Saints (22 page)

Dinah did not want any delay. “I want to be baptized this morning.”

“Won’t take more than a half-hour. And don’t dilly-dally. I’ve just eaten half the town of Manchester for breakfast and I’m ready to baptize the other half by noon!” With Val perched on Heber’s shoulders, they set off.

The English headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was installed in a dingy flat above a shop on Oldham Road, in one of the flimsy new buildings that Heber said would “not be around to see the Millennium unless the Lord hastens His coming.” Dinah and Anna followed him up the stairs, carrying the children; Heber fairly bounded to the top, and they heard him bellow, “Brigham, Parley, it’s good to see you!”

The office was furnished with one table, six stools, and a half-dozen packing crates, all stuffed with pamphlets like the ones Heber had given Charlie in the square. Stacked in one corner were bales of a journal, the
Millennial Star
. Heber had a copy of it and was sitting on the table poring over it, saying, “Wonderful! Wonderful! That’ll wake ’em up!”

The two men in the office were both as American as Heber, sprawling back, hands behind heads, looking lanky and comfortable as pigs in a wallow, their hair just a little unkempt, their suits just a bit wrong for them. They were all fairly young men, too. Dinah had assumed that at least some of the apostles would be old, or older than Kimball, anyway. But both these men looked to be under forty, and their faces seemed more accustomed to grinning than to the sober mien most preachers cultivated.

It was Brigham Young, the one with the roundish face and light-brown, almost golden hair, who saw them first. Immediately he stood. “Heber, did these ladies come with you or find their way here on their own?”

Heber turned around, wrinkling some papers in the process, and looked very embarrassed. “Of course they came with me.” He got up from the table and strode to them, ushering them into the room. “Sister Anna, Sister Dinah, and Dinah’s children Val and Honor.”

The jut-jawed man in the black suit offered his hand. “I’m Parley Pratt, apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the only man in the room fit to recognize real beauty when I see it. Are you sisters?”

Anna laughed and allowed him to flirt a little. In the meantime, Brigham Young quietly introduced himself to Dinah. “I’ve learned,” he said, “not to try to cut into Parley’s conversation when he’s performing for a lady. He takes it as a challenge and talks twice as long to put me in my place.”

“I hear you maligning me,” Parley said. Then he immediately returned to his flirtation with Dinah’s mother.

Brigham grinned. “You see?”

“Beautiful, beautiful,” Heber said, thrusting the
Millennial Star
at Brigham.

Brigham continued to grin at Dinah. “So I see.”

“I meant the paper, Brigham. Sister Dinah is married to a man much better-looking than you.”

“Impossible,” Brigham said. Without looking at Heber, he took the journal and offered it to Dinah. “Here it is, the first issue of the first journal of the only true church of Jesus Christ in the British Isles. What do you think?”

Dinah was used to Heber’s exuberance and rough American manners; she didn’t mind Parley’s rustic gallantries with her mother. But there was something about Brigham Young that annoyed her. A cocksureness about him. A hint that when he jokingly pretended to have a high opinion of himself, it was no joke at all. This is a man who’s used to being obeyed, Dinah decided, and just as she had always defied her brother Robert when he had such a mood on him, she could not resist putting a small needle in Brigham’s inflated pride.

“The quality of printing is quite good,” Dinah said, “but it would not be harmed by a bit of attention from someone who knows how to spell.” Deliberately she selected an article that had the initials “B. Y.” at the end and said, “For instance, this article is virtually unintelligible to someone who actually knows how to read and write.”

Heber whooped and Brigham smiled, but Dinah could see a slight hardness form around his eyes. He knew what she was doing.

“Sister Dinah, I agree with you completely. Just this morning we prayed for someone to come along and help us on that very matter. Here’s my article for the next issue. I hope you’ll be kind enough to correct it.”

He held a sheaf of papers before her. This had gone too far, she knew—the game was becoming real, and she didn’t want to make an enemy. “No,” she said, “I’m not good enough myself to do it.”

