The 19th Wife (36 page)

THE
19
TH WIFE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Lonely Wife

I had not seen my husband for three weeks when he came around for a second drive. I tried engaging him in discourse, but he seemed preoccupied in thought. Gradually I came to understand he had not come to engage his new wife in conversation. Once the carriage drew beyond the city limits, Brigham sprang to life, listing across the seat. “Oh, my pet,” he moaned, shrugging off his green cape and emitting an odor of the lemon drops he kept in a bowl on his secretary’s desk.

Such was our marriage.

For three months our union remained a secret affair. Even my boys knew nothing of their mother’s new status. I had wanted to tell them, but I could not bring myself to explain the peculiar circumstances. Often I thought of my mother, who had passed through her youth without shame. Yet in my case, whenever I left my husband after an assignation in the carriage, I carried the humiliation of a second-choice whore. Years later, during our divorce, Brigham would accuse me of demanding money at the end of our interludes, but there is no truth to this claim. I received nothing except a rumpled dress, a dented bonnet, and an urgent need to bathe.

During this time, what for most couples is known as the honeymoon, every Sunday I attended services pretending I had no more relation to Brigham than before. Sunday services in Deseret is a time for society to assert itself, and there is a great fuss put into where one sits and with whom. As a divorced woman, my status was lower than that of a widow or virgin. My secret wedding had changed none of this in the eyes of the community of Saints. I would sit with my mother and the boys on a bench at the back, while Brigham preached to his thousands of followers. Up in front, filling a dozen rows, was the brigade of his family—the wives, the daughters, the sons, their wives, and so on. To them, I was nothing more than one more eager disciple in a land filled with some fifty thousand. They paid me no mind.

Each Sunday, invariably, Brigham’s sermon turned to the subject of Truth. Nothing winds Brigham up more than this, and he could spin out an hour’s worth on the notion without so much as coming up for breath. As he did so each week, I would stew in a juice of shame and worry. If Truth was the key to Glory, as Brigham proclaimed, what did this mean for me? I took a great disliking to myself during this time, and in my thoughts referred to myself as simply No. 19. There were many times I could not look my boys in the face.

Finally, after months of ignominy, Brigham said he was ready to announce me as his 19th wife. “The first thing to do is establish you in a home suited to your position.” He drove me to a sad little cottage of uncoated plank where he hoped I would reside happily, always waiting for his call. It was furnished with left-overs—I recognized the worn parlor rug from the Lion House, the black-stained lamp from the theater’s dressing room, and the chipped crockery from Brigham’s bakery. (An acquaintance I made in Washington after my divorce advised me not to dwell on such household matters when recounting my tale. “They’re petty,” he said. “And you sound petty when you do so.” To this I told the esteemed gentleman, “You have, I’m quite certain, never attempted a compote in a leaky pan.”)

Sensing my disappointment, my husband said, “You don’t like it?” The truth was, I was not upset about the house, if that is the correct word for such a lean-to. Walking about the tiny half-furnished parlor, hearing the echo of my step, I came to understand that I would lead a lonely existence here. True, I would have my boys, but I knew as the Prophet’s wife my activities would be monitored and restricted. I could no longer expect to visit with friends as I once did, or stroll down the street alone, or do any of the daily activities that bring a basic kind of enjoyment to the day. I was now a married woman, and would be expected to behave as such, yet unlike most wives I did not have a husband in any sense of the word. I was neither maiden, widow, nor even divorcee. I was a plural wife, and this little house, with the cheap runner on the stairs, represented my conjugal purgatory in such fine relief that I felt a piercing to my heart.

To improve my spirits, Brigham moved my mother into the cottage with my boys. We tried to colonize it as best we could, but it had come with such few supplies that everything about our existence there would be best described as bare.

