Lily Dougall - The Mormon Prophet

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"That which is ordained by the Lord is ordained, sister, and it causeth
me grief to know that this revelation, which I told thee many years
since, is yet to be received of thee as a grievous thing,
nevertheless--"

"Nevertheless," she repeated in a mocking tone, as one weary of
foolishness, "what nevertheless? Let us talk on some better subject, Mr.
Smith, and after this be kind enough to have no dreams or revelations
about me. Dream of your Church, if you like. I cannot hinder your
people's credulity, and I hope that you will continue, as you have
begun, to lead them in the main by righteous paths. And have your dreams
and visions about yourself, if you must, for I sometimes think that you
cannot be much madder than you are now, but be kind enough to leave me
out of them, for I am going away."

She had now made him very angry. He was standing with flushed face,
quivering with uncertain impulses of rising wrath, yet he still
struggled for self-control.

"Sister Susannah Halsey, it is not meet that you should make a mock of
that which is sacred"--he gave a gasp here of stifled anger, and there
was a perceptible note of wounded affection beside the louder one of
offended vanity--"of that which is above all sacred," he stuttered, "it
is not meet--meet--to mock--to mock." The veins on his forehead were
standing out and growing purple.

She had often heard of Joseph Smith's power of rage, before which all
the Saints quailed. She saw it now for the first time.

She rose up, trying now a tone of gentle severity. "I spoke lightly
because your words appeared to me childish and silly, but the more in
earnest you were, Mr. Smith, the more need there is you should have done
with a thought that could lead to no good. I am no elect lady. Why do
you deceive yourself? I have told you before that I do not even believe
in your religion."

As she spoke she became more and more amazed at the thought of what his
self-deception must have been, for in his ever-shifting mind he knew her
infidelity perfectly, and yet had persuaded himself that she would
accept some fantastic position as prophetess-in-chief.

"How mad you are," she said pityingly, "to know a thing and yet to
pretend to yourself you do not know it. Go and get your supper, Mr.
Smith. Emma will be waiting to give it to you. And when you have
thought quietly over what I have said, you are quite clever enough to
see that my way of looking at it is more sensible than yours."

She had perhaps supposed that the mention of the domestic supper would
be punitive rather than soothing, but she was not prepared to find that
she had displayed scarlet to the blood-shot eyes of a bull.

"Woman," his voice, deep and hoarse, was like thunder about her ears,
"woman, is it not enough that the Lord has spoken?"

She saw by his purple face and parched lip, by the hard shudder that
went through his frame, that his fury was stronger than he. She quailed
inwardly.

"It is not enough for me that you say the Lord has spoken."

His lips worked as if in the effort to form anathemas his dry throat
refused to utter. Then, regaining his loud hoarse speech, with a choking
noise he lifted his hand in a gesture of sacerdotal menace.

"Woman, it is the last time. Choose ye this day between blessing and
cursing, for the Lord shall send the cursing until thou be destroyed and
perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings whereby thou
hast forsaken me."

She cried in answering excitement, "I choose your curse rather than your
blessing under the conditions you propose. You are mad; go and calm
yourself."

Then, having exhausted her physical courage in this last defiance, she
went into her inner room, locking the door, leaving him in the manifest
suffering of an almost unendurable rage.

CHAPTER III.

That night Susannah packed her possessions in the smallest possible
compass. The money she had lent to Emma would be sufficient for the
journey to Carthage, which was the nearest Gentile town, and thither she
was determined to go without an hour's delay, ready now to work or beg
her way on the journey farther eastward.

As soon as the business of the next day was fairly started she went to
the suite of rooms inhabited by the Smiths, confident that Joseph's
excess of fury had been transient. Emma was surrounded by her children,
to whom she had just given breakfast. The prophet was about to descend
to his business office. They both received Susannah with moderate
kindness.

The March sun shone in through the large windows upon the garish
furniture of the apartment, upon Emma's gay attire, and upon the shining
faces of the three children, who stood gazing upward at Susannah, quick,
as children always are, to perceive signs of suppressed excitement.

Susannah explained that she had determined to go to Carthage that day,
where she hoped soon to find some party of travellers in whose escort
she could travel farther; she hoped that it would be quite convenient
for Emma to return the money that morning.

