The Work and the Glory Page 32

  The thought cheered her considerably, and when she finally walked up the steps and entered the front door of her aunt’s house, she was singing softly to herself.

  “Lydia, is that you?”

  “Yes, Aunt Althea. I’m back.”

  Her aunt appeared at the top of the stairs. She was holding two letters in her hand.

  Lydia felt her heart leap. “Is the mail for me?”

  “Yes. There’s a letter from your father and…” She didn’t bother to finish.

  Lydia flung her parasol into the corner, not caring that it completely missed the ebony umbrella stand there, and raced up the stairs. It had been almost two months since she had heard from Nathan, and the look on her aunt’s face confirmed that her wait was at last over.

  She snatched the two envelopes from her aunt’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “Dinner will be in half an hour,” she said, smiling. “Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t, Aunt Althea,” Lydia replied. She glanced at the handwriting quickly, then darted into her bedroom.

  Fifteen minutes later, Lydia sat motionless on her bed, the last page of Nathan’s letter still in her hand, staring at the wall with unseeing eyes. She was conscious of nothing except the sudden trembling she felt in her lower lip.

  Finally she forced herself to focus on the words again. There were strange words and phrases—priesthood, immersion, Mormon, remission of sins—and she didn’t fully understand all she had read. But she understood with brutal clarity one thing. She looked down, her eyes finding the place instantly.

  There are no longer any questions, not in my mind, not in my heart, about Joseph or the work he has been called to do. My darling Lydia, when I realized the authority to baptize was restored again to earth, I asked Joseph to baptize me, which he did Saturday last. I cannot describe the joy which now fills my heart. I no longer stand on the outside of this great work of restoration and look on with curiosity. I am an active participant and feel a burning commitment to be part of God’s great work. I long for the day when you return and I can share with you these feelings which have become as precious to me as fine gold.

  She threw it aside, the anger starting to smoulder inside her. In ten months of correspondence, Nathan had not said so much as one word about Joseph, and she had assumed, with considerable relief, that he had put the whole thing behind him. After that night when they had gone looking for Joshua, both had seemed reluctant to bring up the subject of Joseph again, and little else had been said. But suddenly here were three solid pages of Joseph Smith—words of passion, words of commitment, words that left her feeling shocked, betrayed, and a little bit ill.

  She rubbed her eyes, trying to ease the burning in them. Churning inside, she picked up the second letter. In the first letter, Nathan’s handwriting was bold, scrawled across the page in firm lines which tended to be uneven in their haste. On the other hand, her father’s writing was smaller, neat and precise, as though each word were one of the items in his store and put on the shelf in its appointed place. As she opened the envelope and slipped the letter out, she saw it was only one page. The message was as clipped and brusque as was his handwriting.

  Our dearest Lydia,

  An item of great concern has recently come to our attention. Nathan Steed has returned to Palmyra from Pennsylvania just a few days ago. He says he has returned to help his father on the farm, but reliable sources report it is really because Joseph Smith has returned to this area.

  So much for your intended’s commitment to work and pay off the mortgage on the farm he is supposedly purchasing. The Smith charlatan is living in Fayette Township, about twenty miles from here, still working on his so-called translation of the gold Bible. He still has no gainful employment and lives with a family who took pity on him and his poor wife.

  Nathan came in the store yesterday. I confronted him and he openly admitted he has joined Smith and his followers. I need not tell you how your mother and I feel about this. Lydia, to this point I have largely stayed out of this decision you have made, feeling you are a responsible young woman. But I can remain silent no longer. This recent turn of events only confirms our deep concerns about your choice of Nathan Steed and I must forbid you from pursuing this relationship further.

  It is time you faced reality. Your Aunt Althea has asked if you could stay in Boston for another year. We too feel it is the best place for you for now. Your mother and I miss you a great deal, but we both agree there are some fine families in Boston from which a suitable husband might be found. The situation here is intolerable.

  We eagerly await your response to this letter.

  Love,

  Papa

  Lydia let the page drop to her lap. What had been smouldering anger before now burst into open flame. Nathan in Palmyra? His letter had said nothing of that. Had he wanted to soften her up first, see how she would react to the “news” of his baptism before he also told her he was following after Joseph like a skunk after hen’s eggs?

  Slowly, Lydia gathered up the sheets of paper from her bed. She did not read them again. She folded her father’s letter and put it away, then did the same with Nathan’s. She rose, looked at herself briefly in the mirror, then left the bedroom.

  As she came into the kitchen, her aunt was at the big stove in the corner, stirring a pot of soup. Her fourteen-year-old cousin, Dorthea, was setting the table. Both looked up in surprise. “Dinner’s not quite ready yet, Lydia,” her aunt said.

  “Aunt Althea?”

  Something in her voice made her aunt stop and turn around fully. “What is it, dear?” Dorthea was also staring at her.

  “Something has come up. I’ll be leaving for home as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements.”