As one of Brigham’s wives I was entitled to monthly rations to be collected at Brigham’s Family Store. The store sits behind the Beehive House, and when my mother and I went for the first time there was a long line of women and children running out the door and down the street. Many had brought empty pushcarts and miner’s sacks, and the children, proudly aware of their purpose, held hand-baskets with caution and care. A number of Indian women had also come to barter large lidded baskets and other weavings for soap and candles.

At the counter I gave my name to an efficient, wide-bosomed woman who ran her finger down a list. “There you are,” she said, and disappeared into the storeroom. She was most likely one of my sister wives, yet our relationship was wholly transactional. She returned with a five-pound sack of beet sugar, ten pounds of smoked pork, a short pound of oily candles, a cake of lye soap, a spool of mending thread, and a small box of white-phosphorous matches.

“What I really need is some cambric,” I said.

“So do I, Sister. Anything else?”

Now might be a good time to confess to my Dear Reader that which, at the time, I was unable to confess to myself. During the early stages of my marriage I had—I can see now—suppressed my skepticism. Despite the mounting evidence, I wanted to believe my marriage to Brigham Young, unorthodox as it was, had some measure of truth to it. I knew he did not love me as a young girl imagines a husband will love his wife. I knew I did not love him in any profound or cosmic way. Yet marriage has many purposes beyond the romantic, including the practical and the spiritual. I had hoped Brigham would be a surrogate father to my boys. I had hoped my mother’s move to my cottage would free her from her rivals. Perhaps most important, I had hoped my proximity to the Church would blow fresh winds into the sagging sails of my faith. I was still a daughter of Mormondom, and at night, when I was alone, and the wind tapped the almond branch against my pane, I continued to pray.

After many months of marriage Brigham invited me to sup at the Lion House as his wife. “How will the others greet me?” I asked.

“Frankly, I gave up trying to predict my wives long ago.”

On the day of my debut, Brigham asked me to meet him in the gardens behind his house. Brigham’s gardens, it should be said, are like the estate of a king. Behind a nine-foot wall are acres and acres of flower beds and walking paths, as well as fruit and nut orchards, vegetable plots, racks of beehives, and a pigeon house. As I approached the garden at the time of my meeting with my husband, I saw ten paces before me Sister Amelia, whom I knew only by face—her youthful beauty cannot be denied—and reputation, which was so unpleasant, I willed myself not to think of it.

When first planning this memoir, I had no intention of dipping into the histories of my fellow wives. For one, such digression would divert my reader for too many pages. For another, each arrived at Brigham’s bed in such a unique manner, through individual and sometimes mysterious circumstances, that I could not accurately represent all their paths. Yet in the case of Amelia Folsom, a diversion seems warranted. I hope my Reader will agree.

She had become the Prophet’s 17th wife in 1863, taking, and holding quite firmly, the undisputed position of his favorite. He provided her a private carriage with her initials stenciled on the door in gold, although the other wives walked about the city in the dust. Amelia ordered her silk from France, while Brigham’s silkworms spun tirelessly for the rest of us. And most frustrating to her rival wives (I exclude myself from this jealous lot), she visited her husband whenever she desired. She was known to arrive at his office and expel his present guests so that she could be alone with her mate. Most scandalously, I have been told she once demanded a diamond necklace before she would allow Brigham to return to her boudoir. Although this particular anecdote is second-hand, I trust its source, for were you to greet Amelia today you very well might find the diamonds gleaming at the base of her throat.

I also know that she intended to be Brigham’s final wife. It was a condition of their marriage. We must give Brigham some credit. He kept his word for two years.

In 1865, not long before he began his campaign for me, Brigham broke his vow to Amelia to wed Mary Van Cott, a fair, strong-minded Saint from a devout family. Mary, who would become a friend, was always kind-hearted and selfless. She knew her presence would hurt Amelia and asked Brigham what she could do to assuage her. “Respect her,” Brigham advised. Upon arrival in the Lion House, Mary sent a kitten named Honey to Amelia’s room in a gesture of peace. Amelia set the poor creature loose in the city creek and returned the empty box to her rival’s door. Honey was never seen again.