Smith gazed at Susannah intently, but only for a few moments. It seemed
that his mood had changed entirely, that he was now too much absorbed in
the business of the day, whatever it might be, to care whether she went
or stayed. He left them, saying that he would send money to Emma as soon
as he could, that the trifling debt might be paid.

Money flowed in such easy streams through the hands of the leading men
of Nauvoo, that Susannah supposed that a messenger with the required
amount would come up the stairs in a few minutes. She sat with Emma in
this expectation.

"You are offended with me for going?" she asked, for Emma's mask of
indifference was worn obviously.

"You wish to destroy your soul," said Emma.

"Ah, but you know, you have long known, that I do not believe that
salvation in this world or the next depends on the rites of Mr. Smith's
Church."

"If I told this child that he would be dashed to pieces if he walked out
of the window, and he did not believe me, would that save him?"

Emma made this inquiry with triumphant scorn; then she rose and began to
attend to the wants of her children in a bustling manner.

Susannah sighed and smiled. "I have at least the right to reject your
faith at my own peril, for there is not in the wide world, as far as I
know, man or woman who cares whether I save my soul or not."

"And whose fault?" cried Emma, coarse now in her discomposure. "If you
are so stuck-up that you think you can read your books and look down on
us all, just because you are a beauty and the gentlemen bow down to you,
'tisn't likely that you'd have any friends acting that way. You can't
even behave civil to the gentlemen when they offer you the best that's
going."

It was evident that some version of Smith's interviews with her had been
given to his wife. Susannah wondered how much truth, how much fiction,
had been in the relation. It did not matter much to her now, since she
had resolved to go at once. The whole of her life with that troublous
sect seemed to be dropping from her like a dream.

Leaving word that she would receive the money on her return or else call
at Smith's office for it when she was ready, she went down into the
cheerful noise of the street and bargained with a man who had horses and
vehicles for hire. Having arranged that he should come for her at noon,
she went about to make the few farewells she felt to be desirable.

Darling was now postmaster of Nauvoo and one of the first presidency. To
him she went first. She shrank from him because of his coarseness and
the jocular admiration which he sometimes had the audacity to express
for her, but she could not forget how assiduous his kindness had been in
the days of Elvira's illness. She found him sitting, his heels on the
upper part of a chimney-piece with a fireless grate, reading the
Millenial Star. The hot April sun, streaming through the windows of his
office, had caused him to take off his coat, which was no longer
thread-bare. His shirt sleeves were fine enough and white; the high hat
that was pushed far on the back of his head was highly polished.
Opulence, self-indulgence, good-nature, and a certain element of
fanatical fire mingled in the atmosphere of the postmaster's office, and
made it somewhat turgid.

When Darling heard Susannah's errand he became serious enough. An
apoplectic sort of breathlessness came over him, expressing a degree of
interest which she could not understand. He settled his hat more firmly
upon his head. "Does the prophet know?"

"He knows. I have said good-bye to him and to Mrs. Smith. It is sad to
part with friends that I have known for so many years."

"And the prophet's going to let you go, is he?"

Darling, clumsy at all times, in this speech conveyed to Susannah the
first faint suspicion that Smith might dream of detaining her by force.

Darling's youngest daughter, who had been an affectionate pupil to
Susannah at Quincy, waylaid her as she came out, and clasped her about
the waist with the ardour of an indulged child. She was a blithesome
girl of about fourteen.

"I heard you tell father that you are going away. Is it true?" she asked
impetuously.

Susannah tried to release herself from the embrace. "Yes, it is true.
Never mind, you like your new teacher, you know, just as well as you
used to like me."

"I just guess I don't," cried the child defiantly. "But anyhow, if you
are going away, I'm going to tell you something."

Whether the childish love of telling a secret, the girlish love of
mischief, or a dawning sense of womanly responsibility was uppermost, it
would be hard to tell. There, in the open square, while worthy Saints
hurried to and fro on the pavement beside them, while horses jangled
their harness and drivers shouted and exchanged their morning greetings,
Darling's youngest daughter drew Susannah's head downward and hastily
whispered to her the fate of her letters to Ephraim Croom.

