The 19th Wife (20 page)

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R
ECORD OF
P
ETITION FOR
A
CCESS

NAME:
Professor Charles Green

DATE:
Jan. 17, 1940

DOCUMENT NAME:
Autobiography of C. G. Webb

PURPOSE OF RESEARCH:
Scholarly book on the end of plural marriage

PETITION OUTCOME:
Declined, by C. Bock, Archivist

NAME:
Kelly Dee

DATE:
July 10, 2005

DOCUMENT NAME:
Autobiography of Chauncey G. Webb, The

PURPOSE OF RESEARCH:
Master’s Thesis on Ann Eliza Webb Young and the legacy of polygamy

PETITION OUTCOME:
Approved by D. Savidhoffer, Archivist

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHAUNCEY G. WEBB

PART II

As Ann Eliza notes in
The 19th Wife,
our family’s first years in Utah were marked by harmony and unified purpose. My two wives, once rivals, became companions—or at least it seemed so to me. If one of my wives nursed a deep wound in her heart, I never knew of it, for neither woman spoke of such injury during this time. In her book, Ann Eliza accuses me of “blithe unawareness” for failing to notice her mother’s suffering. Yet when I look back on those first years in Deseret, I believe our family, even in its unique configuration, had achieved a happiness most can only pray for. At least I hope this was the case.

This interlude of domestic contentment ended abruptly when Brother Brigham ordered Gilbert and me to England on a Mission. We departed in the winter of 1855, journeying via Saint Louis, reaching Liverpool’s damp shores in the early days of a limp gray spring. There we rented a room from a young, talkative widow called Mrs. Cox, who shared a narrow house with her small daughter, Virginie, whose likeness to Ann Eliza made me miss my family even more.

That first day in Liverpool, and the early days thereafter, we were quick to learn what type of man will refuse to greet a plain stranger speaking of God on the refined streets of St. James and Great George. The gentleman strolling with his family and nurse; the nobleman nibbling toffees in his coach; the lady ornamented in satin and jewel; the sisters preoccupied with society and fashion—these busy people had no time, or disposition, to respond to our “Good day” or “Afternoon.” Before them I felt like a ghost, for they had no awareness of me.

In Liverpool, God’s most wretched souls congregated along the streets near Prince’s Dock, for it was here they could rake through the piles of rubbish tossed over the shipyard’s masonry walls. The one-armed sailor, the toothless hag, the skimpy orphan smeared with a lifetime of grime—here the saddest allotment of humankind sifted through the dirt with picking-irons in hopes of finding bread crusts, fruit rinds, and strips of filthy cotton that could be rinsed and sold for a penny. Every day at noon the sailors from the many ships from all over the world disembarked to dine at taverns such as the Baltimore Clipper and the Unicorn. This throng of salty men, with their odor of sea mist, and their ribald, foreign talk, poured past the beleaguered souls. Occasionally a sailor would toss a spare copper to a beggar, and a commotion would erupt in the chase for it. What pity it engendered in my heart and Gilbert’s—a dozen hopeless men and women fighting one another for the smallest of coins.

On our first visit to the deprived neighborhood we passed a legless maiden perched on a wood platform with four small iron wheels. Her skirt was a cheap green calico, dirty and patched, yet she had fluffed it up and spread it about her with a touching amount of purpose and hope, so that she appeared, despite her missing limbs, almost as a lass sitting atop a picnic blanket. Propped before this stalwart girl was a panel on which a clear, strong hand had written out the brief narrative of her fate:
Sucked in by the harvesting machine.
At her side squatted a classically handsome young man, with silken black locks and Roman nose. His misery rested in his eyes, which had milked over with disease. Next to him crouched a skeletal woman with a starving babe latched to her shriveled blue breast. Beside her huddled a desperate young pair, brother and sister, I presume. They called out, “Please, we ain’t eaten in four days.”

“May we speak to you,” I said, “about the Lord?”

“Please, do you have some bread?”

Gilbert broke off half of the butter sandwich Mrs. Cox had packed. He was offering it to the girl when the hag with the babe stole it, devouring it before our eyes.

“That was for the girl and her brother,” I complained.

“It might as well’ve been for me and my child.” The woman sat beatifically, as if she bore no remorse for her theft.