“I assure you,” Brigham said, still smiling, “that it would be a great service to the work of the Lord if you’d fix up our writing. After all, we don’t want to give the impression here in England that the Mormons are nothing but a bunch of country bumpkins who haven’t the brains to spell
cat
.”

“I didn’t say that,” Dinah said.

“I didn’t say you did.”

There they stood, the papers between them, both of them smiling cheerfully. Dinah had challenged Brigham Young’s authority, however slightly, and he was determined that she yield to him. Dinah had never bowed to Robert or, for that matter, to any man, and she certainly wasn’t going to bow to Brigham Young. At the same time, she didn’t want to make a quarrel of it—only Joseph Smith and his two counselors had more responsibility in the Kingdom of God than he.

She almost said—the words formed clearly in her mind—“I couldn’t correct your writing without a translator to tell me what it said.” Instead she used Brigham’s own tactic. She could out-humble him easily. “How could a mere woman hope to do justice to a man’s ideas?” she said, and grinned right back at him.

Brigham was beaten and he knew it—she could see it again in the hardness at the edges of his eyes. He held that expression for just a moment, and then laughed aloud, the corners of his eyes crinkling with genuine mirth. “You haven’t been a Latterday Saint long enough, Sister Dinah,” he said. “All the sisters in America, at least, know perfectly well that God only gave the priesthood to
men
to even up the odds a little.”

It was all so jovial. But underneath the conversation Dinah knew that the true dialogue had gone another way.

Don’t cross me, woman, Brigham Young had said, for I’m much stronger than you.

And Dinah had answered, Watch your own step, Brother Brigham, for I’m your match.

They were baptized in a place on the River Medlock far enough from Manchester that the city was only a pall of smoke in the distance. The only spectators were sluggish cattle and a misanthropic squirrel who cursed them and vanished in the grass. There were a few trees along the banks of the stream, and on the other side of the fields the poplars stood as a windbreak wherever oaks and ashes hadn’t deigned to grow. It was a place of peace, and Heber spoke Dinah’s feelings when he said, “By damn, if heaven looks this good all over, I can’t wait to die.”

Parley told them, speaking of dying and heaven, how Brother Somebody-or-other had been absolutely certain the Millennium would come on April sixth, 1840. “Why, I think he was downright disappointed when he woke up that morning and the world hadn’t ended.”

“I remember,” Heber said, “but I remember Brother Joseph telling him, ‘Brother, if you really believed, why didn’t you go and borrow a thousand dollars on a note due and payable on April seventh? And why did you buy a week’s worth of groceries just the day before? If you’d had enough faith, why, the end might have come right on schedule.’”

“Now, Heber,” Brigham said, “you know that Brother Joseph didn’t say any such thing. It was
you
that said it.”

“I know that, Brigham, but the story sounds so much better if it’s him.”

They had a laugh at that, but Dinah noticed that it was Brigham who damped the levity a bit, refused to let the tall tales get out of hand. The others never particularly deferred to him; they talked as if each man was free to decide to do whatever he wanted. But in fact Brigham was firmly in control, and things went his way. Dinah had to admire the subtlety of his leadership even as she resented the fact that he exercised it at all.

“I’m not sure, sisters, how I ought to broach such a delicate subject,” Brigham said, “but you need to decide how modest your underclothing is, because there’s no need to get your dress wet if your underclothing would not offend decency. Heber has promised me that his long shirt has no holes in it.”

Dinah saw at once the sensibleness of it and refused to blush. “That will do very well, provided that you are circumspect while Mother and I help each other with our dresses.”

The word
circumspect
was new to Brigham. Parley shrugged, but Heber snorted and said, “Look at the clouds, Brother Brigham, she wants you to look at the clouds!” Brigham and Parley decorously looked the other way, and Heber plopped himself on the grass to take his boots off.

