Saints

  "I wish I'd been there."

  "I told Harriette, but she was so sure that I was exaggerating, until Dorcas Paine told me the same story today, everything almost exactly the same, and her wedding's on Friday. He told her that he'd be her doctor, and they could -- when she came for him to examine her, they could obey the Lord's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth. He said that if they were righteous, the Lord would see to it that all the children she conceived were really his, even though for the sake of the world it would look like they were Billy's. She told him to -- I can't repeat what she said she told him, but it wasn't vile enough for him."

  So this was where the gentile rumors were coming from: they were true. Bennett had somehow got wind of the Principle, recognized an opportunity when he saw one, and invented a plausible sounding doctrine to go with it. Sally and Dorcas were smart enough to recognize a fraud when they saw one. Dinah was reasonably sure that at least a few other women weren't. If Bennett wasn't having success with it, he wouldn't still be doing it this many months after his attempt with Sally.

  "Please, Dinah, it isn't really a doctrine, is it?"

  If I deny it, then when you learn about the Principle, you'll hate me for lying to you. "I'll tell you this much, Sally. If there is such a thing as a man taking more than one wife, it won't be John Bennett who tells it to you, and it won't be your body that he wants first, and he won't ever counsel a wife to deceive her husband."

  Sally was not dull-witted. "Then there is such a doctrine," she said.

  "If there were," Dinah said, determined not to be too explicit, "you wouldn't be taught it until such time as the Lord required you to live it, and then you would have the witness of the Spirit. Don't even think about it now."

  "If there is such a doctrine, how are you sure that Bennett isn't -- "

  "What Bennett said and did with you and Dorcas has no more to do with the Kingdom of God than does adultery." Dinah stood up. "Go to Dorcas, Sally, and tell her to be easy in her heart. You both acted righteously. And as for Mayor Bennett, I'm going to see Brother Joseph this afternoon. If I have my way, Bennett will leave town on a rail, wearing tar and feathers, and missing all the parts that might tempt him to approach anyone else as he approached you."

  "And you'll tell me no more than that," Sally said.

  "Be content with that."

  "Just tell me -- is Charlie -- "

  "Sally, Charlie knows less about these things than you do. And I suggest you not discuss it with him. Don't beg for grief."

  I'm more frightened now than I was before you came."

  Dinah embraced her. "Don't be frightened, Sally. Anything that comes from God is good." And when you live the Principle, your sister Harriette will be your husband's other wife. Will that make it easier, Sally? Or unbearable?

  "I'm not letting Charlie out of my sight again."

  "If you think Charlie would deceive you, you're a fool." Dinah kissed her and left, feeling once again like a hypocrite. Anybody can deceive anybody, when it comes to this doctrine. The problem with all the secrecy was that it left the city open to a man like John Bennett.

  As she approached Joseph's house, Dinah saw John Bennett at the window looking out into the street. Surely he was not part of the ceremony today. Had Joseph taught the Principle to him?

  But Bennett was merely lingering after a meeting of some city officials. Probably he noticed that more than a few important people were arriving for a meeting he had heard nothing about -- and none of them had a plausible reason for being there. Bennett was not one to walk out willingly from a mystery, even though it was plain that he was not wanted in the house.

  Bennett was his charming self. It alarmed Dinah that she found him likeable, almost by reflex, despite what she knew he really was. In revolt, she baited him.

  "Sister Dinah, I hear you've been a bit under the weather of late. I hear you had to give up teaching school."

  "Yes, Mayor Bennett."

  "Glad to see you up and about, then. Does this mark a full recovery?"

  "Actually, Mayor Bennett, I am quite sick to my stomach at the moment."

  "Then you should be in my waiting room, so I could cure you." Bennett laughed self-deprecatingly, the way he did whenever he made a direct plea for patients, so that people would know that he didn't really need the business.

