CHAPTER XXVII.
WHAT WOMEN SUFFER IN POLYGAMY:—THE STORY OF MARY BURTON.
One bright summer morning, about six months after our arrival in Salt Lake City, I was sitting in the work-room, busy with my girls, when a light tap was heard at the door, and the next instant a lady entered, and, coming straight up to me, was about to kiss me.
I started back a step, held out my hand, looked her full in the face, and in a moment we were in each other’s arms. It was my old friend, Mary Burton!
I could with difficulty find words to express my astonishment when I recognized her, so greatly was she changed in every respect. From the very first, whenever we met after a long separation, I had noticed a more than ordinary alteration in her appearance. But it must be remembered that at the time of our first re-union she had grown out of childhood into womanhood; when I met her again in New York, she had passed through the most interesting phase of a woman’s life—she had forsaken maidenhood for matrimony; and now I met her once more after she had endured those horrors on the Plains—of which the reader has already heard—and she had entered into a life of sorrow worse than any she had known before. No wonder, then, that now, as upon previous occasions, I noticed quite a startling change in her appearance. Her dress was of the coarsest and plainest kind, but neat, as was everything she touched; yet not so carefully arranged as in the old time in England. She used formerly to have a way of adjusting a dress or a bonnet so that it set her off ten times better than it would a girl who had not naturally the same taste; but now, although, as I said, her clothes, if coarse, were neat, she evidently had not taken any pains to set herself off to the best advantage; and in a woman what a story did that simple fact tell! But it was in her features and manners that the change was most remarkable. In looking at her face you would have been puzzled to say in what the alteration consisted. Her cheeks were thinner and sadly pale, but that was not the cause of her appearing as she did. Had she been older, I verily believe the anguish she had passed through would have blanched her hair and left upon her brow deep marks of thought and suffering. As it was, however, though no one feature in particular was very greatly altered, the whole expression of her face was that of one whose heart was utterly crushed and broken; and when her eyes met mine, I could hardly refrain from tears as I saw the mournful look of subdued pain, which told in them the terrific conflict which her heart had endured.
I took her to my own room—poor girl, how my heart bled for her!—and again and again I held her in my arms and tried to comfort her, for she was very weary; and at last she wept. I was glad to see that passionate flood of tears, for I knew it would relieve her, and in that I was not mistaken. She threw her arms round my neck, and, kissing me repeatedly, sobbed out, “Don’t blame me, Sister Stenhouse; don’t blame me very much; I cannot help it.”
“There, there, Mary,” I said; “be calm and you will soon be better. You must tell me all your troubles, and I will do all I can to help and comfort you.”
“There is no help, Sister Stenhouse, no comfort for me; I’m past all that,” she answered.
“Don’t say that, Mary,” I said; “I know that you have passed through a terrible amount of suffering, and have had much trouble in every way; but your husband is still alive, is he not?—and there may be many years of happiness before you.”
“It is the thought of him that makes me so wretched,” she said; “oh! I could have borne death a thousand times rather than this. I would gladly have seen him die rather than see him changed as he is now. You do not know, Sister Stenhouse, how my whole soul was wrapped up in that man, how I almost worshipped him. When we suffered so much together on the Plains, I felt happy in comparison with what I feel now. I remember that terrible night when I believed he was dying—I remember the anguish that I felt; but, oh! I knew then that he loved me and that his heart was all my own. Had I lost him, if I could myself have lived, I should have felt that he had never loved another beside me; I should have known that we would meet together again in heaven and be happy in each other’s love. After all we went through together, I loved him more and more; we seemed to live with one life; we had the same thoughts, and hopes, and pleasures; I leaned upon him, and I loved him—ah, so fondly! and, Sister Stenhouse, I know he loved me then. We were getting over the effects of our sufferings on the Plains, and I was gaining strength and was looking forward to the time when my child should be born. It was then that they came and taught him that devil’s doctrine and led him away from me. Oh dear! I cannot bear it, Sister Stenhouse, I cannot bear it; it will drive me mad!”
She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed again.