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

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

She then told me what had taken place. It appeared that the night before Elder Shrewsbury had gone up into Mary’s room to speak to her about some matter of importance. Although living in the same house, she had not seen him for several weeks, and the mere fact of being in his presence agitated her. He told her he had come to talk about her child—little Mary, called Mary after her mother. For some reason or other, which nobody then seemed to understand, Elder Shrewsbury had taken a fancy that the child should be separated from her mother; he wanted to send her to stay with his other family in the Settlements, and it was for this purpose he came to see Mary that night. It certainly did seem the refinement of cruelty to separate the child from her poor mother, who would thus have become, as one might say, doubly widowed; and I am strongly inclined to question whether Elder Shrewsbury’s motives were of the purest kind. It is, however, only just to state that subsequently, when speaking to a friend about the matter, he said that he had long noticed in his wife what he considered were incipient symptoms of madness, and he thought that his duty towards the child imperatively demanded that he should immediately take her away from her mother. He added—as was indeed true—that his other wives in the South would have taken the greatest care of her.

Mary was furious when the proposal was made to her. She bitterly upbraided her husband for all his cruelty and neglect; she cursed him for his perfidy, and she avowed that nothing but death should separate her from her little girl.

Elder Shrewsbury trembled at the anger of his poor forsaken wife, and he crept out of her room and downstairs. But Mary could not be appeased. She went to the room of the second wife—the only creature in the house, besides her little girl, with whom she sometimes condescended to hold intercourse—and there she acted in a very wild and extravagant way. It was with great difficulty that she was at last persuaded to lie down and take a little rest. She would not go to her own room; so Ellen—the second wife—persuaded her to remain with her all the night. She lay down, but did not sleep. She muttered strange things, and by-and-by sat up in the bed and spoke as if people were present whom she had known years and years ago. Ellen was frightened; but out of love to Mary, and not wishing that others should see her in that crazy condition, she did not call for help, thinking that presently she would fall asleep, and in the morning all would be right. But the long night passed away, and just before daybreak Ellen fell into a sort of fitful slumber. It would seem that just then poor Mary discovered for the first time that she was not sleeping in her own room, and that her little daughter was not with her. Distracted as her mind was, she probably thought that they had stolen the child away, and went in search of her.

She found her way to her own room, and then what happened no one, of course, could tell. She must have seen that her child was safe; and it is not unlikely that, reassured on that point, she felt that she needed rest, and thought that it would be best to take some sedative to produce the sleep which she believed would restore her to herself again. She had in her room a little leather medicine-chest—a very useful article for any one travelling, or to keep in the house—and to that she must have had resort. Certain it is, that when, an hour later, Ellen awoke and went to see what had become of her husband’s first wife, she found the little medicine-chest open upon the bureau, Mary lying upon the bed, apparently asleep, and a faint sickly smell, which one better versed in such things would have known was the smell of opium, pervading the whole room.

Ellen began to scream and call for help, and one of the women about the house, who was up at that early hour, came to see what was the matter. She, upon hearing what Ellen said, rushed downstairs shrieking for assistance. Fortunately for every one, Elder Shrewsbury, who had just risen, was standing in the hall-way below. He took hold of the noisy woman and asked her what was the matter; and after hearing all she had to say he sent her to attend to her domestic duties, with a strict injunction to say nothing to a living soul about what she had seen or heard.

Elder Shrewsbury then went up to Mary’s room, and there he learned that all that the silly woman had just said to him was quite true. He, however, betrayed no emotion. Very calmly he put the stopper back into the laudanum bottle, then looked at his watch and hesitated, all the while that pale-faced Ellen was looking anxiously at him, wanting to know what she could do. After a few moments of indecision, Elder Shrewsbury turned to Ellen and said, “Yes; go for the doctor.”

Ellen flew upon her mission.

Meanwhile, Elder Shrewsbury looked towards the bed where poor Mary lay—Mary, for whose love he had perjured his soul—Mary who never would have been his had he not given that sacred promise, the breaking of which made him an outlaw from heaven and a thing to be despised of men. He looked for one single moment at his poor wife as she lay there, and then he turned upon his heel and went out of the room. For the wealth of all the world I would not feel as that man felt, if the thoughts which then crowded upon his brain were what, for the sake of our common humanity, I trust they were. The remembrance of the life which his folly or fanaticism—it matters little which—had blasted; the thought of that solemn vow which he had taken to love her only and for ever; the sight of that dear one to whom he had once plighted his troth, now desolate, forsaken, almost maniac in her wretchedness. Oh God! what a curse was there for any man’s soul to bear!

The physician, when he came, administered an emetic and made them walk the patient about the room. Ellen and the friend of Mary who was present volunteered for this service. They supported her, one on each side, and paced her round and round the room, thus compelling her to exertion; and from time to time they made her swallow doses of strong coffee, in which a little brandy had been mixed. When, at length, signs of returning consciousness were apparent, the physician left, promising to call again in the course of the morning.