The Mormon Prophet Part 31

He was again pacing, but paused in his ponderous walk, struck by a flaw in his argument which he had not before seen. "But if it were commanded by the Lord, Sister Susannah?"

"G.o.d does not command this wickedness. What you command in his name is at your own peril, Mr. Smith."

He paused before her, asking with reflective curiosity, "Why are you so sure that it would be wickedness, sister?"

She had not arguments at command; she held fast to her a.s.surance with the same dogged unreasoning faith with which Ephraim's mother had of old held her belief that this Smith must be an arch-villain; she had put the whole power of her volitionary nature upon the side of faith in the ideal marriage, although she was painfully conscious that she had come across no particle of evidence for the existence of such a state. Out of faith, out of mere instinct of heart, which had not worked itself out in intelligent thought, she gave her unhesitating judgment. "I say that it would be wicked because I _feel_ that it would be wicked; and any good woman," she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, "and any good man, would know its wickedness without arguments, and without weighing all possible considerations."

His eyes fell before hers. He looked not angry, but grieved. As for Susannah, in the heat of her indignation she did not know that her own long effort to resist the unreasoning acceptance of cut-and-dried doctrines and any dogmatic insistance upon opinion had here failed.

Smith stood for some moments before her, and her fire cooled. He sighed at her dictum. Then he said gently, "But your judgment in this matter has great weight with me, sister, and if I accept it you will perceive that you are indeed the elect lady, and that by living in the light of your countenance I shall obtain peace."

It was difficult for her not to suppose that her influence was beneficial. She thought at the moment that when she had left this place she might still correspond with Smith if he desired it. If it was part of his eccentricity to be willing to listen to her, why should she not be willing to speak, and thus keep his madness under control?

Smith, regarding her, caught the gracious look upon her face which had opposed to him so often only a mask of reserve. His imaginative hopes were always ready to magnify by many dimensions the smallest fact which favoured them. His unsteady mind was fired by the presumption of some triumph.

"Have not I, even the prophet of this great people, waited with great patience? As the apostle saith, 'Let patience have her perfect work.'"

Susannah started and wondered.

"For behold I did not desire that our dear brother, Angel Halsey, should go into the forefront of the battle, nor would I trouble the first grief of thy widowhood, but behold I have waited."

"For what?" Her question came sharply. His tone had changed her mood suddenly; a memory flashed on her of the ill-written letter which Emma had shown her of the phrases concerning the spiritual "bride" or "guide"

who, even if all licence were denied to humbler folk, was to be a prophet's special perquisite. "What have you been waiting for, Mr.

Smith?

"Nay, but I have waited, sister, until, having eyes, you should see, and ears, you should hear, till you should understand that, going in and out before this great people, it is necessary for me to seek wisdom in counsel, and, above all, of a woman who hath a finer sense than man. And it has been revealed to me, sister, that this may only be if thou shouldst give the counsels of thy mind and the smile of thy beauty to me alone and to none other, for that which is divided is not to be accepted for the building up of the Church."

"You would have me believe that you have waited many years with the virtue of patience before you say this? Understand yourself better. It was not patience; it was fear. You have known perfectly well always that I would never have listened to such a proposal for a moment. It has been fear and prudence that have hitherto kept you silent. What is it that has made you speak now?"

With sharp decisive tones she chid him as children are chidden in anger, but childish as he often was, he had yet other elements in his character; his blue eyes gave an answering flash that was ominous; the droop of his att.i.tude stiffened.

"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 hoa.r.s.e, 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 compa.s.s. 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, coa.r.s.e 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.