John Stevens' Courtship
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Now, this was a thing which John had never before contemplated. In all his past associations with the girl, no matter what coldness, neglect or discouragements he had experienced, he had never for one moment despaired of some day winning her for his wife. He knew intuitively something of human nature, and besides that he had felt in the depths of his own soul a whispering assurance that the girl belonged to him, and that his claim to her was one which had existed before they came to this earth. Therefore he had quietly gone along, never seeking to urge himself or his attentions upon her nor indeed upon any girl; he had concealed from her as from everyone else the secret of his preference, and he had lived for years with the hope in his heart which made his daily sunshine and sweetened his every night vision. Yet now, with awakened consciousness on his part, he found himself forming an invincible resolution never again to permit his thoughts or his love to go out to this girl who had given him at one time plain encouragement, and who had since, for no reason whatever, turned upon him a colder, prouder face than she had ever done in the old days before she had guessed his secret.
He sought, with the old Puritanic inheritance of self-investigation, to fathom the cause of this resolution. He found his mind distracted from the sermon which had been so interesting, and involuntarily he turned around to look at Dian herself to see what expression she had now upon her face, and to see if perchance her looks might have had something to do with this strange decision. She looked as serene, as unconscious, as a statue. Her face looked slightly weary, as if she, too, had lost interest in the sermon, and her thoughts were on something else. But she did not look at John, and even if she knew where he sat, she seemed to avoid meeting his eyes.
As John's gaze left her witching face, and his eyes traveled over the choir seats, he observed Ellie's vacant seat, and he felt suddenly that Ellie had something to do with this decision. What and how did Ellie effect this? John was not an impulsive man, his thoughts were deep and rather slow in forming. He allowed his mind to play upon this thought which had come to him, and it seemed to him that a veritable inspiration flashed upon him that Ellie was in danger, and that she needed him. He had no superstitious notion that he could hear Ellen calling him, that is the way he would have put it to himself; yet if he had been a more imaginative man, he would have said that he could hear her voice in his soul pleading for help in her hour of extremest peril.
However it was, he was so strongly impressed that he struggled as long as he could to restrain the feeling which gave him no peace, until he finally arose and went out of the meeting, and hastened down to the home of the Tylers, and inquired for Ellen. Aunt Clara was at home, getting dinner for the rest of the folks who had gone to meeting, and she answered his knock at the door.
"Ellie, why, she is not well this morning, and she is still in bed. She did not sleep much last night, and I told her to lie still this morning, and she could perhaps go to meeting this afternoon."
John sat and chatted a while with his old friend, Aunt Clara, but he did not mention the dreadful impression which he had felt that morning, and he told himself again and again what a silly thing it was for him to give way to such notions.
He heard later from Tom Allen that Ellen was at the afternoon meeting and he added that fact to the scolding he had administered that morning to himself, and assured himself that there was plenty of time to try and persuade pretty Ellen Tyler to accept him and his home as her future destiny.
XXXII
"SOUR GRAPES"
A few hours later, just in the cool edge of the late afternoon, John found himself eagerly looking over some new daguerreotypes of various of his friends in the shop of Marcena Cannon, the photographer, on Main Street. He was so busily engaged that he did not notice the slight noisy wrangle of some drunken men on the street until he saw a group of them darken the small doorway of the tiny shop. As his glance caught the fact that they were soldiers, he withdrew into the shadow and waited for developments. He was unwilling to embroil himself with these men, and yet he had caught sight of the dissolute face of Captain Sherwood in the crowd, and John remained to watch.
"Hello, Mr. Cannon," cried the tipsy captain, "we want our pictures taken. Can you take the picture of a gentleman as well as the ugly mugs of these d – d Mormons?"
The face of the photographer was drawn into a sneer of contempt for the insult thus offered himself and his associates, but he only said:
"Men in my profession must be as willing to try their hands at painting a fool as they are to take the likeness of an honest man. Are there any honest men in your party who want to pose before my camera?"
For answer the captain only leered about the shop, pausing unsteadily before first one picture and then another; finally he caught sight of a large daguerreotype of President Brigham Young, done by the enterprising pioneer photographer Marcena Cannon. Steadying himself in front of this picture, Sherwood raised his pistol, and shot through it, the bullet embedding itself in the wall behind. His marksmanship was so unsteady that only the corner of the canvas was riddled; but the soldiers surrounded their captain at once, fearing that his overt act might precipitate some trouble. Sherwood yelled out as his shot rang into the dim silence of the room:
"That's the way I'd serve the old scoundrel if I could get him in the same place."
