Saints (31 page)

“Dinah,” Charlie said.

She turned and looked at him blankly.

“Let me hold Val.”

She shook her head. She was not letting go of the children for any reason.

“Good morning, Charlie,” Matthew said.

Charlie looked contemptuously at his brother-in-law. “It was kind of you to visit us, Matt.”

But it was not Matt who answered. “You’re up early, Charlie. But not early enough to stop us.” It was Robert, and he was smiling.

Perhaps because he was not fully awake, perhaps because Robert’s smile, in these circumstances, was an unbearable provocation, or perhaps because he knew this was the last chance in his life to do it, Charlie pushed his way past Dinah, walked directly to Robert, and struck him with the heal of his fist, a hammering blow with all his strength, square in the nose. Robert did not so much as raise a hand or turn his head aside to protect himself from the blow. After all, violence from Charlie was a complete surprise. Robert had long since categorized his brother as a man of words. Now he learned that words do not always satisfy a clerk. And perhaps Robert unwittingly welcomed the blow. It unburdened him of one of the gravest debts of his life, the guilt he owed to Charlie, even as he was in the act of taking on another, even heavier load.

The blood gushed from Robert’s nose as he stood there, stunned and unbelieving. The constable laid hands on Charlie immediately, and Captain Lower called for some of his sailors to restrain him, but Charlie made no resistance to them. He had done it. He had drawn Robert’s blood. He should have done it years ago, it felt so satisfying.

“You’ll be in gaol within the hour, lad,” the constable said.

“No,” Robert said.

“This is a savage, unwarranted attack, and we’ll have this boy in prison until he grows a beard.”

“No!” Robert said. “I won’t have him arrested.”

“But Mr. Kirkham, look at you, all over blood!”

“I won’t have my brother arrested! He’s going to America, and that’s far enough away to suit us both.”

Captain Lower daubed at the blood on Robert’s shirt and jacket with a handkerchief as Matthew tried to stanch the flow from his nose. “I don’t think it’s broken,” Matt said.

The constable turned to the sailors. “Take him below decks, then,” he said.

Charlie spat his words at Robert. “That’s right. Make sure Father and Mother and I are all out of sight while you do it!”

“Let him stay and watch,” Robert said. “It’s all one to me.”

The constable shrugged, annoyed at Robert’s seeming lack of resolve. “Then let’s get on with it.” And he unfolded a paper and began to read.

Dinah watched almost as if she were not a participant. She had been wakened suddenly, knowing at once what was happening, but strangely unafraid. She had given no alarm to the children; Honor was still dozing on her shoulder, and Val had only sleepily said, “Hullo, Daddy,” when they reached the main deck. The fear did not come until she realized that Robert was not there to make sure Matthew did not get out of line. Robert was there because it was Robert who was her enemy. It was Robert who had brought the legal papers, Robert who was giving the orders to the constable. Weak Matthew was merely a spectator. And if Robert was against her, there was no sanctuary. It was Robert she had run to after Mr. Uray attacked her, Robert who had saved her from Matt’s murderous blows. But this time he was the one with the terrible look of purpose on his face, the one who would break her if he could. And of all the people in the world, if anyone could break her, it was Robert. Now she was afraid. Now she trembled.

Poor Charlie, she thought as the sailors held him roughly, apart from the group. Always wanting to help, yet never having quite the tool needed.

“Do you understand?” the constable asked.

Dinah could not remember hearing a word of what he had just read from the papers. She shook her head.

The constable looked at her in exasperation.

“Explain it plainly, Matt,” Robert said.

Matt looked confused. Obviously he had expected to get through this morning without having to take any action
personally
.

“Dinah,” he said. “We’ve come to take you home.”

She said nothing, only held the children and tried desperately to penetrate her own fear deep enough to find the words she could say, the act she could perform that would end this, that would return her to her berth in the ship, the children with her, the ship putting out to sea. Surely God could arrange it—such a little thing. Surely this could turn out to be a dream.

“Dinah, did you think because I took it calm, I’d let you do this? A man’s family is his own, that’s the law. The law won’t let you steal my family from me, Dinah.”