  Dinah could hold her tongue no longer. She had mistrusted him since Joseph's arrest last summer; now she had cause to loathe him. She imagined his hands at Sally's breasts, and coldly said, "Actually, Mayor Bennett, I could cure my ailment immediately with a change of company."

  Bennett's smile did not slacken, but his eyes went hard. "You have been rather frequently unhealthy of late, I think. Is this the same illness you had that time you got sick in my entry hall?"

  She should not have provoked him. Bennett was intelligent, whatever his flaws. "Nauvoo is not a healthy city. I am only grateful that I haven't been afflicted as my sister-in-law was, just the week before her wedding day."

  That dented Bennett's smile.

  "And now I hear that Dorcas Paine had the same corrupting influence just yesterday. Odd how the disease seems to attack only the young and beautiful who are on the verge of marriage."

  Bennett did not smile at all now. He knew that the truth was finally in the hands of someone who could tell the Prophet and expect to be believed. Of course Bennett suspected at once that the reason he had not been invited today was because the meeting was about him. "Is that why you're here to see Brother Joseph?"

  "My business with the Prophet is private."

  Bennett glanced across the room to where William Clayton was watching them frankly from his writing table. "Brother Clayton, I'm in something of a hurry. If you could go upstairs and tell the Prophet that both Sister Dinah and myself would like to see him before his meeting, I'd be much obliged, and I don't believe that he would mind."

  Clayton got up from his chair, looking questioningly at Dinah.

  "Please, yes," Dinah said. "I would like to see him before his meeting, if possible."

  It was not lost on Bennett that Clayton went at her instance, not at his. Once the clerk was gone, they were alone in the drawing room, and Bennett wasted no time. "Sister Dinah, I don't believe you realize that you are hardly in the position to be making accusations. I am a gynecologist, and I'm not so poor a one as not to know why there were bloodstains on my inlaid wood that day when you were taken ill. Nor am I so foolish as not to have a good idea about the particular discomfort that prevents you from continuing your school. In short, I think we both could profit by refraining from telling Brother Joseph all that we might know."

  "If I had doubted that my information was correct, you would have damned yourself with those words, Mayor Bennett."

  Bennett regarded her steadily. "You aren't afraid." Then he smiled again, but this time it was not a charming smile. "You goddam hypocrite. You've been taking in fancy-work and you dare to give me blame for getting some of my own, all because the Prophet gave you leave. Well, I don't need him to tell me when I may or may not plow my field -- "

  "It's not your field that you've been plowing."

  "While he can play farmer wherever he damn well pleases, whether someone holds the deed on it or not. I'll bet you're one of his, too." Bennett laughed at the idea. And then realized it might actually be true. "No wonder you're so sure he won't mind that you have your little burden."

  "You are mistaken, Mayor Bennett." She had been a fool to try to cross swords with him. He guessed too much, and she could see now that in a battle there was no weapon he would not be willing to use.

  "I think I'm not. How did he free up your mortgage, Sister Dinah? What would your English husband do if he knew you were renting it out?" Bennett meant to go on, but then he glanced up over her shoulder. Dinah turned. William Clayton was coming down the stairs.

  "Sister Dinah," he said. "Joseph says you ought to be upstairs with the others anyway."

  "Allow me," Bennett
said, offering his arm with a smile every bit as charming as ever.

  Clayton rather boldly pulled Bennett back toward the drawing room. "I'm sorry, Mayor Bennett. Brother Joseph was quite plain. Dinah is concerned with the matter being conducted, but you are not."

  "Put in a good word for me, Sister Dinah," Bennett said. "I'll be glad to wait down here till you're through and escort you home. Wouldn't want a woman in your delicate condition to walk all that way alone."

