid of you. You’re cleverer than he is.”

Harriette shook her head and bowed over her tatting. “Not clever enough to learn to be happy alone.”

“No one’s that clever,” Dinah said. “Be patient, Harriette. For Charlie to grow up is a full-fledged miracle. The Lord has to take time to do it right.”

It was only later that it occurred to Dinah how much her view of things had changed, not to be horrified when Harriette confessed that she coveted her own sister’s husband, and meant to have him, too. Dinah tried to be ashamed, but couldn’t manage it, for she hoped that Harriette would have her way.

Emma got up even earlier than usual, and clattered dishes so loud down in the kitchen that it woke little Alex, who naturally felt it his duty to waken everyone else in the family at the impossible hour of five-forty-five. Everyone was out of sorts at breakfast. Except, by main force, Joseph Smith himself. He refused to let Emma get his goat. She was angry about something—he knew that last night when she fairly threw herself into bed before he was even up the stairs and pretended to be asleep as he undressed. Then she tossed and turned and thumped the pillow so often and so loud that Joseph thought he might prefer an earthquake. But he hadn’t said a word then, and he didn’t say a word this morning as she plopped bowls in front of everyone and slapped out spoonfuls of wheat mash as sullen as Joseph had ever seen her. She was angry, but she wasn’t quite ripe yet, and Joseph knew from experience that when her wrath was ripe, there was no need to ask questions. All would be explained, in detail with more than adequate repetition.

“What’s wrong with Mama?” Julia whispered as soon as Emma took the pot back into the kitchen.

“Nothing’s wrong with Mama,” Emma said loudly from the kitchen.

Joseph just touched his lips with his finger and then said a long, long blessing on the food, in which he ironically thanked the Lord for the spirit of peace which constantly dwelt in his household.

After breakfast, the children were at a loss for things to do, being up so early. This led to five-year-old Frederick attempting to murder his older brother Joseph with a coat rack, which led to Julia getting kicked in the shin when she tried to intervene, which led to screaming and shouting until Papa got everything calmed down by telling the story all over again about how he got away from jail in Missouri.

“I wish you wouldn’t tell them about jail all the time,” Emma said sharply. “They have nightmares.”

“Sorry, Mama,” Joseph said meekly.

At last it was time for school. Joseph made sure Julia and little Joseph were presentable; Emma made a point of inspecting each of them again and finding something wrong, which required immediate remedy. Then Frederick started yelling that there was a spider on the wall above the baby. Emma rushed upstairs to commit arachnicide.

Taking advantage of her absence, Joseph opened the front door. “All right, off to school.”

Little Joseph looked meaningfully up the stairs. “I don’t know what you did, Papa, but it looks like you’re really going to catch it.”

“Maybe.” Joseph pushed him gently out the door.

“Don’t you wish you could come to school with us?” Julia asked.

Joseph thought of Dinah. He hadn’t seen her in a week, hadn’t even laid eyes on her. And after Hyrum and William left on their missions today, he’d have even less free time. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Father in heaven, but if you’re going to give me a multitude of wives, you might also give me time to visit them.

“Where are Julia and little Joseph?” Emma asked.

“Gone,” Joseph said. “To school.”

“With their hair unbrushed, no doubt.”

“You already brushed them, dear.” It was seven o’clock. He had to get started for Quincy by eight. Whatever quarrel Emma wanted had to be over by then. So Joseph grinned at her. He knew that when she was upset that always provoked her beyond endurance.

It worked again. She got right to the point. “Spiritual wives,” she said.

Joseph raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” he asked.

“Yesterday three separate people told me rumors about spiritual wives in Nauvoo. Two of them called it glorified whoring.”

“How interesting,” Joseph said.

“Don’t play the fool with me, Joseph,” Emma said. “How many people have you taught that doctrine to?”

“My love, I don’t think that’s any affair of yours.”

“You
promised
me—”

“I promised you that you’d have the right to give consent to any plural wife I took. Nothing more.”

“So you’re going about wildly teaching this doctrine that could
destroy
the Church, without any thought of the consequences!”

“As a matter of fact, Emma,” Joseph said, trying to remain calm, “as a matter of fact I can’t think of more than five people who’ve been taught the doctrine, and I’ve commanded none of them to live it.”