At the times of trouble in her life, why was it so hard for her to find speech? “Then come with me, if you want your family so much.” Yet the words came from her lips as a whisper, not with the force she thought to use. And Matthew didn’t even understand her.

“What did you say?”

Robert spoke in pain, the handkerchief to his nose. “Matt won’t go with you, Dinah. A man stays where his work is, and a wife stays with her husband. I made Matthew wait to do this until the last possible moment, in the hope that you’d come to your senses. I’ll put it plain, Dinah. What you’re doing is as bad as what Father did to us, and I won’t let it happen. Do you understand that? It will never happen again, not to any of mine. No child without a father, without a home, so don’t think of persuading us, don’t think of resisting, it’ll do no good. You’ll come home, you’ll be a wife and a mother. And don’t think you’ll sneak away again. I’ll pay for servants to stay with you, and you won’t be allowed near the children except in the presence of a servant. You won’t be able to take them outside without two servants. You won’t be allowed to associate with the Mormons who put this insanity in your mind. In short, Dinah, you have proven yourself to be dangerous to the welfare of these children, and they will be protected. In time, in a year or so, if you show yourself to have come to your senses, these restrictions will be relaxed. On the contrary, if you resist or rebel in any way, your access to the children will be limited even further. I hope you understand that this is not harsh but merciful. You could have been gaoled for this. You could have had the children taken from you. We found in the law the kindest way of protecting your family from your madness.”

Dinah heard his words and understood them, but all she could really feel was Honor’s breath against her neck, Val’s wriggling in her arms.

Robert studied her face and nodded. “Matt, Mr. Simpson, I suggest you take the children first.”

Dinah knew there was no hope of resistance before Robert said it. She hadn’t the strength to hold these children, not if these men were determined to take them. So for the children’s sake, to keep them from having memories of being torn from their mother’s arms, she stepped forward and yielded them into her husband’s arms, avoiding the constable entirely. Val hugged his father and said, “Why didn’t you come before?” But Honor cried at being wakened out of her mother’s arms.

Matt held the children gratefully. “Thank you, Dinah,” he said. “I hoped you’d see reason. And it won’t be so bad. You’ll see. In no time things will be as they should be, no more of this bitterness. All forgotten in such a short time, you’ll be surprised.”

“Come along then,” the constable said. “This ship will need to sail soon, and the Captain has other business.”

Dinah saw their relief, the relaxation of tension. They had won, they were sure, and without a real struggle.

“I’m not coming,” Dinah said.

The mood of relief was gone in a moment.

“It’s not a matter of choice,” Robert said.

“Put me in irons, then.”

“If we have to.”

“I’ll take you to court. I can fight you with your own weapons.”

Robert shook his head. “You don’t understand, Dinah. The way that we avoided divorce, the way that we kept you out of gaol, was by having you declared mentally incompetent. You are legally a lunatic, and all your legal rights are vested in your husband and me jointly. You haven’t the power to so much as sign your name without our consent.”

“You’ve had me judged mad,” she said.

“It was the best of bad alternatives. Don’t blame us, Dinah. In a few months of not seeing any of these damned Mormons you’ll be back to your senses and thank us for this. You’ll be angry at me then for not doing as much for Charlie and Mother as I’m doing for you.”

“You’re doing this for me?”

“I have no other motive than love for you and your children. If you had done this, your children would have hated you all their lives.”

Robert’s righteousness, his sincerity in destroying her for her own sake, it was too much for her to bear. A floodgate cracked within her, and her anger began to seep quietly out. “May God damn your soul to hell forever.”

“I’m willing to endure your hatred now for the sake of your love later.”

