by Diane Noble
“Then you can’t leave. You must stay and fight for him. Make him love you above all others. Someday, he may try to bring into your home a wife who’s half your age, prettier, livelier, smarter. But you must remain the one he loves most. Consider the others as having been brought in to help you with your chores, to help with the children—and you will have many through the years.” She sipped her tea. “Does your Gabriel love you?”
“Until last night I thought so.”
“He took his second wife to bed?”
“Yes.”
Emma looked away from Mary Rose, letting her gaze drift toward the window. From down the street, the laughter and song of several children could be heard drawing closer.
“That is the most difficult part to accept in a plural marriage.” She squeezed Mary Rose’s hands again, her gaze almost fierce. “That’s why you need to do everything in your power to make him want you, to desire being with you, to converse with you on a level that none of the others know. You are the first wife, the first he fell in love with, which gives you power that none of the other sister wives have.”
Mary Rose drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I can do that…or even if I want to.” She pulled a small hanky from her reticule and dabbed at her eyes.
“If you believe that families are eternal, if you believe in your love for your husband and his for you, you will find strength you never thought possible.” Emma gave her another rare smile. The children had opened the gate and, from the gleeful sounds, were tumbling up the walkway. Mary Rose recognized the lower voice of the Prophet talking and laughing with them.
“One more thing,” Emma said just before the door opened to let the children spill in. “Approach all of this as if you were born to be queen over your own domain”—she looked Mary Rose up and down as if appraising her for the role and seemed pleased with what she saw—“with a glad heart that will gladden the hearts of all those in your household.”
Mary Rose gave her an embrace just as Joseph came to the parlor doorway. Emma, facing away from her husband, whispered into Mary Rose’s ear, “And if any part of our conversation is repeated and it gets back to me, I will deny everything I’ve told you.”
The Prophet’s unblinking gaze rested on Mary Rose’s face even as she gathered her parasol and placed the hanky back in her reticule.
“Come back again soon,” Emma said as she walked Mary Rose to the door. Her expression told Mary Rose that, in spite of all the children, other women, and even the Prophet himself who occupied the house, Emma was a very lonely woman.
THIRTY-FOUR
Mary Rose pondered Emma Smith’s words for several days before she gathered the courage to implement her plan.
One evening after supper three weeks later, she called the family together and surprised them all by asking Gabe, as priest and head of their household, to give them each a blessing each night before bedtime. She explained to the wide-eyed twins and Coal that it was their papa’s blessed and precious responsibility and that each bedtime would begin in such a manner. This would follow a time of Scripture reading and prayer in which they would all participate.
“If we are going to be a holy and set-apart people,” she said to Gabe and Bronwyn, “if we are following the Prophet’s teachings and revelations, I believe we should be committed to taking them all the way.”
Gabe blinked and glanced at Bronwyn, who nodded as if in approval. Mary Rose went to a bookshelf to retrieve the Book of Mormon and handed it to Gabe. The children sat at his feet as he read a short passage.
When he was finished, the children lined up to take their turns kneeling before him. One by one, he placed his hand on their heads and blessed them. Bronwyn then knelt before him, holding Little Grace. He took the baby into his arms and laid his cheek on the top of her head for a moment, his expression reflecting the love he felt for the child.
Mary Rose thought of their own child, buried beneath soil and stones, and turned away, unable to bear the look of love he gave the living child and her mother. His voice was low and filled with emotion as he blessed Little Grace.
When Mary Rose turned back, Bronwyn still knelt before him, gazing up into his face with a look of adoration.
Mary Rose forced a pleasant tone into her voice and, standing, said to the other children. “I have an announcement to make,” she said, leaning toward them. “I talked to you about returning to England a few weeks ago…”
Coal nodded, Ruby said, “I remember,” and Pearl’s lower lip trembled.
“I’ve made a decision. We are staying in the place we love the most. We are going to live together as one big family.” She smiled at Bronwyn. “Your papa loves us all and has vowed to care for us all through eternity. We are one big family that no one can ever separate.”
“What about Mama and Papa in the Thand…Sandwith…Sandwich Islands?” Ruby said. “Can they be part of our big family too?”
Still seated on the floor, Bronwyn leaned against Gabe’s leg while Gabe played peek-a-boo with the baby. Bronwyn looked over at Ruby and gave her a confident smile. “We will pray that they will come to know the only true Church and the testimony of our Prophet.”
“Me too,” Ruby chimed in.
“I think it’s bedtime for all.” Gabe stood, still holding Little Grace, and helped Bronwyn to her feet. A look of understanding passed between them, the same that Mary Rose had seen each night for the past three weeks.
“Gabe,” Mary Rose said, stepping between them. “I would like to speak to you privately.”
“Of course.”
He handed the baby to Bronwyn, and she went upstairs with the children, though she glanced back at him when she reached the top stair.
The evening was warm, and Mary Rose suggested they talk outdoors. Gabe agreed, and they stepped outside. He circled his arm around her as they strolled alongside the garden. Mockingbirds sang and the creek bubbled its way to the river.