“
Someone
is.”

“Not with my consent.”

“Then obviously someone’s disobeying you.”

Joseph shook his head. “Not the people that I’ve taught. They’d never tell a soul.”

“Joseph, I despair of you. Just because you trust someone doesn’t mean he’s worth anything. Who did you tell? Sidney? Now there’s a sieve for secrets.”

“Not Sidney.”

“Bennett, then? He’s famous for discretion.”

“He is discreet about matters like that. Why do you always come down on Bennett?”

“I know, Mayor Bennett’s sacred, Bennett is not to be criticized.”

“He’s done more for this city than any other man—”

“I will
not
be sidetracked! There’s only one place where rumors of spiritual wives could possibly start, and that’s with
you
.”

“I would never call them ‘spiritual wives,’ Emma, the term isn’t even accurate.”

“I thought it was a very gentle word for what they are!” Emma caught herself then. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a doctrine—”

“I wondered if you would remember.”

“Don’t be snide with
me
, Joseph. The Church isn’t ready to accept that doctrine—”

“
Most
of the Church—”

“And it’s a sure thing that the world isn’t ready. Wouldn’t they love to have
that
to tell on Joe Smith and the Mormons. Harems, like the Turks. That’ll do wonders for the missionary work. Join the Mormons so your daughter can go to bed with a married man—”

“Enough.”

“It is
not
enough. Because I don’t think it
is
revelation, Joseph Smith. I think that one day a few years ago you saw a pretty young girl and compared her to this sharp-tongued shrew who’s older than you and not very pretty anymore, and you thought, a prophet can’t very well go around divorcing his wife, even if she
does
keep bearing sickly babies who die the day they’re born, so I’ll just—”

Joseph took her by the shoulders and brought his face close to hers and kissed her, hard. She resisted only at first. But when the kiss ended, she was only slightly assuaged. “I know you aren’t an adulterer,” she said. “And I know you’re a true prophet, I don’t doubt you for a moment—”

“But.”

“But you shouldn’t teach that doctrine to
anybody
. It’ll be the end of this Church if you do. The end of
you
, Joseph. They’d kill you for that, you know they would.”

“They don’t need Celestial Marriage to convince them to kill me. Now when women bring rumors like that to you, you just tell them it’s nonsense, that no such thing is going on.”

Emma looked at him pleadingly. “Would I be lying, Joseph? Promise me that I wouldn’t be lying.”

“You can tell them that the Prophet hasn’t taught any man to take any spiritual wives.”

Emma nodded and embraced him, but Joseph knew she was not convinced. The pots still rattled noisily when she got back to the kitchen, and he wondered if one of his own wives had been indiscreet, had confided in a friend. Impossible. He had warned them all that when it came to the Principle, there were no friends. The only people to be trusted were the ones that the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to tell. No one else had the right to teach the doctrine.

And yet somebody was. Emma was right to be worried for the Church. The trouble was that Joseph knew she was far more worried for herself. And for the next few days she would be watchful, for she was no fool. She suspected, at least, that Joseph had already taken plural wives, if only because she knew he would not disobey the Lord for long, even if it meant breaking a promise to her. She was almost a madwoman on the matter. Sometimes she would test him by suggesting women he ought to marry, and seeing if he would rise to the bait and agree that some sister would make a good plural wife. He had a pretty good idea of what sort of hell the poor girl would go through after that, so he had never played along—but that didn’t stop Emma from trying. After all, she had the evidence of their own elopement to prove that he was the sort of man who would run off and marry a woman secretly after promising he wouldn’t. She was suspicious from the moment that he taught her the Principle.

I wish, thought Joseph, that all of Emma’s children had lived, so that she wouldn’t feel that God somehow judged her to be an unworthy wife for me. I wish that the years had been kinder to her, so that she would not feel so threatened by young and pretty women. And while I’m wishing, I wish we didn’t live in the United States of America, a nation of hypocrites where lying, thieving, whoring bastards could do what they liked, but truly devout people could be mobbed and hounded and criticized for every move they made.

And above all, Joseph wished he had peace in his own home. Some respite from the struggle. But it seemed that the battle always worsened the nearer it came to home.

