Part 7
Emeline stood up as the Prophet's youngest wife entered that leafy silence. Roxy, forgetting that these two had never met before, slipped away and left them. They looked at each other.
“How do you do, Mrs. Strang?” spoke Emeline.
“How do you do, Miss Cheeseman?” spoke Mary French.
“Will you sit down on this log?”
“Thank you.”
Mary French had more flesh and blood than Emeline. She was larger and of a warmer and browner tint—that type of brunette with startling black hair which breaks into a floss of little curls, and with unexpected blue eyes. Her full lips made a bud, and it only half bloomed when she smiled. From crown to slipper she was a ripe and supple woman. Though clad, like Emeline, in black, her garment was a transparent texture over white, and she held a parasol with crimson lining behind her head. She had left her bonnet in her conveyance.
“My husband,” said Mary French, quiet and smiling, “sent me to tell you that you will be welcomed into our family.”
Emeline looked her in the eyes. The Prophet's wife had the most unblenching smiling gaze she had ever encountered.
“I do not wish to enter your family. I am not a Mormon.”
“He will make you wish it. I was not a Mormon.”
They sat silent, the trees stirring around them.
“I do not understand it,” said Emeline. “How can you come to me with such a message?”
“I can do it as you can do it when your turn comes.”
Emeline looked at Mary French as if she had been stabbed.
“It hurts, doesn't it?” said Mary French. “But wait till he seems to you a great strong archangel—an archangel with only the weakness of dabbling his wings in the dirt—and you will withhold from him nothing, no one, that may be of use to him. If he wants to put me by for a while, it is his will. You cannot take my place. I cannot fill yours.”
“Oh, don't!” gasped Emeline. “I am not that sort of woman—I should kill!”
“That is because you have not lived with him. I would rather have him make me suffer than not have him at all.”
“Oh, don't! I can't bear it! Help me!” prayed Emeline, stretching her hands to the wife.
Mary French met her with one hand and the unflinching smile. Her flesh was firm and warm, while Emeline's was cold and quivering.
“You have never loved anybody, have you?”
“No.”
“But you have thought you did?”
“I was engaged before I came here.”
“And the engagement is broken?”
“We quarrelled.”
Mary French breathed deeply.
“You will forget it here. He can draw the very soul out of your body.”
“He cannot!” flashed Emeline.
“Some one will kill him yet. He is not understood at his best, and he cannot endure defeat of any kind. When you come into the family you must guard him from his enemies as I have constantly guarded him. If you ever let a hair of his head be harmed—then I shall hate you!”
“Mrs. Strang, do you come here to push me too? My uncle's family, everything, all are closing around me! Why don't you help me? I loathe—I loathe your husband!”
Mary French rose, her smile changing only to express deep tenderness.
“You are a good girl, dear. I can myself feel your charm. I was not so self-denying. In my fierce young girlhood I would have removed a rival. But since you ask me, I will do all I can for you in the way you desire. My errand is done. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” said Emeline, restraining herself.
She sat watching the elastic shape under the parasol move with its shadow across the field. She had not a doubt until Mary French was gone; then the deep skill of the Prophet's wife with rivals sprung out like a distortion of nature.
Emeline had nearly three weeks in which to intrench herself with doubts and defences. She felt at first surprised and relieved. When her second absence from the Tabernacle was passed over in silence she found in her nature an unaccountable pique, which steadily grew to unrest. She ventured and turned back on the woods path leading to St. James many times, each time daring farther. The impulse to go to St. James came on her at waking, and she resisted through busy hours of the day. But the family often had tasks from which Emeline was free, and when the desire grew unendurable she knelt at her secluded bedside in the loft, trying to bring order out of her confused thoughts. She reviewed her quarrel with her lover, and took blame for his desertion. The grievance which had seemed so great to her before she came to Beaver Island dwindled, and his personality with it. In self-defence she coaxed her fancy, pretending that James Arnold was too good for her. It was well he had found it out. But because he was too good for her she ought to go on being fond of him at a safe distance, undetected by him, and discreetly cherishing his large blond image as her ideal of manhood. If she had not been bred in horror of Catholics, the cloister at this time would have occurred to her as her only safe refuge.