  Jessica Roundy’s father had beaten her soundly for the first eight years of her life. It was not frequent, but after every heavy drinking bout he would come home in a rage and take it out first on Jessica’s mother and then on her. After Jessica’s birth, her mother had conceived and then aborted three other children before the final miscarriage took her life as well. That had sobered Roundy sufficiently that thereafter he brought his drinking under control and turned what little affection he was capable of toward his only living offspring. Jessica Roundy became the woman of the house—or rather, the woman of the tavern, for Clinton Roundy was a saloon keeper.

  She was small, almost frail, and her shoulders were rounded, as though perpetually cowering from another blow. It was this, along with her tendency to look at the floor when she spoke, that conveyed the feeling of a shy nocturnal animal, halfstartled by the light and ready to flee at the slightest sound.

  She was not unattractive in her facial features, but her hair was flat and straight, and this, along with her unfailing habit of wearing a dress of simple cut and drab color, made her seem plain. Her eyes were light brown, her mouth small but pleasant.

  Newcomers to Roundy’s saloon, located on the main street of Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, were taken aback by the presence of this silent, doe-eyed creature serving up drinks behind the bar. Some were so foolish as to equate barmaid with bawdiness. They learned quickly enough that the locals felt a strong, fatherly protectiveness for Jessie, as they all called her. A mountain man, fresh from the high country, liquored up and hungry for the touch of any white woman, was carried out with a broken jaw and glazed eyes. Two men who worked the boats coming up from New Orleans got no further than one lewd comment before they found themselves staring down the working end of a double-barreled shotgun. Word quickly spread. Jessie Roundy was to be treated with courtesy and respect.

  It had surprised no one when Jessie fell for the newcomer from New York State called Joshua Steed. Though he tended to broodiness, he was young, and cut a handsome figure. He was also, after his stunning win of three Conestoga wagons and the teams to pull them, fast becoming one of Jackson County’s leading businessmen. Several women—from both sides of town—had set about to win his favors. But to everyone’s surprise,
Joshua largely ignored them. Women seemed of little interest to him.

  Except for Jessie. He seemed drawn to her quiet shyness and her unabashed admiration of him. Even the most hardened of the patrons of Roundy’s saloon began to note the change in Jessie. First it was just a touch of rouge on her cheeks. Then it was a small red ribbon to tie her hair back, or a golden brooch pinned to her dress. She began to smile more, and even looked some customers straight in the eye.

  When Joshua went into partnership with Jessie’s father and opened a second saloon, tongues began to wag and wagers were made that a marriage was in the offing. But if Joshua was aware of such speculation, he gave no sign, and after several months the matchmakers lost interest. But Jessie hadn’t. Every time Joshua came into the saloon a look of adoration lightened her eyes, and for as long as he was there they rarely left him.

  But on this particular afternoon her thoughts were on other things. Joshua had left during the last part of April to take six wagonloads of freight west to Santa Fe. It was a round trip of nearly two thousand miles, and he would not be back for another week. She was in the back room of the original tavern, in what served as part storeroom, part office, and part living quarters for her and her father. A large book lay open on her lap, and she hummed softly as her finger traced the words out one by one.

  To her father’s amusement and then disdain, she had announced in the middle of the previous winter that she wanted to learn to read and write. He had brushed it aside as a woman’s foolishness. But Joshua had not laughed, and her father had backed down almost immediately. Joshua had even offered to pay half the costs of having the new schoolteacher—a stern, preacherlike man with a pinched face but a gentle manner—give her private tutoring. Though deeply grateful for his support, she had not accepted Joshua’s offer. She had saved most of the small earnings her father gave her and she didn’t want any help, not from her father, not from Joshua. Somehow it was fundamental she do this herself. She still read slowly and with hesitation, but she read, and it was still new enough that she thrilled each time she did so.

  A sudden noise at the door brought her head up. For a moment she stared in disbelief, then leaped to her feet, the book hurtling to the floor. “Joshua!”

  “Hello, Jessie.” His clothes were covered with dust, his boots caked with mud long since dried. Even the wrinkles around his eyes showed the dirt of the trail, and his heavy beard carried a light dusting of gray. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with weariness.

  She smiled joyously. “But you aren’t supposed to be back yet.”

  “I rode ahead. The wagons are still a couple of days back.”

  She took a step forward, then stopped, her natural shyness holding her back. “I’m…it’s good to see you, Joshua.”

  He looked past her to the desk at which she had been sitting. “Your pa said I had some mail.”

  Her face fell and she turned slowly. “Yes.”

  He stepped up beside her as she opened a drawer and pulled out the small stack of letters.

  She felt her earlier elation dropping rapidly. The smell of whiskey was heavy on his breath and he swayed a little. But it was not that which hurt her. If there was one thing she was used to, it was men with liquor on their breath. What hurt was that he had felt no urgency to seek her out, that he had gone to the saloon long enough to get comfortably drunk, and most especially, that he had come looking for the mail and not for her. It hurt bad. And what hurt the most was knowing what it was in the pile of letters he was looking for.

  He thumbed through them quickly, dropping them onto the desk one at a time without opening them. Jessie stepped back, her eyes locked on the two battered brown envelopes. She had placed them on the very bottom of the pile, as if the placement might delay the pain, both for him and for her.

  Joshua stopped. He looked at the last two envelopes slowly, first one and then the other, holding them up to the light from the window. “When did these come?” He didn’t look at her.