Gilbert offered the girl the second half, careful it landed in the intended hands. She shared it with her brother, while others all around shouted and cried for a morsel of their own.

“Now,” I said to the pair of siblings. “May we have a word about Jesus Christ?”

“I’m sorry,” replied the girl. “But I don’t believe any of it. Not any more.”

I could not fault her. If I had been handed her fate, I cannot say for certain my faith would hold firm. Such misery is too profound to suppose we can know its meaning.

My son and I tried the young lass on the wooden cart. “May we have a word?”

“I don’t want your pity, I want work.”

“May we talk to you about Jesus Christ?”

“I don’t need salvation, I need work.”

We approached the young man with the clouded eyes. “Sir, do you have a moment to spare?”

“If you have a copper to spare.”

“I don’t.”

“Then neither do I.”

Thus our efforts passed, with no success for nearly a year.

Each night we would return to a coal fire lit by Mrs. Cox. In our room Gilbert and I would fall to our knees and pray for success and fortitude. By the glow of the candle I would write two letters, one to each Mrs. Webb. Often I struggled to offer each woman a unique account of my day, for I feared they might share the letters and find I had copied my sentiments from one to the next. If I signed my letters to Elizabeth
Your true husband,
then I carefully signed those to Lydia
Your husband most sincere.
As time passed, my longing for both women grew, and often I stayed up late, with Gilbert asleep beside me, writing out my desire to see each; and imagining the day I would. Any man who has endured a long separation from his wife will understand these yearnings.

One night, while on our knees, Gilbert said, “Father, I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.”

It had been a difficult day at the end of a lonely week. The weather was damp, the city’s mood foul, and a frivolous young woman done up in fox fur had passed us on the street, giggling to her companion, “What a waste of a good young man!”

“Father,” said Gilbert, “I’m not sure we’re achieving anything.”

Startled by his quivering faith, there, before Mrs. Cox’s glowing grate, I promised my son the next day would bring success. “I can’t tell you how, or who, but you’ll see your efforts rewarded.” There is but one explanation for why I promised what I could not—desperation to tamp down my son’s kindling doubt. He was an unknowable young man, distant in every way. Sometimes I suspected he privately accused me of vanity, hypocrisy, and the other sins of the wealthy and well-stationed. No doubt his questions about faith and the Church itself had deepened during our stay abroad; and I worried he might rashly choose to defy, or even depart, the creed that had saved his mother and brought them to me. I worried over his future, as all fathers do. It was this worry that kept me from sensing my own doubt unfolding within. In
The 19th Wife
my daughter accuses me of blind faith, “a blindfold woven from mammon and power tied across his eyes,” she says. Her assault is cruel, I know, but I often wonder if her assassin’s blade has been forged from an unalloyed truth.

The next day was bright with sun, as clear as the previous day had been gray. We spent nearly twelve hours in the quadrangle of the Merchant’s Exchange near the statue of Lord Nelson. Everywhere windows were open to the breeze. Benign weather can add difficulty to the Missionary’s work, for the general hopefulness of the climate helps Man forget his woes. Thus, the day was no different than all the previous, except one woman, done up in jelly-colored silk, wrongly accused us of stealing a bundle of lace which later turned up on a bench.

We returned to Mrs. Cox’s little house dispossessed and weary. I carried a heavy shame for attempting prophecy. I could hardly muster a greeting to our landlady and her child.

“Right, ’ave a nice day, did you?” said Mrs. Cox. “Virginie, dear, leave the gentlemen alone, they’ve been out working for the Lord. Now I set your fire the way you like it, and I’ve just put the kettle on. Go and settle yourselves in and I’ll fetch some biscuits, or if you like I can bring a plate of swipes.”

Always loquacious, with very little to say but many words at her disposal, Mrs. Cox seemed particularly eager to hold us at the foot of her staircase longer than usual. “May I ’ave a word? If you’re not too tired”—and when she saw we had failed to understand her intent she continued—“about your Church and your Book? I was born into the Anglican Church, of course. But ever since Mr. Cox’s passing I ’ave to say I’ve ’ad me doubts.”

It was then I understood. I moved to begin to speak, but Gilbert interrupted. “Father, may I try?”