"I know, for one day since we came here I heard father talking to the
prophet. He said you'd written lately while you were at Quincy, and all
your letters had been burned. Now that's the truth; and I said to myself
'twas a sin and a shame, and that you ought to know. Now don't go and
tell tales of me, or father will be mad--at least, as mad as he ever can
be with _me_." A toss of the pretty head accompanied these words, a
flash of conscious power in the bright eyes, the spoilt child knowing
that her father was in her toils now, as truly as any future lover would
ever be. The school bell was ringing. The girl, her bag of books hanging
from her arm, ran with the crowd of belated children.

Susannah walked on, almost stunned at first by the throb of intense
anger that came with this surprise. Then the anger was suddenly
superseded, hidden and crushed down by a rush of joy. Ephraim had not
neglected her; Ephraim had given her up for dead; but she had no reason
to suppose that he was dead, no reason to doubt his faithfulness.
Susannah trod the common street in love with motion as some happy
woodland creature treads the dells in the hour of dawn and spring.

When Elvira looked up to see Susannah enter her gate she saw her friend
transfigured in a glow of returning youth and hope. Elvira looked at her
timidly; this Susannah she had never seen before. Elvira's husband was
not present. The interior of the house was fantastic almost as its
mistress, but sultry with luxury.

"Well now, you think you are going," said Elvira. "Who'd have thought
it? And only last week General Bennet said to the prophet that if he'd
marry you to him he'd send to New York for diamonds both for you and
Emma Smith. He said he'd get a thousand dollars' worth of diamonds
apiece for each of you; but Mr. Darling said that you ought to be
married to Mr. Heber, who has just been elected an apostle, because--"
She stopped suddenly, nodding her head. "You know why--blood is blood,
and we have seen it run in rivers, but we don't mention it here in
Nauvoo."

Elvira set the French heel of her slipper in the centre of a rose upon
her carpet and spun round upon it till her flounces stood out.

"We don't mention it here in Nauvoo."

She sang as if it were the refrain to a song.

Susannah felt from within her shield of new delight an immense pity.
Here again was a revelation of the coarse and frivolous talk that went
on at the church meetings, and Elvira was privy to it through that old
fool, her husband. How could she endure him!

"O Elvira, in the last few days I have realised as I did not before that
riches are making fools of these men. How glad I am that my husband died
before he knew that this was to be the reward of his lifework and his
prayers!"

Elvira stopped dancing. The mystical side of her character now, as
ever, came forward suddenly in the midst of her other interests. The
sunshine was bright in the gaudy room. A tiny spaniel, which Elvira's
senile slave had procured for her, lay on a red cushion in its full
beam, looking more like a toy than a living thing. When Elvira stopped
dancing her flounces settled themselves with an audible rustle, and her
thin delicately-cut face looked at Susannah from out its frame of curled
hair and gold ornaments like the face of a spirit imprisoned in some
unseemly place.

"Heaven help us, Susannah," she cried shrilly, "if you call Nauvoo the
reward of Angel's prayers. Look!" she cried, pointing out of the window,
"see how the new temple rises; how its white walls shine in the sun! We
are putting thousands upon thousands of dollars into it. It will be the
grandest building this side of the Alleghany mountains." She let her
small jewelled hand, with its pointing finger, fall suddenly, "and there
shall not be left one stone of it upon another, for the House of God is
not made with hands."

"I see little signs of its foundations here." Susannah spoke with fire.
"Treachery and tyranny are poor bricks."

"Child, its foundations are in the whole earth, here and everywhere, in
every nation and kindred. Men like Angel Halsey sow wheat; other people
have sown tares. The tares happen to be in blossom just now here in
Nauvoo." She seemed to forget her seriousness as suddenly, for again
she spun round upon the centre of her rose, singing her little musical
refrain.

Susannah made one more appeal of the sort that she had made so often
before Elvira's marriage.

"You will not come away with me, Elvira? I do not like to leave you
here; you have not been yourself since Angel died. You are not bound to
this man because you were not sane enough to make a valid choice."