A few minutes later Dinah stood at the water’s edge, feeling very white and conspicuous in her petticoats. Heber was already in the river, his long shirt billowing out on the surface. He was discreetly conversing with Brigham and keeping his gaze away from the ladies, but at last he grew impatient and said, loudly, “Do hurry, Sister Dinah, since this river still thinks it’s winter and wants to freeze over with me in it.”

Dinah glanced at her mother, who smiled tightly and squeezed her hand. Then she stepped into the water. It was very cold indeed, and she gasped when the water reached her chest on a sudden step into deeper water. She stumbled forward. Heber caught her, laughing. “Sister Dinah, it does you no good to baptize
yourself
—I’ve got to say the words first.”

He showed her how to hold her nose and grip his arm, too. They were both trembling in the cold, and he reassured her. “I never heard of anybody catching cold from a baptism. What’s your full name?”

“Dinah Kirkham. Handy.”

In an instant all the humor vanished from his face, and he raised his hand and said loudly, “Dinah Kirkham Handy, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

The words were no sooner finished than he bore her backward into the water. She had expected him to hold her up, to keep her from sinking, but the water did that, catching the pockets of air that made bubbles in her petticoats. Heber pushed her down instead, farther down, and for a few seconds she wondered if he meant to push her clear to the bottom. The cold was heavy; she needed to breathe.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the immersion ended and she rushed upward to the surface of the river. Brigham and Parley were standing on the water’s brink, nodding. “It’s all right,” Brigham said. “She was completely under.”

Heber grinned at her. “You’re lucky. If we don’t get every speck of you under the water, we have to do it again.”

Dinah’s teeth were chattering as she struggled to shore. Now with her clothing wet and heavy on her, the current of Medlock seemed stronger, and it was harder to make headway. The current wanted to carry her off, now that she had given herself to the water. Brigham seemed to see her difficulty, and without hesitation he stepped into the water, boots and all, and helped her get to the bank. She sat there shivering in the sunlight while Heber baptized her mother.

When it was all over, the men walked back to the road while Dinah and Anna stripped each other of their wet petticoats. The sunlight was bright and warm on Dinah’s naked shoulders as she helped her mother with her dress. She had never felt so healthy. As for Anna, she was weeping softly, but tears of joy. When they were both dressed again, they gathered up their wet underwear into a bundle, which Dinah insisted on carrying; but they did not go immediately to join the men.

“Sister Anna,” Dinah said.

“Sister Dinah,” Anna said, and they laughed and embraced each other. “I’m clean,” Anna whispered. “I’m forgiven. John can come home now.”

The words sent a shudder up Dinah’s spine. “Mother,” she said, “whatever gave you the idea that baptism would bring him home?”

“I prayed last night. I asked God for a sign. I told him that I’d be baptized if it meant I was completely forgiven and John would come home. And I asked for a sign. If two of my children were baptized on the same day, then I’d know it was all true. I didn’t dream that Charlie would be baptized before I even woke up in the morning, and when you said that you weren’t going to wait another day, I knew my prayer had been answered.”

“Mother,” Dinah said, thinking to help her see reason.

“Dinah, my dear, I know I’m being perfectly unreasonable. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not. The Lord heard my prayer, and sooner or later, he’ll bring my John back home to me again.”

Dinah could not bear to argue with the joy in her mother’s face. But neither could she help hoping, as they walked through the grass to the road where the apostles waited, that of all the miracles God might work the return of John Kirkham would not be one.

Charlie’s hair was still damp from the baptism when Mr. Royal called him into his office. It was a summons that would have filled most men in the firm with dread. Charlie knew better. He made few mistakes, and Mr. Royal had no reason to censure him; in the years he had worked there, nothing but good had come to him in Mr. Royal’s office. It wouldn’t have mattered—Charlie was still so elated from the events of the night and morning and so giddy from lack of sleep that even if Mr. Royal had sacked him he might well have thanked him effusively and laughed all the way home.