Instantly the room filled with street-loungers, although the sound was no unusual one in those unhappy Salt Lake days. As the smoke cleared away, Captain Sherwood found himself looking down the muzzle of John Stevens' own revolver, while a cool, grating voice hissed in his ear:
"Git out, vermin."
The soldier, sobered by his own folly, found his small squad of men were vastly outnumbered by the civilian police who now crowded into the tiny room, and without further parley he assumed a braggart air, and swaggered out of the place.
"'He who runs away'," quoth Charlie Rose, who was at John's elbow by this time, "'may live to fight another day.' But then again he may not. You can't sometimes always tell. Little Captain Sherwood may reach the place of his own seeking sooner than he anticipates."
The incident only served the better to reveal the unprincipled character of a man whom already poor John hated with a righteous vigor.
As the drunken captain, now somewhat sobered by his recent escapade, clanked noisily down Main Street, followed by his squad, he saw Diantha, clad in her usual comely habit, coming toward him. Instantly alert to any possible results of this chance encounter, Captain Sherwood straightened himself, and endeavored to assume his usual elegant swagger. But if he had removed the traces of his recent debauch from his walk, it still lingered in the dusky flame which burned in cheeks and chin, and above all there still glittered in the dusk of his leering eyes that signal of danger which thrills every weak human creature who beholds that black flag. Captain Sherwood sober had much to recommend him to polite society – but Captain Sherwood drunk betrayed the devil within him. Drunk or sober, he was the acme of grace, and it was with customary lightness that he swept off his blue cap and carrying it to his heart he bowed low with exaggerated politeness to the frightened girl, now opposite him.
With small trace of the raging fear within her, the girl turned her head proudly away, and with a slight motion of mingled fear and disgust she drew her skirts aside as if to avoid possible contact, and walked coldly on, leaving a short, dismayed silence behind her, as the men watched with common interest this second rout of their dissolute companion and superior officer.
"You won't speak to me?" the captain muttered thickly to himself; "well, my tragedy queen, I know somebody who will."
To his men he only gave the word of command and the party were soon astride of their horses and riding rapidly into the south.
It was Diantha's first experience with such evil forces; and after she was well out of sight she flew to her home, with her heart clamoring at her throat for swift release. Flinging herself down upon her knees she buried her face in her pillow as she sobbed out her broken prayers to that living Father whose tender protection she had never before sought with such abject humility. After her heart had ceased to pound in her neck, she scolded herself for a stupid coward of a girl – to be frightened in broad daylight, and on Main Street, where there were plenty of good men to protect her in case of real danger. Fright has no reason, has only eyes to see and ears to hear the nameless possibilities which sweep the spirit out into formless space. Presently the still small voice of reason reached her consciousness, and as thought settled quietly down upon its throne in her troubled soul, the question flashed along her mind: "Why is that man hanging around Great Salt Lake City so often of late?" Then – "Ellen?" was questioned and answered in a second illuminating thrill of pain.
Without another moment's hesitation, Diantha sprang up, bathed her face, and the fear that had oppressed her for her own safety was transferred to her friend.
Ellen was churning in her cool, quiet buttery. She greeted Diantha coldly, then bade her bring a chair for herself from the kitchen.
"No, I will stand," answered Dian, too excited yet to talk calmly. "I have had such a fright!" And she proceeded to relate her recent experiences, not adding to nor taking from one single point; the truth was brutal enough to this sheltered, pure-minded, unsophisticated girl. With that awful truth she had come to warn and shield her dearest friend.
Ellen listened with her brooding eyes fixed upon her frothing churn-dash. When the story was fairly told, she offered no word of comment.
"What do you think of that?" asked Dian, anxious to obtain her friend's point of view.
"I don't think anything," Ellen said, at last.
"Why, Ellie, he was dead drunk."
"How could you tell such a thing as that?" asked Ellen, judicially. "What do you or I know about drunken men?"
"Oh, his eyes, and his red face – and – and – everything – " stammered Diantha, confused to be thus put at a disadvantage, and upon the witness-stand. "And there was something so terrible about him every way that I just shuddered when he looked into my eyes."
Still Ellen refused to discuss the matter. Dian persisted:
"You can't think what a fright I was in. If you could have just seen him – "
The sullen listener busied herself with her churn. And at last, she sat down to work over her butter.
"Ellie," coaxed Diantha, "what do you think about the thing, anyway?"
The weak, delicate character of the love-sick Ellen had been turned from its own natural candid sweetness into the gall of secretive obstinacy, by her concealed passion; and when she was thus adjured, she simply raised her dash to clean off the remaining globes of gold, as she said, tartly:
"If you want to know what I think about you, Dianthy Winthrop, I'll tell you – 'sour grapes'!"
