An Englishwoman in Utah: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

To my mind there was something inexpressibly painful in all this. When Mary did not come to see me, I would call round at her husband’s house, and try to draw her out from her melancholy seclusion. It was very seldom that I saw Elder Shrewsbury, and I cannot say that I wished to do so. He had, as his wife told me, undergone a complete change since I knew him in England. The open look, the upright bearing, the earnestness of speech, which then characterized him, were now gone for ever. He was still a handsome man, rather portly, and evidently well to do in the world; but there were lines about his eyes which ought not to have been seen in the face of a man of his years; and his lips, without uttering a word, told their own story.

Heartbroken and wretched, weary of life, and yet with no hopeful assurance of life beyond the grave, poor Mary lived on year after year, while those who seemed to dance in the very sunshine of existence were cut off like the summer flowers in the harvest-field. Lately, however, I thought I saw symptoms of a change. I noticed that she was perceptibly growing thinner and thinner; her eye seemed brighter, and there was always a flush upon her cheek, which would have been beautiful had it not been for the seal of melancholy which was stamped upon every feature. But the brightness of the eye, and the flush upon the cheek, were not symbols of health, but the imprint of the finger of death.

She did not know this. Though she longed to die, she little thought that death was so near her. Sometimes she would talk almost happily of the old by-gone days; then she would sit brooding over her griefs; and then again she would talk anxiously about the future of her little daughter. I had seen other wives as wretched as poor Mary was—ay, more so, for they had abject, grinding poverty superadded to all their woes; but, more than for any other I felt for my poor friend, and exerted myself to the uttermost to comfort her. In this I had been to a certain extent successful. She would appear for a time a little more cheerful, but it was not long before she relapsed into her habitual melancholy way.

That which troubled me most of late, in my intercourse with Mary, was the fact that she was always talking about death. This certainly was no matter of surprise to me, but it was very painful. Over and over again she would discuss the question whether, under any circumstances, suicide could be justified, and whether if any one, in absolute despair, were to take away their own life, God would ever pardon them.

I would never enter into such subjects as these, for I considered that such conversation showed a morbid condition of mind, and could not possibly be of any good to either of us, and would only suggest harmful thoughts. But again and again Mary reverted to the subject, and I really at last began to grow quite anxious about her.

It was not, therefore, with surprise that I received the summons that morning. I did not wait to ask any questions about the poisoning, but hastened to the bedside of my unfortunate friend, trusting that I might yet be in time to render some assistance.

I found her lying on the bed, partly dressed, and, as it seemed to me at first, asleep. There was, at the bedside, and bending over her, the second wife, who was in as much trouble as if the sufferer had been her own sister. The poor girl had been weeping, and was evidently very much distressed. There was also present in the room another sister, whom I recognized as a friend of Mary’s. The little daughter of the unfortunate woman was there as well. One person, whom every one would naturally have expected to see at the bedside of a dying wife under such circumstances, was conspicuous by his absence—I mean, of course, Elder Shrewsbury himself.

I sat down on the bed, beside poor Mary, and took her hand in mine. It was cold but damp, and her breathing was somewhat heavy. She was still unconscious. I asked the pretty pale-faced girl—the second wife—who was bending over her, how it had all happened, and whether they had had a doctor.

“Oh, yes,” she said, sobbing all the time; “we sent for the doctor, and he has only just gone. He said he had done all he could, and that we could let her sleep on now.”