It would be no sacking. Mr. Royal was all smiles.

“Charles Banks Kirkham, it occurs to me that your eighteenth birthday is not far off.”

“A few months, I think,” Charlie said.

“Have a seat, my good fellow. Nearly eighteen. And doing a damn fine job here, a boy with promise, with real promise. You’re not meant to be a
bookkeeper
, boy.”

Charlie had long harbored that opinion himself, of course. Still, it didn’t do to admit discontent. “Oh, I like being a bookkeeper well enough, sir.”

“You won’t in fifteen years, I can promise you, Charlie. No, you have the gifts to follow another path in life, and soon you will take your first step along that path. I shall not meander any more, good fellow. We have arranged with our London solicitor, and
he
has arranged with a noted barrister, for you to begin the study of law in the autumn. In London. Entirely at our expense. Do I surprise you? Don’t let your jaw gape, boy, it’s unbecoming.”

Charlie’s jaw had not been gaping, of course; it was all Mr. Royal’s good humor. And now Mr. Royal arose from his chair and strode around his desk, took Charlie by the hand and drew him up into a hearty, back-slapping embrace. “You know what it means, Charlie? We don’t mean for you to become a mere solicitor, like ourselves, lad. We mean you to achieve the bar, and then to come home and be a most junior but most worthy partner in our firm. How’s that, lad? Study in London, and come home to part ownership of the finest, most prestigious, and I must say the most lucrative firm of solicitors in Manchester. Think of it! A man who knows both law and money! And what will there be to stand in your way then? In ten years you stand for Parliament—Tory, of course. In twenty years bewigged as a judge. And in thirty years, why not Charles Lord Kirkham, I ask you? The world is open to you. What do you have to say?”

Say? “Thank you, sir!”

“That’s the closest to speechless I’ve ever seen you, Charlie. Do I take it that I have your consent to make arrangements for your housing and study in London in September?”

“Oh, yes sir,” Charlie said. “I hope to be able to deserve this honor, sir—”

“Yes, yes, of course you do, and of course you will, never mind all that. Of course, you
will
have to make some changes in your personal habits. I did a bit of asking around, and I’m relieved you’ve never acquired the habit of loitering in public houses. So far as I can discover your record in the matter of women is perfect. You are exemplary in all the necessary traits but one. The matter of the Establishment.”

And now the first wedge was driven into Charlie’s joy. The Establishment. Of course a barrister and a partner in the firm had to be a good Anglican.

“Mind you,” Mr. Royal said, “no one expects you to become
fanatic
.” Charlie inwardly cringed at the word.
Fanatic
. Exactly the word that a man like Mr. Royal would apply to a Mormon. “It would be almost as bad if you attended service too often,” Mr. Royal said, “as it is now, with you attending not at all. Moderation in all things, lad. Twice a month, that’s all, you ought to be seen in services. Prominently seen in services, in fact—it is definitely expected. And since I follow my own advice and attend twice a month myself, I invite you to come with me. I’ll introduce you to our honored pastor, and from that time forward you will be known as a godly man. You see, it’s quite simple to establish a decently religious reputation, and to maintain it you need only limit yourself to the more customary or fashionable sins, and be discreet.” Mr. Royal winked.

Charlie managed a smile. A few days ago, this cynical attitude toward religion would have struck him as amusing. Now it seemed almost atheistic. It repelled him. He wanted to say, Sir, I am a believing member of the Latter-day Saint faith. I shall attend services
every
Sunday, and will commit no sins at all, fashionable or not.

But he did not say that. Instead, he said, “Sir, I shall not disappoint you in any particular.”

“You never have, boy, and I believe you never will, which is why we are extending you this considerable opportunity.”