These secret rites in her bedroom being ended, and Roxy diverted from her movements, she slipped off into the woods path, sometimes running breathlessly towards St. James.
The impetus which carried Emeline increased with each journey. At first she was able to check it in the woods depths, but it finally drove her until the village houses were in sight.
When this at last happened, and she stood gazing, fascinated, down the tunnel of forest path, the King of Beaver spoke behind her.
Emeline screamed in terror and took hold of a bush, to make it a support and a veil.
“Have I been a patient man?” he inquired, standing between her and her uncle's house. “I waited for you to come to me.”
“I am obliged to go somewhere,” said Emeline, plucking the leaves and unsteadily shifting her eyes about his feet. “I cannot stay on the farm all the time.” Through numbness she felt the pricking of a sharp rapture.
The King of Beaver smiled, seeing betrayed in her face the very vertigo of joy.
“You will give yourself to me now?” he winningly begged, venturing out-stretched hands. “You have felt the need as I have? Do you think the days have been easy to me? When you were on your knees I was on my knees too. Every day you came in this direction I came as far as I dared, to meet you. Are the obstacles all passed?”
“No,” said Emeline.
He was making her ask herself that most insidious question, “Why could not the other have been like this?”
“Tell me—can you say, 'I hate you,' now?”
“No,” said Emeline.
“I have grown to be a better man since you said you hated me. The miracle cannot be forced. Next time?” He spoke wistfully.
“No,” Emeline answered, holding to the bush. She kept her eyes on the ground while he talked, and glanced up when she replied. He stood with his hat off. The flakes of sun touched his head and the fair skin of his forehead.
He moved towards Emeline, and she retreated around the bush. Without hesitating he passed, making a salutation, and went on by himself to St. James. She watched his rapid military walk furtively, her eyebrows crouching, her lips rippling with passionate tremors. Then she took to flight homeward, her skirts swishing through the woods with a rush like the wind. The rebound was as violent as the tension had been.
There were few festivities on Beaver Island, the Mormon families living a pastoral life, many of them yet taxed by the struggle for existence. Crops shot up rank and strong in the short Northern summer. Soft cloud masses sailed over the island, and rain-storms marched across it with drums of thunder which sent reverberations along the water world. Or fogs rolled in, muffling and obliterating homesteads.
Emeline stayed in the house, busying herself with the monotonous duties of the family three days. She was determined never to go into the woods path again without Roxy. The fourth day a gray fog gave her no choice but imprisonment. It had the acrid tang of smoke from fires burning on the mainland. About nightfall the west wind rose and blew it back, revealing a land mantled with condensed drops.
Emeline put on her hat and shawl to walk around in the twilight. The other young creatures of the house were glad to be out also, and Roxy and Roxy's lover talked across the fence. Emeline felt fortified against the path through the woods at night; yet her feet turned in that direction, and as certainly as water seeks its level she found herself on the moist elastic track. Cow-bells on the farm sounded fainter and farther. A gloom of trees massed around her, and the forest gave up all its perfume to the dampness.
At every step she meant to turn back, though a recklessness of night and of meeting the King of Beaver grew upon her. Thus, without any reasonable excuse for her presence there, she met Mary French.
“Is that you, Miss Cheeseman?” panted the Prophet's youngest wife.
Emeline confessed her identity.
“I was coming for you, but it is fortunate you are so far on the way. There is a steamboat at the dock, and it will go out in half an hour. I could not get away sooner to tell you.” Mary French breathed heavily from running. “When the steamboat came in the captain sent for my husband, as the captains always do. I went with him: he knows how I dread to have him go alone upon a boat since an attempt was made last year to kidnap him. But this time there was another reason, for I have been watching. And sure enough, a young man was on the steamboat inquiring where he could find you. His name is James Arnold. The captain asked my husband to direct him to you. You will readily understand why he did not find you. Come at once!”
