The Wedding Dress (22 page)

He held her close as he studied the scene. “Looks like there's more building. Don't recognize those rigs. Probably the Clara bunch moving in. Well, no matter; there's room enough for all. Wasn't too good an idea to settle the Clara anyway. There's been nothing but trouble. First the floods and then the Indians. I expect Hamblin will have the Indians under control in a year or so. He's done a goodly share of baptizing already. At times we're hard put to remember these are our brothers.” She tried to control her impatience. “Well, let's get down there.”

When they pulled through the gate in front of the log house, the first thing Rebecca saw was the children. She stared, numbness flowing through her. “Pa!” Like swooping birds they came at him as he jumped down.

While Andrew was pulling the children close, the door of the house swung open and a tall, rawboned woman with a solemn face came out on the porch. She thrust her hands under her apron and watched as Andrew captured the last child and pushed him forward. “John, Margaret, Billy, Angie”—he touched them briefly and said—“this is your new Aunty Rebecca.” His eyes were bright, challenging Rebecca. Now he extended his hand toward the woman on the porch. “My dear, come meet Rebecca.”

The day grew dim, seeming to float past Rebecca like faded gray photographs. The first photograph was the house. Andrew was saying that it would be most practical for them all to live here together.

Like a wooden soldier, she toured her new home. The main floor was divided into two big rooms, both containing a fireplace and comfortable furniture. In each section there was a large bed shoved back in the corner. One room was obviously used as a kitchen. About its fireplace clustered a long table and benches. A cupboard hung from the wall beside the fireplace. Nearby, another table was loaded with a jumble of pans and sacks of dried corn and flour. The disorder jarred the numbness in Rebecca.

The next room contained, besides the second bed and bureau, comfortable chairs and a desk, holding a china lamp. The only reality for Rebecca was seeing the tumbled bed and the puffs of dust on the floor, even as she noticed the pink roses on the base of the lamp and its smudged chimney.

During the days that followed, the gray haze which had settled over Rebecca seemed to lift gradually. Life began to pick a new pattern, but Rebecca found herself thinking only in terms of the before and after days.

Now she knew each moment as a deliberate, self-conscious one. No longer did she move with ease; she jerked, conscious of every muscle, every stray hair, every wasted movement. She was growing thin and silent. Andrew's worried face slowly assumed an angry frown. Seeing it, she made herself merry and productive. The house became filled with activity, and the stern features of that woman, Sarah, became pleased, relaxed. Andrew expanded into the genial, indulgent head of the household.

Through the numbness of those beginning days, Rebecca had groped her way to acceptance as a way of life. In the quiet of the nights he spent with Sarah, Rebecca had taken to lecturing herself. There would be no call to charge her with being the troublemaker. There were all those stories of plural marriages. Now that the lot was cast, she would settle in and make the best of it.

But in the lonesome nights and quiet times, the sense of destiny crept upon her. How silly of her to have thought all that time she could fight against the order of things.

She grew to accept the dividedness of Andrew, trying to deny her need for his nearness and caresses. Constantly she must remind herself that her honeymoon was over.

Slowly, Rebecca was beginning to know the town and become acquainted with people. In the beginning, while her mind was still wrapped in its gray blanket of shock, she had rejected the friendly people reaching out to her. Now in her loneliness, with approaching winter and Andrew's absence becoming more frequent, she began searching for friendship.

One day as Rebecca sat on the front porch, trying to card a tangle of wool, a woman stepped through the gate and approached. “You're not going about that right,” she stated. “I'm Matilda Davis, and I'll be glad to help you with that.”

“Not Grandma Davis,” teased Rebecca, glancing at her graying hair.

She snorted, “Not everyone is grandma. I married Mr. Davis while he was on his deathbed, and I was old enough to know what I was doing. I married him just to have the endowments and earn my place in glory. I wouldn't have it any other way. He'd had a flock of young ones with his first two wives and didn't need more children, just that third marriage.”

“Weren't you interested in having a family?”

She shook her head. “I just wanted to teach school. But they come along and preach that if a woman wants to get to the highest heaven, she's gotta let some man take her there by being married to him.” She shrugged. “They say it, I'll go along.”

“But you haven't had to live with another wife?” Rebecca asked in a low voice.

Matilda shook her head, “That's enough to send anyone to glory. You'd better believe the atonement is the only thing that makes a lot of these marriages work.” The woman squinted up at her. “It pays to be a good gossip, but this isn't gossip, it's gospel. It's in the Doctrine and Covenants; that means it's a revelation given to Joseph Smith by the Lord Almighty himself, and it isn't ever going to change. For now and until eternity it's there. Where it tells about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage for eternity, it says all who have the law revealed to them must obey it or be damned. Any man in the priesthood who has a wife who doesn't believe and minister to him, well, he has a sacred obligation to kill her off just to keep her from being damned. Kill her body to save her soul. I tell you, there's some men who think any little old thing is enough to damn a woman, and they're ready to go great lengths to save her soul.”

Rebecca stared at the woman. Not believing her, she skirted the topic by asking, “Is it commanded that men have plural wives?”

“Well, depends on who's talking about it. It says in the same place that we're to go do the works of Abraham, which means taking more than one wife. Sounds like a command. There's no other way to get to the highest heaven and be gods.”

“Seems so unfair.”

“Why you complaining? Seems an easy way to earn the highest order of heaven.”

“I'm thinking of those who've never married.”

“They've had the right.”

“Sometimes they die before they've had the chance.” She was thinking again of David.

“Well, there's plenty of unanswered questions. You could get so caught up in asking questions that you could just talk yourself right out of your faith. Brother Brigham comes down pretty hard on this. Calls them apostates.”