Mr. Royal exuded pride as he took Charlie through the firm, announcing Charlie’s wonderful prospects to everyone. Charlie did not have to pretend—he relished every moment of it. The bar. It meant a real chance to amount to something, not just in Manchester but in
England
, and not just in England but in the world, for didn’t England lead the world? It was everything Charlie had ever dreamed of, and God surely meant him to do it. It was God’s plan for him. The signs were clear: Hadn’t this good news come the very day of his baptism? Charlie repeated it to himself over and over. God wants me to do this. It is the will of God. He told himself this most particularly whenever he thought of the fact that he had been baptized into one church and had just agreed to be a faithful member of another: It was only a small hypocrisy. God surely wouldn’t mind him holding his new Mormon allegiance in abeyance for a few months or years. This was plainly, plainly the will of God. Charlie was
sure
that it couldn’t really be, was
sure
that there wasn’t a chance in the world that Mr. Royal’s offer was, in reality, a temptation from the devil to lead him away from the true church. The devil never tempted you with something
good
, only with nasty things—if he had learned nothing else of religion in his childhood, he had learned
that
.

Anna and Dinah knew it wouldn’t be easy to tell Matthew and Robert about their baptism. Anna suggested telling Mary and letting her tell her husband and brother, but Dinah dismissed that suggestion as cowardice.

“They’ll be angry anyway,” Anna said. “If
she
tells them, they’ll have time to calm down before talking to us about it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Dinah said, “that they’ll be angry.”

Anna looked askance at her daughter. “My dear child, don’t you know anything about men? They think they own a woman’s conscience when they only own her heart.”

Dinah did not mention that Matthew didn’t even own
that
.

In the end they decided that they would gather all the family at Dinah’s house for supper that night. They left a note for Charlie, then stopped by Mary’s house to invite her, telling her only, “Mother and I have something very important to announce to the family, so we hope you and Robert and the children will come.”

It was still bright evening outside as the family ate together. Dinah watched with pleasure the friendly way that Robert and Charlie spoke to each other. Matthew wasn’t quite so jocular and happy, but then he was prone to surly moods, and at least he wasn’t rude. Robert’s three sons—one every fourteen months since the marriage—managed to make a healthy amount of noise with Val and Honor, and Anna kept saying, “We must do this more often, it’s so good to have us all together like this.”

Finally, when the meal was through, Anna began the announcement. “Something has happened that I think will bring us more happiness than anything else that’s happened in our lives before.” She hedged around awhile more, but Dinah let her do it. It was a measure of her innocence that Dinah was much more interested in Charlie’s response than in Matthew’s. After all, Charlie still had no idea that he wasn’t the only member of the family who had believed Brother Heber’s message. His surprise would surely be delicious to watch. And Anna and Dinah had agreed not to tell about Charlie’s baptism—they’d let him break the news himself.

“So today, this very afternoon,” Anna finally said, “Dinah and I went to the River Medlock and were baptized.”

To Dinah’s surprise, Charlie did not burst out in delight with the news of his own earlier baptism. If he had, things might have gone differently; but instead of adding to Dinah’s and Anna’s enthusiasm, he stared glumly at his plate, avoiding anyone’s eyes.

The silence became heavy very quickly. Charlie had not done his part; Anna could not think of anything to say, and Dinah could only watch in silence as Robert and Matthew traded eloquent looks.

“Good God,” Robert finally said. Dinah nearly laughed aloud, the words were so ironically appropriate. “Good God, Mother, I thought you had more wit than to run off after the first fine-talking American frontiersman who reads your fortune and forgives your sins.”

Dinah watched her mother grow angry. “I haven’t run off after anyone.”

And so it went, bad to worse, and yet never loud, never furious. It was all the more horrible because of that, Dinah felt; Robert saying terrible things to Mother, and Anna doing her best to answer, neither of them raising their voices, all said in such an oppressive calm. If they could only shout at each other, Dinah thought, then they would realize what they were doing and stop themselves. Instead they went on, and in the back of her mind Dinah kept hearing a relentless tearing sound, like the ripping of heavy velvet. The fabric of the family was coming apart now, and she had not even known that it was frayed. For so many years now Robert had acted in the family as if he were the father, but only because he had never tried to rule, only because Anna had willingly given place to him. Now he was asserting authority at the very moment his mother had withdrawn it; this cannot end well, Dinah said silently. Something will be irremediably broken before the night is out.