“I will not,” said Emeline.
“But you wanted me to help you, and I have been trying to do it. We easily learned by letter from our friends in Detroit who your lover was. My husband had me do that: he wanted to know. Then without his knowledge I stooped to write an anonymous letter.”
“To James Arnold?”
“Yes.”
“About me?”
“About you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you were exposed to great danger on Beaver Island, among the Mormons, and if you had any interested friend it was time for him to interfere.”
“And that brought him here?”
“I am sure it did. He was keenly disappointed at not finding you.”
“But why didn't he come to the farm?”
“My husband prevented that. He said you were on Beaver Island three or four weeks ago, but you were now in the Fairy Isle. It was no lie. He spoke in parables, but the other heard him literally. We let him inquire of people in St. James. But no one had seen you since the Saturday you came to the Tabernacle. So he is going back to Mackinac to seek you. Your life will be decided in a quarter of an hour. Will you go on that steamboat?”
“Throw myself on the mercy of a man who dared—_dared_ to break his engagement, and who ought to be punished and put on probation, and then refused! No, I cannot!”
“The minutes are slipping away.”
“Besides, I have nothing with me but the clothes I have on. And my uncle's family—think of my uncle's family!”
“You can write to your uncle and have him send your baggage. I dare not carry any messages. But I thought of what you would need to-night, and put some things and some money in this satchel. They were mine. Keep them all.”
Emeline took hold of the bag which Mary French shoved in her hand. Their faces were indistinct to each other.
“For the first time in my life I have deceived my husband!”
“Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?” cried the girl.
A steamer whistle at St. James dock sent its bellow rebounding from tree to tree in the woods. Emeline seized Mary French and kissed her violently on both cheeks. She snatched the bag and flew towards St. James.
“Stop!” commanded the Prophet's wife.
She ran in pursuit, catching Emeline by the shoulders.
“You sha'n't go! What am I doing? Maybe robbing him of what is necessary to his highest success! I am a fool—to think he might turn back to me for consolation when you are gone—God forgive me such silly fondness! I can't have a secret between him and myself—I will tell him! You shall not go—and cause him a mortal hurt! Wait!—stop!—the boat is gone! It's too late!”
“Let me loose!” struggled Emeline, wrenching herself away.
She ran on through the woods, and Mary French, snatching at garments which eluded her, stumbled and fell on the damp path, gathering dead leaves under her palms. The steamer's prolonged bellow covered her voice.
Candles were lighted in St. James. The Tabernacle spread itself like a great circular web dark with moisture. Emeline was conscious of running across the gang-plank as a sailor stooped to draw it in. The bell was ringing and the boat was already in motion. It sidled and backed away from its moorings.
Emeline knelt panting at the rail on the forward deck. A flambeau fastened to the wharf bowed its light to the wind as the boat swung about, showing the King of Beaver smiling and waving his hand in farewell. He did not see Emeline. His farewell was for the man whom he had sent away without her. His golden hair and beard and blue eyes floated into Emeline's past as the steamer receded, the powerful face and lithe figure first losing their identity, and then merging into night. What if it was true that she was robbing both him and herself of the best life, as Mary French was smitten to believe at the last moment? Her Gentile gorge rose against him, and the traditions of a thousand years warred in her with nature; yet she stretched her hands towards him in the darkness.
Then she heard a familiar voice, and knew that the old order of things was returning, while Beaver Island, like a dream, went silently down upon the waters.
Some years later, in the '50's, Emeline, sitting opposite her husband at the breakfast-table, heard him announce from the morning paper:
“Murder of King Strang, the Mormon Prophet of Beaver Island.” All the details of the affair, even the track of the bullets which crashed into that golden head, were mercilessly printed. The reader, surprised by a sob, dropped his paper.