It was plain speaking, but it did not ruffle Elvira's composure in the
slightest. She laughed and began to caress her spaniel. "Mad. Oh yes, we
are all mad, and growing madder, but it is because they have huddled us
together at the point of the sword, until now to be a Mormon means to be
shut out from the world and shut in to--to what? To the prophet's
dreams; and some of them are good, and some of them are bad, and some of
them are mad; and let us thank Heaven that they are as good as they are,
for to go back to the Gentiles who shot down Angel and the children he
was teaching to pray, and your child in your arms, that would be the
baddest and maddest act of life." She rose up suddenly again. "Go!" she
cried. There was a flame of real anger in her eyes. "Since the wish is
in your heart, go! We believe now in strange doctrines. Two new
doctrines we have learned at Nauvoo. Do you know what they are? One is
'baptism of the dead.' If you get off safely, Susannah, and die in your
sins, one of us must be baptized again for you, so that you will be
saved in spite of yourself. But the _other_ doctrine is '_salvation by
the shedding of blood_.' Do you understand _that_ doctrine?"

"Indeed I do not."

"And you speak with a tone that says that you neither know nor care what
new things we have been learning. But you may have reason to care before
many hours are over."

She came near and whispered, "They teach us now that if a _man_ sin
wilfully and will not repent, it is better that a minister of the church
should slay him, for then his blood will make atonement for his soul."
She ceased to speak until she had thrust Susannah out of her door, and
her last words were in a whisper of awesome import. "Perhaps _a woman's
soul can be saved in the same way_."

Susannah was out again in the cheerful busy street. She made haste to
fulfil the one remaining call before she met her chaise at the hotel.
She felt that her last word was due to the member of the Danite band who
had saved her in her hour of need and who had avenged her husband's
blood.

To each of those who had made sacrifice for the sect, a lot of land in
the best part of the city had been awarded. Heber, Danite and apostle,
had built upon his lot, and there she found him at the back of the
cottage feeding a mare and foal which were tied in a small plot of
ragged grass. He was much older now than when she had first seen him;
daring and danger can lengthen time. He had the same indomitable
frankness in his dark eyes, but his face was hardened and fanaticism was
stamped thereon. It was a homely precinct, with utensils of house and
stable-work lying about. The mare was drinking from a bucket, her gentle
head so near his shoulder that her love for him was easily seen.

"I am going away," Susannah said. "I have come to thank you for the last
time for all your kindness to me and to say good-bye."

"You shall not go," he said harshly.

It was the echo of something which she had heard twice before this
morning. This time it began to enter her mind with some sharpness.

"Why not?"

"If you saw a friend hastening to destruction would you not stop her? It
is well known amongst us that you desire to go, and at the meeting of
the presidency last night the prophet told us that you sought to
apostatise. Go home, Sister Halsey, and repent, and obtain forgiveness
from the Lord and from his prophet for your unbelief."

She was able to stand for a moment quietly and watch him still busy
watering the mare, admiring the skill and gentleness with which he did
it, thinking sadly enough that she would never see this remarkable man
again, nor know to what the mingled fierceness and gentleness of his
nature would grow. Then she offered him her hand in farewell without
further argument.

He shook the mare's head from his shoulder and, taking her hand, held it
in an iron grasp. "As your friend, and for the sake of that good man,
your husband, I beseech you to repent; but if you will not repent, for
his sake and for our sakes, because we have prayed for you, you shall
still be saved."

Although beginning to be apprehensive of some coming evil, she smiled;
and even rallied him upon one of the new doctrines to which Elvira had
alluded.

"Do you believe that if I go away some one else will have to be baptized
over again for me?"

He looked at her with the same steadfast glance. "It could do no good.
Such salvation is for those who die in ignorance of the truth. But for
you, who have been baptized into the truth and have fallen away, there
is no hope except repentance or the shedding of blood."

Over the low paling she heard the neighbours' children at their play.
Upon the other side was an open lot across which she saw the passers in
the street. She withdrew her hand from his now, but with a sinking at
heart which did not appear to her reasonable because the surroundings
were so tranquil.

He let her go, accompanying her, as any gentleman might, to the gate of
his ground. As he opened it he had taken something from his coat, and he
showed it to her. It was a knife, very bright and sharp. Its blade when
drawn out had a double edge. "It will be better for you," he said
mournfully, "to die than to go"; and then he hid the thing again and
went back.

This time the idea that had been forcing itself into her mind took
possession. For a moment all her strength forsook her; she held to the
post of the gate, looking after him as he disappeared up the narrow
passage between the paling and the house, and then, hurrying onward, she
found that it was only by the greatest effort she could walk with
outward composure.