  Dinah did not answer. She was already halfway up the stairs, pretending to take no notice of him. But her stomach was churning, and she was afraid. Bennett would not be docile if Joseph actually turned against him. Perhaps he'd try to face it down the way he did last summer with the poison, but if he didn't, if Joseph exposed and ousted him, Bennett could be dangerous. He knew enough truth to attack the Church for years in the gentile press, and Bennett was not one to restrain himself from adding to the facts. The danger was not just Bennett's tongue and Bennett's pen. A man who would use his privileges as a doctor and Assistant President of the Church to set up a system of mistresses obviously had few moral scruples. Dinah wasn't sure what he would do in vengeance, but she feared that he would find some way to do the Prophet harm.

  Joseph was too excited about Emma accepting the Principle to want to talk about problems. Still, she tried to tell him. "It's about spiritual wifery," she said. "Charlie's Sally and Dorcas Paine have both -- "

  But he wasn't listening. "Is it so urgent it can't wait until afterward?"

  "No," she said. "But right afterward, please."

  "I promise." Then he went back where he belonged, with Emma.

  The room was not large, and even though the furniture had been removed, there were too many people for the space. Heber and Vilate, Hyrum and Mary, other apostles, and their wives; it was a convocation of the Kingdom of God, the secret Church. And at one end of the room, Emma and the four young women she was giving to her husband. Emma looked tired, fearful, defeated. The ceremony began.

  Emma led the girls one at a time to Joseph, took the girl's hand and put it in Joseph's, and Hyrum said the words that Dinah remembered from her own marriage to the Prophet. The girls were frightened and shy, and Dinah's heart went out to them. Yes, she knew that their husband was a kind man, but they could not know what kind of husband he was. They did know what kind of woman Emma was, and while she made a loving mother, they had every reason to fear her as a sister wife. They were not as strong as Dinah. They did not have her independence, her stature in the Church. I will soon be able to stand with Emma as an equal, Dinah thought, but it will be a longer, harder road for these children. She could see that Joseph felt more compassion than desire for them; but if Emma was giving him wives, he must certainly take the wives she chose to give.

  Emma came to Dinah almost as soon as the ceremony was over. She was still on the verge of uncontrollable emotion. All around her the others broke into quiet conversations, but Emma was too on fire with feeling for any of the others to have the courage to approach her. Yet, seeing Dinah, Emma managed a smile.

  "You're stronger than you ever thought," Dinah said.

  "No I'm not," Emma said, laughing a little, nervously. "This is only the first step."

  "It gets easier," Dinah said. "Every day easier."

  "You've never been the first wife," Emma said.

  "No," Dinah said. "But I've loved a husband who had other wives. It isn't that much easier."

  The others saw that Emma was smiling, conversing normally, and so the tension in the room eased. Eased so much that Heber Kimball got the courage to approach Emma directly. "Welcome to the fellowship, Sister Emma," he said warmly.

  Emma took his offered hand. "I'm just learning," she said, pretending to be cheerful.

  Heber nodded. "Dinah's been a help to more than one who entered the Principle. She was an old-timer when Vilate and I were taking our first steps. Vilate could never have done it without her." Then Heber, his duty done, cheerfully went on, not guessing the wreckage he left behind him.

  How could he have known that Emma thought Dinah was his wife? But that was no help to Dinah now, watching Emma's face as she made the connection. "Oh," Emma said. "I thought -- because because he baptized you, and because you and Vilate are so close, I thought -- but then, who is your husband?"

  I must lie to her, Dinah thought. A convincing lie. She isn't ready for the whole truth now, but what man can I possibly tell her, which of the Twelve?

  The hesitation was too long. Distracted as she was, Emma saw it.

  "Why won't you tell me? I thought we'd have no secrets now. Why can't I know who the father of your child is? Don't you trust me?"

  "I'd trust you with my life."

  "But you won't tell me."

  "Of course I'll tell you. It's -- "

  "No, you've decided to lie to me. You're going to lie to me, even though you know that I accept the, accept the -- " Dinah could hear it clearly now in Emma's voice. She was over the edge of hysteria now. No doubt if she could choose, Emma would choose to control herself, but she had been overtaxed today, and there was no power left in her, no force left that she could turn against herself. She must strike, and not inwardly, but out, against someone else. Against me, Dinah thought. She will hate me, and I can't even claim that she would be unjust.