“Do you mind if we walk to the creek?” She smiled into his eyes, pale in the starlit night.
He grinned and an eyebrow shot up; she knew he was remembering another night when the air was balmy and the singing creek ran full. A few weeks before their farmhouse was finished, they’d ridden out alone in the buckboard to take a look at the progress of the buildings. Caught up in a moment of passion they’d made love by the creek to the music of the croaking frogs and night birds, and later giggled together as Gabe tried to rid her curly locks of twigs and grass.
Gabe and Mary Rose continued their walk in silence. They passed the barn, the henhouse, and the pasture. Then Gabe pulled back some willows, and they were in the same small clearing beside the creek where they had been that night. Though her eyes had become accustomed to the dim light as she watched his face for signs of love, of passion, even affection, his expression was unreadable.
She remembered Emma’s advice to make sure he would always love her best, no matter how many wives he might take in the future.
She closed her eyes and prayed—to whichever god might be listening—that Gabe would think of that night and want to re-create it.
Once inside the privacy of the clearing, she turned to him and touched his cheek, letting her fingertips lightly trace his jaw. He gently took her hand away from his face and kissed her palm.
“Do you remember that night?”
“Aye, my love, and I always will. You know that.”
“I don’t even know if you love me, Gabe.” She turned away from him, facing the creek. “You haven’t shown me…love…since Bronwyn…since you and Bronwyn…” She stared at the dark, bubbling water, unable to finish.
He came up behind her then and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me it was all right,” he said, laying his cheek on her head. “After what you went through with our baby’s birth, I didn’t know.”
Hope kindled in her heart, and she turned to face him. “Truly?”
He smiled into her eyes. “I will come to you tonight, if you�
�re sure you have healed.”
“Truly, I am well—body, soul, and spirit,” she said, thinking her heart might fly out of her chest.
He kissed her passionately, leaving her breathless. She waited for him to kneel on the soft carpet of twigs and moss, the soft, rich soil, to draw her into his arms so as to lay together again as husband and wife.
But he didn’t seem to have a mind for it. Or simply had forgotten the passion they once knew.
He drew her into another embrace and held her close. “Tonight,” he said, and then gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.
“Tonight,” she whispered as he walked away from her.
It was after midnight when Gabe opened her bedroom door and stepped in. Mary Rose was drowsy but woke when he slipped into her bed beside her. He reached for her and she let him draw her into his embrace. His lovemaking was as passionate as ever, but Bronwyn’s image filled her mind, and as he touched her, she wondered if Bronwyn filled his as well.
She closed her eyes, willing her body to respond just as it always had before. But Bronwyn’s beautiful face and perfect body kept returning, bringing to Mary Rose’s mind every flaw in her own, real and imagined. And though Gabe breathed Mary Rose’s name as he gave her feather-soft kisses along her neck and around the shell of her ears, she strained to hear if he might slip even once and call her by the wrong name.
When he had finished, she turned away from him. “I cannot do this again,” she whispered. “It is not right.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, holding her face in her hands, weeping. “A man should not have two wives.”
Gabe circled his arm around her shoulders, and gently held her while she cried. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder myself what we’ve done, what we’ve gotten into. I wonder if the Prophet is right…or dead wrong.” Before she could tell him her thoughts, he stood, kissed her cheek, and left her bedroom, closing the door behind him.
She stared at the closed door, feeling more alone than ever. What could the future hold, if not Gabe’s undying love for her, the love she thought would always be hers.
She bowed her head and wept again.
Even Emma’s words of plural-wife wisdom brought her no comfort. What good was it to be a strong, even powerful, first wife when she was unsure of the love between Gabe and her?
Mary Rose knew the night she had conceived, because there had been no other. After waiting another month to be certain, she went to Gabe to tell him. She found him at the back of the barn in his workshop, cleaning and oiling his firearms.
As soon as she told him about their baby, his face instantly filled with wonder. He put down his rifle and gathered her into his arms, lifting her from the floor to swing her around. He stopped before he’d made a complete circle and set her down gently, an anguished look on his face.
“Did I hurt you? My joy overcame my good sense. Are you sure you’re all right?” He drew her close and wrapped his arms around her protectively.
It felt good to be held in his arms once more, and Mary Rose felt a sting of tears in the back of her throat. “I’m not made of porcelain, dearest. Truly, I’m not. And this time, God is giving us a healthy baby. I can feel it in my very bones.”
He pulled back and grinned at her, his eyes reflecting the love she’d so missed.
“Give me a blessing,” she said, wanting to prolong this special moment between the two of them.
He took her hands and led her into the sunlight outside the barn. “God is blessing us. ’Tis his gift, telling us we’re on the right road after all, Mary Rose.”
She knelt before him and, placing his hand on her head, he offered up a blessing to God. When he had finished, he helped Mary Rose to her feet, and then gathered her into his arms. He held her tight, and she heard the beating of his heart. She smiled, remembering how love awakened inside her the first time he held her like this.
“I love you so,” he whispered, and captured her mouth with his lips, just as he’d done on that day on the bow of the Sea Hawk.
