After that he merely suffered, torn by his reverence for Brigham, who represented on earth no less a power than the first person of the Trinity, and by the love for this child who held him to a past made beautiful by his love for her mother,—by a thousand youthful dreams and fancies and wayward hopes that he had kept fresh through all the years; torn between Brigham, whose word was as the word of God, and Prudence who was the living flower of her dead mother and all his dead hopes.
Could he persuade Brigham to leave her? The idea of refusing him, if he should persist, was not seriously to be thought of. For twenty-five years he, in common with the other Saints, had held Brigham’s lightest command to be above all earthly law; to be indeed the revealed will of God. His kingship in things material no less than in things spiritual had been absolute, undisputed, undoubted—indeed, gloried in by the people as much as Brigham himself gloried when he declared it in and out of the tabernacle. Their blind obedience had been his by divine right, by virtue of his iron will, his matchless courage, his tireless spirit, and his understanding of their hearts and their needs, born of his common suffering with them. Nothing could be done without his sanction. No man could enter a business, or change his home from north to south, without first securing his approval; even the merchants who went east or west for goods must first report to him their wishes, to see if he had contrary orders for them! From the invitation list of a ball to the financing of a corporation, his word was law; in matters of marriage as well—no man daring even to seek a wife until the Prophet had approved his choice. The whole valley for five hundred miles was filled with his power as with another air that the Saints must breathe. In his oft-repeated own phrase, it was his God-given right to dictate all matters, “even to the ribbons a woman should wear, or the setting up of a stocking.” And his people had not only submitted blindly to his rule, but had reverenced and even loved him for it.
Twenty-five years of such allegiance, preceded by a youth in which the same gospel of obedience was bred into his marrow—this was not to be thrown off by a mere heartache; not to be more than striven against, half-heartedly, in the first moment of anguish.
He thought of Brigham’s home in the Lion House, the score or so of plain, elderly women, hard-working, simple-minded; the few favourites of his later years, women of sightlier exteriors; and he pictured the long dining-room, where, at three o’clock each afternoon, to the sound of a bell, these wives and half a hundred children marched in, while the Prophet sat benignantly at the head of the table and blessed the meal. He tried to fix Prudence in this picture, but at every effort he saw, not her, the shy, sweet woman, full of surprised tenderness, but a creature hardened, debased, devoid of charm, dehumanised, a brood-beast of the field.
And yet this was not rebellion. His mind was clear as to that. He could not refuse, even had refusal not been to incur the severest penalties both in this world and in the world to come. The habit of obedience was all-powerful.
Presently he saw Prudence coming across the fields in the late afternoon from the road that led to the cañon. He watched her jealously until she drew near, then called her to him. In a few words he told her very gravely the honour that was to be done her.
When she fully understood, he noted that her mind seemed to attain an unusual clearness, her speech a new conciseness; that she was displaying a force of will he had never before suspected.
Her reply, in effect, was that she would not marry Brigham Young if all the angels in heaven came to entreat her; that the thought was not a pretty one; and that the matter might be considered settled at that very moment. “It’s too silly to talk about,” she concluded.
Almost fearfully he looked at her, yielding a little to her spirit of rebellion, yet trying not to yield; trying not to rejoice in the amused flash of her dark eyes and the decision of her tones. But then, as he looked, and as she still faced him, radiant in her confidence, he felt himself going with her—plunging into the tempting wave of apostasy.