  Emma's face was crying, but her mind, her voice did not know it. "You didn't need to lie to me. You don't have to lie to me unless your husband, unless your baby, you didn't have to lie unless -- "

  Emma's voice was loud and harsh. Dinah could not look away from her, but she still saw the movement of people gathering at the doors of the upstairs rooms, watching. They will realize what is happening, she thought. They will call Joseph. He will stop this, he will explain to Emma -- I can't do this alone.

  "You were my friend! I trusted you, I trusted you, he broke his word to me -- I trusted you !" Suddenly Emma struck her across the face. The blow caught her brutally at the place where the jaw meets the neck, and she recoiled against the wall at the top of the stairs. Dinah panicked. The last time she had been struck that way was the night that Matthew nearly killed her. Terrified, Dinah's only thought was to run away, to get to Robert in time, to protect the babies or Matthew would take them away, she couldn't let him take away the baby --

  Just as Dinah stepped backward onto the top stair, Emma's second blow struck. It was lighter than the first, a glancing blow. Perhaps in her terror Dinah would have stumbled anyway. Perhaps she was already falling, which is why Emma did not hit her squarely. The physical cause of her fall was impossible to know. But the real cause was unmistakable. It was the Principle that had hurt Emma so deeply, and it was God who gave it to them. Dinah would remember that afterward, would remember that it wasn't Emma who did it to her, that it wasn't any mortal soul, it was God himself, and God's will always has a good, a perfect purpose behind it. There was some eternal purpose that was satisfied when Dinah stumbled backward, flung out her arms to catch herself, spun around and landed with a sickening pain, not on her hip but on the soft flesh in front of it, where the baby was. She landed where the baby was, then somersaulted, crumpled, rolled, and finally sprawled on the floor at the bottom of the stair. She did not even feel the rest of the fall. The worst thing in the world had already happened. The stair of Joseph's house had struck at Joseph's baby in her belly, where it should have been safe; that's all she thought about, even though a stair-edge broke her nose, even though a place in the railing caught her foot and tore at it, spraining her ankle. She did not even hear Emma screaming at the top of the stair, "Dinah! Dinah! No!" She only lay on the floor and felt the ghastly cramping pain in her womb as the baby writhed, as the baby struggled against the pain, and that awfull stillness when the baby died. She was sure the baby died. Only then did she let herself faint from the pain, only when she was sure there was no hope. God had taken her child from her again, and she wanted to die.

  39

  John Kirkham Nauvoo, 1842

&nb
sp; John was putting finishing touches on a portrait of Sidney Rigdon when one of the Lawrence girls came pounding at the door. John knew at once from her wide-eyed look of dread that she had no good news for them. "Is Sister Kirkham here?"

  "No, she's out visiting," John said. "I don't know where. A sick child, I think."

  At that the girl turned to leave.

  "What did you come to tell her?" John asked. "You can tell me, I'm her husband."

  "Oh," the girl said. "Then you're Dinah's father."

  "What's happened to Dinah?"

  "She's took a fall, Brother Kirkham, at Sister Emma's house."

  "A bad one?"

  "She fainted. Dr. Bennett's caring for her. They're worried that she might lose the baby."

  The girl was already a dozen yards away before John realized what she had said. Surely the girl did not mean it the way it sounded. If there was one sure thing in the world, it was Dinah's virtue -- she wasn't the sort to be pregnant out of wedlock. She must have been carrying someone else's baby in her arms when she fell. That was much more plausible. Yet the thought of Dinah, pregnant, stayed in the back of John's mind as he rushed to the Prophet's house, along with a piece of information that disturbed him much, much more. Bennett was seeing her. Of course he is, John told himself, he's a woman's doctor, of course they'd call him. But John could not help but think of what the whore had told him Bennett really was, and the thought of those hands touching Dinah infuriated him.