His sudden eagerness to proselytize surprised me, and left me proud. We passed the evening in Mrs. Cox’s parlor, Gilbert, for the most part, leading our discussion. Virginie lay upon the carpet, dressing and undressing her doll. Gilbert recounted the story of Joseph’s Revelations, and the Latter-day Saints, a few times forgetting an important point which I added delicately, careful not to insult his capabilities. Mrs. Cox listened patiently, providing delightful commentary to the events of the Church’s early history: “And ’e found the plates of gold in the earth, did ’e? Right lucky no one else came along. Most men would boil ’em down, they would.”

“Would you like to read our Book?” said Gilbert. It was after midnight, and the street outside Mrs. Cox’s window had fallen silent long ago. Virginie lay asleep in my lap.

She accepted it, holding it close to her breast. “Now then, I’ve got a lot of questions, but it’s getting late so maybe I’ll ask just the one that’s been at me for some time.”

I urged Mrs. Cox to ask whatever she needed to know.

“There’s some who go round saying a Mormon man takes a dozen wives, maybe more. When I ’ear this, I say it can’t be true. I got two Mormons living right ’ere in me ’ouse and I’d know, wouldn’t I, if they kept a ’arem back ’ome.”

Before our departure for England, Brigham had instructed us to evade the truth of plural marriage. “Far away, across the oceans,” he said, “you will find the stranger cannot imagine the reds of Zion, nor the snowy heights of our peaks, nor the vastness of our great basin. Just as these ignorant men and women cannot see the beauty of our land, they cannot understand the uniqueness of our families. Speak not of the plural wife until our foreign brothers and sisters have arrived in Deseret and can see for themselves how red our sand blows.”

For most men, myself included, the lie comes quickly and more naturally than we hope to admit. Thus I denied the truth of polygamy to Mrs. Cox, and forever after regretted doing so. I blame no one but myself for this misdeed.

“That’s what I wanted to ’ear,” she said. “Right, now I’ve kept you up late, ’aven’t I?” She lifted her daughter while expressing such genuine gratitude and love that I knew for certain then and there we had converted our first soul.

Joseph Young, Brigham’s son, was stationed in London on his own Mission. I wrote to him about our first convert, and he journeyed the eight hours to baptize Mrs. Cox. We met in a field dotted with sheep, beside a fast-running stream. He led Mrs. Cox into the water and submerged her. With that, we had brought forth our first Saint.

When Mrs. Cox emerged from the stream, her wet robe permitted the rosy color of her flesh to come through. To ignore her beauty would be to ignore God’s mastery. To look at it would be to commit a sin. Yet I must confess I could not help but stare. Mrs. Cox stood in a sunbeam that gave her the look of a statue carved by the hand of an artist from classical Greece—a sheer marble gown draped over her form in such a manner that every curve was apparent to the day.

Later that night, after a celebration in the parlor, Gilbert and I lay upon our bed studying the Book. I sensed an agitation in my son—his foot was kicking the bedpost irritably. When I asked him to stop, for it was disturbing my concentration, he did so sullenly. I asked if there was a matter he wished to discuss, but he said he had nothing to share.

I have seen the gloomy air visit Gilbert many times. Aware of the stifled energies of the unmarried young man, I never pressed him on the matter. I decided the next day I would speak to him about marriage. There was a great possibility of meeting a young woman in Liverpool—a pretty soul eager for conversion and deliverance to Zion. My boy needed something to look forward to, I concluded, and having solved, or so I believed, my son’s anxiety, I raked the coals for a final time, turned down the lamp, and settled beneath the bedclothes with a fine sense of accomplishment. It was still early, and the streets threw up the lamentable noise of urban sin—the singing drunk, the wench twirling on the sailor’s arm, the gang of orphans scurrying across the cobblestones in broken shoes. It took some time for my mind to clear of the wretchedness below our warm, cloistered room and permit me to enter a peaceful sleep.

Late that night, after the clamor from the street had died out, a foreign noise woke me. I turned on my side and discovered Gilbert missing from the bed. The moon shed a silver glow upon the room, illuminating the pink nosegays in the paper on the wall. I opened the door with such precision that its hinge brought no attention to my movements—a stealth which enabled me to witness, at the opposite end of the corridor, my son positioned near Mrs. Cox at her chamber’s door. Their persons stood so close together a Bible would not pass between them. The window beside them was cracked and a night breeze wound its way into the hall, billowing their sleeping gowns in a way that unified them like a double cumulus cloud.