“What! Are you crying, Mrs. Arnold?”
“It was so cruel!” sobbed Emeline. “And Billy Wentworth, like a savage, helped to do it!”
“He had provocation, no doubt, though it is a horrid deed. Perhaps I owe the King of Beaver the tribute of a tear. He befogged me considerably the only time I ever met him.”
“You see only his evil. But I see what he was to Mary French and the others.”
“His bereaved widows?”
“The ones who believed in his best.”
BEAVER LIGHTS
A magnificent fountain of flame, visible far out on the starlit lake, spurted from the north end of Beaver Island. It was the temple, in which the Mormon people had worshipped for the last time, sending sparks and illumined vapor to the zenith. The village of St. James was partly in ashes, and a blue pallor of smoke hung dimly over nearly every hill and hollow, for Gentile fishermen crazed with drink and power and long arrears of grievances had carried torch and axe from farm to farm. Until noon of that day all householding families had been driven to huddle with their cattle around the harbor dock and forced to make pens for the cattle of lumber which had been piled there for transportation. Unresisting as sheep they let themselves be shipped on four small armed steamers sent by their enemies to carry them into exile. Not one of the twelve elders who had received the last instructions of their murdered king rose up to organize any defence. Scarcely a month had passed since his wounding unto death, and his withdrawal, like Arthur, in the arms of weeping women to that spot in Wisconsin where he had found his sacred Voree plates or tables of the law. Scarcely two weeks had passed since news came back of his burial there. And already the Mormon settlement was swept off Beaver Island.
Used to border warfare and to following their dominating prophet to victory, they yet seemed unable to strike a blow without him. Such non-resistance procured them nothing but contempt. They even submitted to being compelled to destroy a cairn raised over the grave of one considered a malefactor, carrying the heap stone by stone to throw into the lake, Gentiles standing over them like Egyptian masters.
Little waves ran in rows of light, washing against the point on the north side of the landlocked harbor. A primrose star was there struggling aloft at the top of a rough rock tower. It was the fish-oil flame of Beaver lamp, and the keeper sat on his door-sill at the bottom of the light-house with his wife beside him.
The lowing of cattle missing their usual evening tendance came across from the dock, a mournful accompaniment to the distant roaring of fire and falling of timbers.
“Do you realize, Ludlow,” the young woman inquired, slipping her hand into her husband's, “that I am now the only Mormon on Beaver Island?”
“You never were a very good Mormon, Cecilia. You didn't like the breed any better than I did, though there were good people among them.”
“Will they lose all their cattle, Ludlow?”
“The cattle are safe enough,” he laughed. “The men that are doing this transporting will take the cattle. None of our Mormon friends will ever see a hoof from Beaver Island again.”
“But it seems robbery to drive them off and seize their property.”
“That's the way King Strang took Beaver from the Gentiles in the first place. Mormons and Gentiles can't live together.”
“We can.”
“I told you that you were a poor Mormon, Cecilia. And from first to last I opposed my family's entering the community. Tithes and meddling sent my father out of it a poor man. But I'm glad he went before this; and your people, too.”
She drew a deep breath. “Oh yes! They're safe in Green Bay. I couldn't endure to have them on those steamers going down the lake to-night. What will become of the community, Ludlow?”
“God knows. They'll be landed at Chicago and turned adrift on the world. I'm glad they're away from here. I've no cause to love them, but I was afraid they would be butchered like sheep. Your father and my father, if they had still been elders on the island, wouldn't have submitted, as these folks did, to abuse and exile and the loss of everything they had in the world. I can't understand it of some of them. There was Jim Baker, for instance; I'd have sworn he would fight.”
“I can understand why he didn't. He hasn't taken any interest since his second marriage.”
“Now, that was a nice piece of work! I always liked Jim the best of any of the young men until he did that. And what inducement was there in the woman?”
The light-house keeper's wife fired up. “What inducement there was for him ever to marry Rosanne I couldn't see. And I know Elizabeth Aiken loved him when we were girls together.”