She thought of the future they planned for her. Living politely in a home where she was a prisoner, asking permission to see her children, forbidden to leave the house alone, totally in submission to her husband’s will. And Matthew would be so kind about it. “Of course you may go to the park with the children, my love,” he would say, and then call the servants to go with her. “That’s my dear wife,” he would say when she came home, and then he would climb aboard her and she would smile and pretend to be pleased so that he would do her favors. She saw in her mind the face of God, the face of her imagined Joseph Smith; she remembered with her whole body how it felt to stand in the presence of God, alive from the skin inward, hot at the core. That was her true self. If she bowed before Robert and Matthew, that part of her would die. They were right. If she ever lived as they wanted her to, docile and compliant, she would so loathe herself that within a only a few years she would have become what they wanted: a perfect wife and mother, her mind empty of will, her heart devoid of hope for she would have forsaken her God and lost herself.

“How neatly you have it planned,” she said, and the hate tasted strong in her mouth. “But I have a better plan. You’ll like it, Robert—it’ll save you money and you can still feel just as righteous. Instead of hiring servants, Matthew can just bring some of his whores to live in the house with him. He’ll get from them all he ever wanted from me, with variety to boot, and from time to time you can get a judge to declare them insane and throw them out for new ones. You can live gay as a goose in a gutter. And better to have the children reared by cheap carrion than by a woman who dares to believe in an inconvenient God.”

Captain Lower blushed. “Madame, mind your language.”

“Forgive me. I forgot we were being polite about this. You’ll stand there, Captain, and let them do to me what they’re doing, but I mustn’t use crude language. Well, that’s the truth of it. My husband goes to whores while I’m at church, and yet I’m insane to take my children and leave him.”

“Not in front of the children,” Robert said.

“Maybe if I charged you money, Matt, you’d like me better.”

“Dinah, please,” Matt said.

She was trying to hurt them, but they only looked embarrassed. There were no words that would serve her as weapons. In despair she screamed so loudly that it ripped at her throat: “Have I no friends here! Is there no deliverance!”

Her words reached from bow to stern, and in the highest rigging the sailors fell silent. And in that silence, which no one dared to break, she felt herself fill with light. There was one deliverer that would come when no one else could help her. He burned her, but she knew his touch within her flesh. He was the one who had called her to cross the ocean; he called her still. And because he wanted her, she must go. Must go, but not without a price. Not without a sacrifice, and the sacrifice was a broken heart. The sacrifice was to give up her children for God. If she stayed in England, it would be a decision to reject that inward light; it would leave her and never return. And what then would she have to give her children? What sort of mother could she be? Hating herself, there would be no love left in her. She would be a stranger in her own house, an alien in her own body. She would not stay in England. Rather than do so, she would suffer her life to end.

“Matthew,” she said to him, her voice a painful whisper. “As God is my witness, I would rather lie in a grave than live with you. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, I’ll never forgive you for this morning. I’ll fill your home with hatred. I’ll weep when you’re happy, I’ll rejoice when you fail, and every hour of every day until you die, I’ll see to it you know how much I despise you. It’s the only weapon I have, my hate for you, but I’ll drive it in you to the hilt, and deeper if I can.”

“Good God, woman,” the constable whispered.

“Let her stay,” Matthew said. There were inexplicable tears on his cheeks.

“It’s just the way she feels right now,” Robert said. “Bring her home, she’ll soon change.”

But for once Matthew had understood Dinah. “I said let her stay. There’s no healing this day’s blood.” He turned and walked away, the children in his arms. Honor cried out for her mother, and Val had understood enough to be afraid. “Come with us, Mama!” he called.

Dinah watched Matt walk to the brink. She was so filled with light that she could hardly see. Matt turned and faced her, and from that distance shouted back to her. “I’ll teach them to hate you!” he cried. “I’ll always tell them that you left because you didn’t love them!” But her heart was so full of fire that she could not feel pain now, could only watch as mute as a deer being torn by wolves as the stranger carried off her little ones. This was the plan of her life. This was the way it was meant to be. She had surrendered herself to God, and this was the first gift he gave her. “I’ll never divorce you!” Matt shouted. “You’ll always be my wife!” And at that moment the sun broke above the western sea, and Matthew winced at the blinding light. The constable came to him and carried Val down the ladder. Matthew, his last hope of winning her gone, climbed down after him, holding Honor in his arms, looking weak and beaten and older because of the day’s work.