“He doesn't have much patience with them, does he?”

“No. In a sermon I heard him say rather than allow apostates to flourish here, he'd unsheath his bowie knife and conquer or die. My, what a commotion that caused! People were hollering and shouting, ‘Go it, go it!' He said we should call upon the Lord to assist in this and every good work.”

A year had passed since her marriage, and as Rebecca prepared dinner, she tried to keep her thoughts from wandering back over that year. She stirred the braised quail in the iron kettle while she gave instructions to Margaret. “You can cut the bread, just watch your fingers. Angie, carry the knives and forks to the table.” She watched Angie pull a chair to the cupboard and climb onto it.

The door flew open, and Andrew came in. With a happy grin, he made his rounds kissing each child and then his wives. His eyes caught and held Rebecca's for a moment before he turned. She felt her heart leap. He went to hang his coat on a peg.

“Aunt Becky!” Rebecca turned and caught Angie as the chair tipped.

“Aunt Becky, dinner's burning.” She dashed to the fire.

Andrew was drying his hands. “Sarah, why don't you give Rebecca a hand?”

“I think I'm in the family way.” Sarah stood slowly and moved to her place at the table. “I've been feeling poorly for a week or so.

A grin split Andrew's face. “That's wonderful!” He patted her shoulder and gave her a quick hug. Rebecca turned to hide her disappointment.

During the coming weeks, Rebecca discovered that Sarah's delicate condition changed her disposition even more—she retreated from all responsibility for her children. Rebecca was reminded of Bessie Wright as she watched Sarah continue to rock and knit.

On the first warm day of February, Rebecca moved the laundry outside and built a fire to boil the linens. Then she worked in the fresh air, scrubbing the clothing and stretching it to dry across clotheslines and bushes. The sun was as warm as a friendly hand on her back, and when she finished her task, she noted with glad surprise how her mood had lifted. She hummed a little tune as she sloshed soapy water across the porch and scrubbed at the mud with her broom.

Filled with gladness to be alive, she paused to look at the town. Sister Lucas was shaking rugs out her door. There was a cluster of tiny folk frolicking in the middle of the street. Smoke curled from chimneys in the lazy manner of spring.

As she eyed the dark house, a thought was born, and Rebecca voiced it. “It seems to me a body deserves a joy once in a while. Couldn't it make the rest of life a little easier?”

That distant line of hills had beckoned her for months. With Indian problems cooling, wouldn't it be a joy to walk there?

Quickly, before she became timid, she hurried into the house. Removing her apron and smoothing her hair, she said, “I'm going to walk for a bit.”

“You'll be mud all over.”

“'Tisn't muddy. You should look for yourself; the fresh air would be good.”

Nodding briskly at her neighbors, Rebecca headed for the line of trees. Once in the midst of the piney perfume, her pace slackened. A dreamy calm crept over her as she wandered, listening to the birds, pausing to chew a pine needle.

It was a glory, a kind of glory. Joshua had talked about a glory and about some people who lived that way, the Whitmans. They had been murdered by the Indians. What kind of glory could end in tragedy?

While she snuggled in her shawl and mused on the word glory, the sun dipped behind the trees, and the streets of Fort Harmony became shadowed.

Tonight was fast and testimony meeting. Sarah and Andrew would be going, and she would be expected to feed the children and then trail along behind when the meeting was nearly over.

She left the trees and quickened her steps on the slope. New resolutions were forming in her mind. They made her uneasy, but they also shone like a ray of bright sun in a dark day. “I think,” she said slowly, “it wouldn't hurt to prove I'm still my own self. There must be enough room in Mormonism for me to think one different thought and walk one lonely mile.”

She was breathless as she burst through the door. Andrew was already there and Sarah, wearing her bonnet, was dishing up the porridge for the children.

“I'll do it!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “You go ahead, I'll not be going.”

Andrew frowned at her. “Where've you been?”

She smoothed her hair. “Walking in the trees. I've had a heart to do it since I first came. I'm not going tonight,” she repeated.

Andrew's glance slid off her face, and he turned, “Come along, Sarah. She can take over now.” Without looking at her, Sarah adjusted her shawl and followed him.

When the door closed, John spoke around his mouthful. “Pa's mad at you. Ma told him about all your gallivanting when there's work to be done.”

“But I did the laundry and scrubbed the steps!” Rebecca exclaimed. “I—” Suddenly she realized she was trying to justify her actions. She smiled down at them. “I needed a joy, and I've supplied it for myself.”

Angie raised her face, and the cornmeal dripped from her chin. “I wish I had a joy,” she said wistfully. “With raisins in it and oatmeal instead of corn mush.”

“You baby pumpkin.” Rebecca circled the table and pushed a kiss down into the child's tangled curls. “I'll give you a joy. Shall I make you a pancake with molasses or shall we read a book together?”

“Book, book, read to us!”

Rebecca shoved aside the dishes, and Margaret ran to the shelf of books. She selected the red one and returned to the table. “Oh, good!” Rebecca exclaimed, “the stories and poems. This book was given to me by a dear lady just before I left Great Salt Lake City.” She settled herself to read.

The fire burned low, and she interrupted herself to say, “John, please put on another log.” She was still reading when Andrew and Sarah returned. With a start, Rebecca realized the laundry was still unfolded, and the dirty dishes waited.

She jumped to her feet and handed the book to Margaret. “Let's get at the dishes. Surely we've all had enough joy to last us for a time.”

Later, when the children had climbed the stairs and Sarah's door had been closed, Andrew demanded, “Why?” She studied his face, and only then saw the trouble her willfulness had caused. His face was tight and his lips cold.