THIRTY-FIVE
Bronwyn watched Mary Rose and Gabe from her upstairs window. She’d noticed her friend’s body changing, and knew—perhaps even before Mary Rose did—that she was with child.
Her own heart leapt at Gabe’s unabashed joy. If he’d been wearing a hat, she was certain he would have tossed it as high as the clouds. She longed to run out and rejoice and laugh and shout and dance right along with them.
But her own condition prevented her from joining them. That and the sweet knowledge that this was a private moment only they should share. Watching them together, Bronwyn wondered how she could love a friend so deeply and, at the same time, love so deeply the husband they shared.
She watched Mary Rose move toward the garden with a spring in her step, a smile spreading even wider across her face. As she knelt to dig potatoes for dinner, Gabe came up to stand behind her. She glanced up at him, in full view of Bronwyn, who still stood at the window.
He took her hand, helped her stand, and drew her into an impassioned embrace. Bronwyn almost gasped. She blinked and backed away from the window as he led Mary Rose toward the back door.
She saw his face clearly, and she knew the look. Their footsteps would too soon be on the stairs, then down the hall, and through his bedroom door. She grabbed a shawl, lifted the sleeping Little Grace from her cradle, and then hurried down the hall, hoping to be down the stairs and through the front door before they came in the back.
She was too late.
She heard their murmuring voices at the bottom of the stairs, just as she reached the top.
Mary Rose looked up when she saw Bronwyn, and briefly their eyes met as Mary Rose ascended, Gabe’s arm wrapped around her. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a glint of triumph. Gabe seemed too interested in nuzzling Mary Rose’s temple to notice Bronwyn standing at the top of the stairs, holding Little Grace.
Bronwyn ran to the creek, holding the still sleeping child at her bosom. She had been so sure of Gabe’s love for her, his passion, and his praise of her beauty, that she hadn’t considered he might turn again to Mary Rose. She dropped her head, ashamed of her jealousy and surprised at its intensity.
Was it the child Mary Rose carried that had turned his head?
Would it turn again when he found out that she too was expecting a wee babe?
She looked down at Little Grace and swallowed hard, a swift and sudden grief, a longing for Griffin overtaking her. Marriages weren’t meant to be like this, were they?
She and Griffin had felt the burning of truth inside them when missionaries spoke of the Prophet’s new revelation, God’s restoration of the only true Church in the world. Together, they had been baptized, rising from the ocean waters as if new beings. Griffin had been so certain that God called them to America, to Nauvoo, to help build his kingdom.
But how would he have felt about Gabe taking Bronwyn as his second wife? Would Griffin have done the same thing should Gabe have been the one to die? How would she have felt if he’d brought Mary Rose into their lives as a second wife? The thought brought with it waves of regret for not understanding how Mary Rose must surely have felt…until now.
She rocked Little Grace in her arms, softly singing a lullaby, more to herself than to the child:
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy rest shall angels keep,
While on the grass the lamb shall feed,
And never suffer want or need.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Hot tears filled her eyes as she sang the words “and never suffer want or need.” She wondered if she would have come so willingly to Gabe if she’d had other choices. Griffin had taken out a loan through a bank in town, owned and run by the Prophet, to have the money to build the farm next to Gabe and Mary Rose.
When Griffin died, Mary Rose’s grandfather and his new bride, Sister Cordelia, purchased the property from the bank. Bronwyn neither owed money, nor did she have any of her own.
She was at the mercy of the Church. And, in cold, hard terms, at the mercy of its representative, Gabriel MacKay.
Tears spilled down her cheeks and dripped onto Little Grace’s blanket as she wondered about Gabe’s rush to marry her. Had it been because of love? Or lust? That thought made her tears fall faster. Or simply because he had been ordered to do so?
She looked up when she heard rustling in the willows and the crunch of children’s footsteps approaching on the other side of the creek. Soon, the merry eyes of Coal and the twins peered at her through the foliage, then they tumbled out before her, hopping across the stream’s stepping stones and landing on the streambed in front of her.
“You been crying, Auntie Bronwyn?” Pearl said, looking up at her face with concern.
Bronwyn smiled and wiped her eyes. “Just a little.”
“Whatth wrong?” Ruby cuddled up beside her on the stone and circled her small arm around Bronwyn’s waist.
Coal wrinkled his nose. “Is Little Grace all right?”
She looked down at the baby, who sighed in her sleep. “She’s perfect,” she assured the children.
“We got to help Grandma Cordelia make andouille sausages,” Pearl said, puffed up with pride.
“And I got to thtuff the cathingth…casings,” Ruby said.
“And Grandpa Earl made me a swing. It’s hanging from the big oak tree out back of their house,” Coal said.
“Itth for all of uth, thilly,” Ruby said.
Bronwyn heard the soft crunch of shoes on gravel, the snaps of twigs, and the rustling of willows. Sister Cordelia appeared next. She gave Bronwyn a wide smile as she teetered precariously on the stepping stones. It didn’t help the older woman’s balance that she held a basket in one hand.
The children ran into the barn to look for their hoops and sticks, and Bronwyn scooted over to make room for Cordelia to sit beside her.