  “They came back together. About two weeks ago.”

  He swung around on her, making her step back, making her hate herself for being afraid of him. “I told you to mail these almost seven months ago and you’re telling me they just came back?”

  “They came two weeks ago,” she repeated softly.

  He jabbed the envelopes in her direction, as if they were a spear he could use to intimidate her. “You never mailed them.”

  “I mailed them, Joshua,” she said wearily. “But there weren’t no one to pay the postage when they got there. Look at the note on them. It says ‘Unclaimed.’”

  When a letter was sent through the new and still-growing postal service, postage was not paid for by the sender, but by the recipient before the letter could be claimed. Either the letters had not gotten to the right place or no one was willing to pay the postage.

  “Then you’ve been hiding them from me for all this time so I wouldn’t write again. You never wanted me to write to her.”

  Her head was down, and to the casual observer it may have looked as though she was cowering before him. But that was just her way. Actually, for Jessica, she was standing her ground quite firmly. There was a wounded look in her eyes, but she shook her head. “I never wanted you to write to her,” she admitted, “but I did nothing with your letters.”

  “Liar!” he screamed. He stepped back, breathing heavily.

  She knew it was the whiskey making him mean, and she hated it. She had always hated it. What it did to her father. What it did to all men. “Look at the envelopes,” she cried. “She never opened them. She sent them back to you without reading them.”

  She was near tears now, and it made her angry, a rare thing for Jessica Roundy. “She doesn’t want to hear from you.” She flung it at him, desperation and hurt making her want to wound him back.

  It struck a nerve, for he blinked twice, then sat down slowly, staring at the two letters. He looked at her, then at the envelopes. He put them on the desk and smoothed them with his hand. He leaned over and peered at the writing.

  Suddenly his head came up. His eyes were triumphant. “See this?” One finger jabbed at the dark lettering scrawled across the bottom of one of the envelopes. “Lookee here. It says ‘No longer in Palmyra.’” He stopped and peered at it again, to be sure. Then he nodded. “That’s her mother’s handwriting! I’ve seen her write in the ledger books in the store. It’s her mother who sent these back.”

  Jessica turned and took a shawl from the door. “I’ve got to go. Pa’s waiting for me to take over at the other place.”

  “Did you hear me, Jessie? Lydia didn’t send them back. It’s that old witch, her mother. She never did like me.”

  “Yes, I hear you, Joshua.” She turned and went out, not bothering to close the door behind her.

  It was almost ten o’clock that night before Joshua came to the bar. His eyes were still bloodshot, but he seemed to have sobered up. He had bathed and changed into clean clothes. He had also been to the barber, for his beard was trimmed and his hair combed and shortened by an inch or two.

  Jessica saw him come in, but didn’t give any sign she had. He stood for a moment, answering the called greetings from the men gathered at the tables. Then he moved to the bar, shouldering a man aside so he could face her directly. “I’ll have some beer.”

  Jessica turned and reached for the stout pewter mug she kept in a special place beneath the bar. She filled it with beer, then placed it in front of him. She wanted to search his face, to see if the anger was still there, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She just wiped with a rag at the wet spots she had made on the counter, waiting.

  “I’ve got a load of window glass to pick up in St. Louis next week,” he said gruffly. “Have to haul it to Fort Leavenworth. Then I’ve got to make another run to Sante Fe. It’ll be late October or early November before I’m back.”

  “I understand.” Freight hauling was his business, and Joshua personally supervised every load of any worth. Why was he
telling her all this?

  “It’ll be too late for much else by then.”

  She turned away quickly, not wanting him to see the sudden pain that wrenched at her insides. “It’s what you do, Joshua.” It was a deliberate attempt to thrust aside what was coming. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Come spring,” he said flatly, “I’ll be heading east for a time.”

  Her head came back around slowly. Her eyes were wide. Now there was no attempt to hide the hurt, the vulnerability.

  He looked away. “It’s time to see my family.”

  She dropped the rag on the counter. “You mean it’s time to see Lydia.”

  “It’s time to see my family,” he said again. And with that he took his beer and moved away to join a poker game going on at one of the tables.

  Chapter Twenty

  The arm was starting to throb again, and Benjamin Steed took a swallow of the tangy, cool ale. That won him a quick glance from his wife, but Mary Ann didn’t say anything. She just kept folding the dress and shawl and other things into their battered old valise. It was her best dress, the one she would wear tomorrow, Sunday, when they saw Joseph Smith and his dutiful little band of followers. The thought filled Benjamin with sudden anger.

  He took another deep pull from the bottle, this time slowly and deliberately. She didn’t look up again, but he could tell from the sudden set to her mouth that he had made his point.

  Three weeks earlier, Benjamin had given a foot-thick hickory tree one last blow with the ax, then stepped back into the clear. Or so he thought. It had not snapped cleanly, and the tree twisted, pulling sharply to the left. Matthew, standing about twenty feet behind him, had shouted a warning and Benjamin leaped away. But not quickly enough. One of the upper branches caught him across the back and knocked him sprawling against a log. In addition to being bruised and battered, his left arm was fractured between the wrist and elbow.