Mary was saddened by the cat’s loss, yet she could not bring herself to blame Amelia. “I understand her devastation even more,” she told Brigham, who later told me. (My detractors have often accused me of knowing things I could not possibly know. “She wasn’t there!” they shout. Oh, but this shows their naiveté about plural marriage. In the Saints’ troubled institution, a wife’s confession to her husband hops from one pillow to the next with the determination of a bed bug.)

The standoff between Amelia and Mary continued until my arrival. They say nothing heals a wound better than time. In plural marriage, nothing dulls the pain of a new wife better than the next one after. There is a cruel logic in a polygamous household. A wife generally ignores the women who preceded her but loathes the first woman to follow. When that woman gets replaced herself, the previous wife takes an un-Christian pleasure in seeing her pained as she had been. This is not always the case. Many women are too noble in heart to nurture such feelings. But they are the exception. Amelia’s rage was the rule.

Thus, my Reader, this is the household I entered that day.

As I went to enter Brigham’s gardens, I found the gate purposely locked by Amelia. Leggett, Brigham’s gardener, saw me fumbling to enter. “Be right there,” he said, hobbling over. “There you are, ma’am. Sister Amelia’s in quite a blow, isn’t she?”

As much as I was tempted, I was not about to gossip about another wife.

“It’s always a fine day around here, until she blows through,” the man continued. “I should hire a militia to protect my flowers. Look at her.” Indeed, Amelia was swiping a brush of cosmos with her parasol, destroying the blooms. But I would not take Leggett’s line, and commented on the beauty of his lavender rose.

“I’m lucky to have it. Amelia took her shears to my butter rose the other day.”

“Mr. Leggett,” I said, “please remember her business is not mine.”

“Of course,” he said. “Until she makes it.”

“I’m sorry she treats you so poorly.”

“That’s nothing. You should see how she cuts through Brigham. I’ll tell you this much: it makes me love the man more. He stands up there on Sundays giving wisdom and all the such, and that’s all right and fine, but I never trust a man until I’ve seen him weak. That’s how I know he’s honest. Everyone has his chinks!”

Later, at dinner, I made a point of sitting across from Amelia in an attempt to establish a rapport. She ignored me, spoke to no one, and never once touched her food. Each time another woman spoke to Brigham, Amelia pouted and fumed, and indulged in her unpleasant habit of picking at her face. I asked what was troubling her, but she chose not to answer. At the end of the meal, as the cake plate was passed, she shoved it under my nose. “You look like you enjoy your sweets,” she said, the famous diamonds sparkling. I must admit the precious stones only enhanced her enviable complexion—while making the rest of Brigham’s women, myself included, appear ordinary and plain. I took from the plate two slices of lemon cake, folded them into a cloth for my boys, and thanked Amelia for her kindness. Her lips twisted into a graceless smile. This would be the only time Amelia and I spoke in the five years we shared a husband. I once heard Brigham say that the most beautiful women are also angry, which must explain his unique devotion to Amelia.

I never became a regular wife at the Lion House, and after a few months I stopped dining there altogether. I remember one afternoon Brigham was visiting me in the cottage. He thought to ask, “When did you stop supping with us?”

“Months ago.”

“Has it been that long? I miss seeing my wife.”

“I’m not your wife,” I said.

He rose from the bed and began to assemble himself, buttoning up and refastening his cuffs. He said nothing more, grunting incomprehensibly as he bent to pull on his boots. He left my room without another word, as if wounded and retreating to his lair. Yet the space where he had stood did not empty. It was as if he had left the spirit of himself behind, a black ghost, large and shaped to his form. This apparition watched me as I dressed. It penetrated my thoughts as I worried if I had somehow destroyed my soul’s redemption, and that of my boys. I do not believe in phantasmagorical events, but this presence was so formidable, and real, I must describe it as it seemed to me.