Charlie, too, felt the heat of the argument and the weight of his own silence. Who would have dreamed that Dinah and Mother would be baptized, too? He had thought he was alone, the only one, that no one would mind much if he pretended to be Anglican for a while. Now he knew that the women expected him to speak, needed him to speak; and he also knew that if he spoke now, his whole future was undone.

In the end it was not Anna’s and Dinah’s needs that made up Charlie’s mind for him. It was Robert. Robert, who knew so much about the Mormons from having heard a bit of asinine talk from the half-witted fools in the shop. Robert, who sneered and asked if the religion could be any good if they couldn’t find fools enough to fill their churches in the wilds of America? Robert, who again and again said, “I won’t have my family members making idiots of themselves like this. I forbid it.”

Charlie could see that every time Robert forbade it he made Anna and Dinah angrier than before, more determined to pursue their faith. He could almost see the wall growing between Robert and the women. And as the wall grew he stopped thinking about his promise to Mr. Royal, stopped thinking about studying for the bar in London. All he could see was that the family was being split apart tonight, perhaps never to be healed again, and when the split was complete, Charlie knew where he must be: on the other side of the wall from Robert. When Charlie had been baptized this morning, it was an act of exuberant faith; but faith could fade. It was hatred and envy that lasted. Now if the family divided between Mormons and unbelievers, between Saints and cynics, it would shut Robert out forever. All that would be left would be Charlie and Anna and Dinah. The three of them, as they had always ought to be, without that strutting cock to say, I forbid it. Forbid all you like—you will not change
me
with your forbidding, Charlie declared silently, never realizing that in fact it was Robert’s very forbidding that had changed him. Temptation had made him waver in the faith; but if Robert was against Mormonism, Charlie would be a Mormon forever.

Yet Charlie began his answer calmly enough. After all, he was a martyr now, like Christ saying, Forgive them, for they know not what they do. He was sacrificing future wealth and honor for the sake of God and the true religion, and it behooved him to speak with the proper Christian mildness. “I guess it makes all the difference whether you believe in Mormonism or not. Whether or not you’ve been touched by the—the Spirit of God.” Ah, yes, that was just right; and Charlie completed the effect with a beatific smile.

Robert turned slowly to look at him. “From those words am I to assume you partake of their insanity?”

Charlie’s voice stayed soft and gentle, but his eyes now turned his words into javelins. “If what we learned last night is madness, I would to God all the world were mad.”

“It would give you company, I expect,” Robert said contemptuously. “If you had the smallpox, you’d probably wish for an epidemic.”

Charlie only smiled more broadly. Yes, Robert, attack me all you like. The more you argue the more I know that God is on my side. With an accuracy born of years of practice, Charlie found the words that would hurt the most. “I understand why you’re so upset about it, Robert. You’re afraid that if we keep this up, we might discover that you aren’t God.”

All pretense of civility ended here. Dinah had wished for shouting; soon enough she would wish for whispering again. Robert shouted that he had no such pretensions; Charlie answered, “You always think that you know better than God what’s best for other people. When we don’t do what you say, it always leads to misery. Why, if I had followed your fine plans for me, I might be a journeyman chimneysweep today, instead of settling for mere bookkeeping.” The perfect touch. It always worked. The argument would have ended right there, probably, or at least begun to weaken, except that Charlie could not resist adding one more accusation. In the heat of the argument, he had forgotten that Matthew was even there. “I’m surprised you didn’t end up getting Dinah married to Mr. Uray—but you did your best, didn’t you!” He had meant only to attack the way that Robert had controlled his sister’s life; but Matthew took it another way.