Joseph looked at the door, at the sunlight streaming in above it, and decided that one wish, at least, he could fulfil. If he couldn’t have peace in this home, with this wife, he could find solace with another. Let Emma watch all she likes. I’m going to see how my children are doing at school.

Dinah was superb. She didn’t even pause in her sentence when he opened the door and stepped in. She merely assigned twenty-five words in their spellers and walked briskly to the back of the room.

“Brother Smith, would you be willing to step outside for our conversation so we don’t disturb the children?”

Once outside, she firmly closed the door and then led him twenty feet along the alley behind the store. “Speak softly,” she said. “They’d love to listen to every word we say.”

“Let them.”

“No,” Dinah said. “Because I intend to tell you that I love you rather often, and it might cause scandal if they heard.”

“Tell me.”

“I love you. And you’re a fool to come here when I’m teaching.”

“How are my children doing, Sister Handy?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“And how is my wife.”

“I love you.”

He laughed and wanted to kiss her and dared not, which stopped his laughter. “I’m going to Quincy today. To see Hyrum and William off on their missions. And to meet with Governor Carlin.”

“I hate it when you travel.”

“We’re hardly together even when I’m in town.”

“But I can see you, and I can tell myself that part of you is mine. That part of you is me.”

“I came to make an indecent proposal. Do you think you could find some excuse to get out of town today? I have in mind a ride in a closed carriage to Quincy, and I can make a big show of leaving Quincy this afternoon and then slip back into town tonight, and—”

Dinah was shaking her head. “I can’t.”

“You don’t teach afternoons during the summer.”

“I can’t. I just can’t.”

He couldn’t imagine Dinah would refuse without a reason. And it wasn’t hard for him to guess what the reason was. It had been a month since last time, more or less, he supposed. “You aren’t feeling well today?”

She was very, very relieved. “That’s right,” she said.

“Get back to your classroom, woman. The children will get suspicious.”

“Joseph,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wish—”

“No matter,” he said. “Can’t be helped.” He brought her back along the alley, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and when he was sure no one could see he kissed her quickly on the lips, then turned and walked away. After a dozen yards he turned back to wave, but she was already inside, and the door was closing. It was a damn fool idea anyway, trying a rendezvous right in the heart of Gentile country. Perhaps that was what appealed to him so much about it. To meet this wife God gave to him right where the devil was so strong, that would have made it all the more delicious. But no matter. Just seeing her was enough to brighten him for the morning’s ride. And to think the Lord went to all the trouble of bringing her from England to make his life joyful just when he thought he had forgotten what it felt like to be loved without criticism, loved without judgment, yet by a woman capable of both. Dinah doesn’t love me because she doesn’t know better. She loves me because she knows me better than anyone.

Hyrum was troublesome all the way to Quincy. Joseph tried to bear it without argument—after all, Hyrum
was
his older brother—but after a time it became more than he could stand.

“Joseph, if you’re going to send me and William on missions, I wish you’d send Bennett on one, too.”

Enough was enough. Joseph pulled his horse to a stop, wheeled and faced his brother. Dust rose from the road and stuck to the sweat on their faces. June in Illinois gave a fair preview of the torments of hell. Joseph was not in a good mood and knew it, so he tried to keep his voice gentler than he felt. “In the first place, Hyrum,
I’m
not sending you on this mission—the Lord is.”

Hyrum glanced at William Law and grinned. “I think I made him mad, William.”

William nodded gravely. “He shows signs of it.”

“I’m reprimanding you. Please take it seriously.”

Hyrum nodded. “I do take it seriously, Joseph. I wish you’d take me seriously, too.”

“I can’t send Bennett on a mission because he’s mayor of Nauvoo.”

“William’s your Second Counselor and I’m the Patriarch of the Church. You’re sending
us
.”

“In the second place, I can’t send Bennett on a mission because the Lord hasn’t called him.”

“The Lord shows excellent judgment. Did the Lord call him to be mayor?”

“Mayors are elected, not called.”

“Joseph, we’re all grown up now. Bennett was elected mayor because you nominated him. They’d elect my horse if you said you wanted him in office.”

William spoke up. “That’s not a bad idea for next term.”

“In the third place,” Joseph went on, “I’m here to keep an eye on him, and so is Sidney.”