CHAPTER IV.

Susannah found her rooms as she had left them. Emma was not there to bid
her good-bye, nor did any messenger wait with the money. She set her
parcels ready for the driver to lift and waited until after the hour,
but the chaise did not come.

At last she went down again to the livery stable, hoping, as against
vague but almost overpowering fears, that mere delay was the cause. The
man told her that he understood that she had countermanded her order.
She gave the order again, but now he said that he could not go for the
price named, and when she offered a larger sum, he assured her that his
horses were all out. She knew now that her order had indeed been
countermanded, and by an authority higher than hers. She went back and
boldly entered the prophet's public office.

There were five men in the office. Joseph Smith sat in an elbow-chair
before a central table. His secretary, a middle-aged man, sat at a small
table beside him. Two of the leaders of the Church happened to be
waiting upon some business, and a fresh convert was standing with them,
a well-dressed English artisan but newly arrived. Susannah walked up to
the table and addressed Smith.

"Will you go down to the stable and bring me up a travelling-chaise?"

Smith rose with mechanical politeness, or perhaps with a feint of
politeness. "My dear madam," he expostulated, "I must say--"

"I am sorry," she replied, "that I have not time to hear what you would
like to say. I must ask you to be quick and get me the chaise."

By this time she perceived that his companions were looking at her with
ill-concealed curiosity and excitement, which proved to her that she was
a marked woman. Her bosom dilated with a wilder anger as she looked at
Smith expectantly; he returned the gaze sheepishly, as if dazzled by the
audacity of her command. His face after last night's passion had an
exhausted look like that of a man recovering from an illness.

"You also owe me money," she proclaimed clearly. "Your wife borrowed all
that I had of the money I earned by my school. When you have brought the
chaise you can give me the money."

One of the elders, a sleek man, thinking the prophet at a loss, now made
a wily comment. "Has Sister Halsey paid anything for living in the House
this month back?"

At the insinuation that her money might be justly kept in payment of
this debt if she spurned the Church's hospitality, Susannah's heart
sank. She admitted its justice. It was part of her character to admit
all possible claim against her.

The sleek elder, following his advantage, spoke again. "The money given
for tuition was given because of the ordinance of the prophet, and
should in any case hardly belong to this lady if she is apostate."

Smith had the tact to see his opportunity, and, moreover, it hurt him
sharply, hurt him far more than it hurt Susannah, to hear her right to
the privileges of the place called in question, to hear the opprobrious
term "apostate" cast at her. There were unbelievers in his community
with whose hypocrisy or apostasy he could trifle, but he still had his
faith and his inner circle of affections. Susannah, standing friendless
and penniless, appealed to all that was sacred in the memory of early
days, while her beauty, her courage, her unbounded wrath, stimulated his
love of power. He spoke to the sleek elder in what was commonly called
the prophet's "awful voice," rising, his blue eyes becoming black in
their authoritative flash.

"Our sister Susannah Halsey, because of faithfulness when the Church was
yet poor and unknown, and because of the faithfulness of her husband,
who wears the martyr's crown--our sister Susannah Halsey, I say, is
welcome to the hospitality of the Nauvoo House as long as she has
remained and shall remain; and the money which has been given to her
for the school shall be returned to her, and more shall be added to it,
for she laboured faithfully."

He had left behind his moment of sheepish distress; with the return of
his formal phrases he assumed full prophetical state and escorted
Susannah out of the office with a manner of pompous deference. When they
two stood alone together Susannah was aware that, although circumstances
had not altered in the slightest, although she had just as much reason
for extreme anger as a minute before, yet she could not summon the same
haughty air of command.

"Will you get me the chaise and the money and let me go?"

"But in Carthage," he asked kindly, "who will attend to your wants there
and protect you? I guess, sister, you haven't much notion how difficult
a lady like yourself travelling alone might find it to get along. It
isn't among the Gentiles as with the Saints, where brotherly-kindness is
the rule. I guess you'd better go back to your room and think it over a
day or two longer," he said soothingly. "I'd be very glad to take you
and Emma out for a ride this afternoon if you'd be willing to go--"

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