“And didn't Rosanne?”
“Oh—Rosanne! A roly-poly spoiled young one, that never will be a woman! Elizabeth is noble.”
“You're fond of Elizabeth because she was witness to our secret marriage when King Strang wouldn't let me have you. I liked Jim for the same reason. Do you mind how we four slipped one at a time up the back stairs in my father's house that night, while the young folks were dancing below?”
“I mind we picked Elizabeth because Rosanne would be sure to blab, even if she had to suffer herself for it. How scared the poor elder was!”
“We did him a good turn when we got him to marry us. He'd be on one of the steamers bound for nowhere, to-night, instead of snug at Green Bay, if we hadn't started him on the road to what King Strang called disaffection.”
The light-house keeper jumped up and ran out on the point, his wife following him in nervous dread.
“What is the matter, Ludlow?”
Their feet crunched gravel and paused where ripples still ran in, endlessly bringing lines of dimmer and dimmer light. A rocking boat was tied to a stake. Anchored and bare-masted, farther out in the mouth of the bay, a fishing-smack tilted slightly in rhythmic motion. While they stood a touch of crimson replaced the sky light in the water, and great blots like blood soaking into the bay were reflected from the fire. The burning temple now seemed to rise a lofty tower of flame against the horizon. Figures could be seen passing back and forth in front of it, and shouts of fishermen came down the peninsula. The King's printing-office where the _Northern Islander_ was once issued as a daily had smouldered down out of the way. It was the first place to which they had set torch.
“I thought I heard some one running up the sail on our sail-boat,” said the light-house keeper. “No telling what these fellows may do. If they go to meddling with me in my little Government office, they'll find me as stubborn as the Mormons did.”
“Oh, Ludlow, look at the tabernacle, like a big red-hot cheese-box on the high ground! Think of the coronation there on the first King's Day!”
The light-house keeper's wife was again in imagination a long-limbed girl of fifteen, crowding into the temple to witness such a ceremony as was celebrated on no other spot of the New World. The King of Beaver, in a crimson robe, walked the temple aisle, followed by his council, his twelve elders, and seventy ministers of the minor order. In the presence of a hushed multitude he was anointed, and a crown with a cluster of projecting stars was set on his golden head. Hails and shouts, music of marching singers and the strewing of flowers went before him into the leafy July woods. Thus King's Day was established and annually observed on the 8th of July. It began with burnt-offerings. The head of each family was required to bring a chicken. A heifer was killed and carefully cut up without breaking a bone; and, while the smoke of sacrifice arose, feasting and dancing began, and lasted until sunset. Firstlings of flocks and the first-fruits of orchard and field were ordained the King's; and he also claimed one-tenth of each man's possessions. The Mosaic law was set up in Beaver Island, even to the stoning of rebellious children.
The smoke of a sacrificed people was now reeking on Beaver. This singular man's French ancestry—for he was descended from Henri de L'Estrange, who came to the New World with the Duke of York—doubtless gave him the passion for picturesqueness and the spiritual grasp on his isolated kingdom which keeps him still a notable and unforgotten figure.
“It makes me feel bad to see so much destruction,” the young man said to his wife; “though I offered to go with Billy Wentworth to shoot Strang if nobody else was willing. I knew I was marked, and sooner or later I would disappear if he continued to govern this island. But with all his faults he was a man. He could fight; and whip. He'd have sunk every steamer in the harbor to-day.”
“It's heavy on my heart, Ludlow—it's dreadful! Neighbors and friends that we shall never see again!”
The young man caught his wife by the arm. They both heard the swift beat of footsteps flying down the peninsula. Cecilia drew in her breath and crowded against her husband. A figure came into view and identified itself, leaping in bisected draperies across an open space to the light-house door.
“Why, Rosanne!” exclaimed the keeper's wife. She continued to say “Why, Rosanne! Why, Rosanne Baker!” after she had herself run into the house and lighted a candle.