Diantha was too frankly surprised for a moment to do aught but stare stupidly at the lowered face opposite her. Then suddenly comprehending, she said icily, her lips drawing into a sharp line across her face:
"Do you think I have made up all this story? That I am jealous? Jealous of a vile, wicked soldier? Oh, Ellen, you surely can't think such a terrible thing as that!"
"Would it be the first time you've been jealous of me?" asked the girl. Dian's truthful memory received this home-thrust in silence; but she was not thus to be thrown from her purpose.
"But, Ellen, he was drunk! Drunk, I tell you! And he is not fit to wipe your shoes on."
"Sour grapes," muttered the scornful lips of the girl before her.
"Ellen Tyler, I came here with an honest desire to give you a friendly warning. I don't imagine for one moment that you need it any more than I do, or that you are not just as good and just as wise as I am – maybe more so. But I am beginning to see things as they are: the glamor and glory and romance which once so fascinated me is fading away, thank God – anyway as it relates to men who drink and carouse or who do wrong. And especially do I begin to see how unsafe we are associating with any man outside this Church and kingdom. I have done my best to warn you, as Aunt Clara and my brother have warned us both time and time again. We are two orphaned girls, but God has sent us repeated warnings through our best friends and guardians to listen and obey. We girls may or may not come to harm when we follow our own path, but we can never come to a good end if we disobey the counsels of those who have a right to give us such counsel. I am going to try and heed that warning counsel. I dare not disobey. It is bred in my very bone to give heed to the voice of wisdom. I felt a strong impression that you needed this warning, too, and I have given it. I think now that I shall go to Aunt Clara and tell her exactly what I have told you."
Ellen's eyes lifted quickly. But with the subtle deceit of a weak, inwardly-selfish soul she said, smoothly:
"Don't bother to tell Aunt Clara, Dian. You have told me, and I will remember all you say. It might only worry Aunt Clara when there is no need."
Only half convinced, but wholly appeased by this seeming flag of truce, Diantha chatted with her friend awhile on indifferent things and then went away, resolved to seek some convenient opportunity after the Conference was well over to have a long talk with Aunt Clara.
Alas, that we wait for these laggard opportunities, instead of boldly going out to meet them in the highway! It is well to consider well before we do evil, but good should be done on the impulse.
The next morning, which was Sunday, Ellen was at her post in the choir, and John hurried home from meeting at noon to make arrangements with a friend to take his place in the evening so that he could spend that Sunday evening visiting with Ellen.
All afternoon he gently forced his mind to dwell solely and wholly upon the real sweetness and charm of pretty Ellen Tyler. He fancied what a dear little wife she would make and he drew all sorts of domestic pictures of what home with such a fond little wife would be. He knew she was good, true, lovely, and although weak in some points, he was sure that marriage would give her all the strength and force necessary for her perfection as a woman and as a saint. Yes, John had decided to marry – not Dian Winthrop, but sweet, impulsive, pretty Ellen Tyler – if he could get her! If he could! Ah, if he only could!
XXXIII
WHERE IS ELLEN?
As the chill evening closed in that Sabbath night when the city was stilled of all its Conference bustle, – for Conference had been adjourned to meet again in six months – John Stevens hurried down to spend the quiet evening hours with Ellen Tyler. He had resolved to ask her to be his wife, and if she happily consented, he should insist that no delays of months or even weeks were necessary, but the sweet June month, not far away with its rose-blown days and its fragrant, mellow nights, should see their wedding day with its tender promise of loving reality.
"Well, Aunt Clara," he said to that good lady, "I am here again, you see. Who comes so often as I do?"
"No one that is half so welcome," she answered gently, with her kindly smile. "Come right in, John, and let me take your hat."
"How are you all, Aunt Clara, and I suppose I may as well out with it: where is Ellie?"
"We are well, John, and so is Ellie. She got over her little sick spell all right, and went to meeting this morning. But she is not at home tonight, nor will she be for a few days. I let her go home with the Meachams, who live in Provo, you know. I have had to be away from home so much this winter and spring, nursing the sick, that Ellen has been real lonesome. I felt a little sorry to let her go, for I don't like our girls away from home these times. However, you know I can't always have my way, and Ellen teased so long, and Brother Meacham said he would be very careful of her, and as she promised to be back inside of two weeks, I just had to let her go."
"Where did the Meachams stay, while they were here, Aunt Clara? Did they put up with you?"
"Oh, no; you know we had all of Jane's folks from Davis County, and we had eight of the new arrivals from England, some folks that Brother Kimball told to come here; they had been so kind to him while he was in England."
"I wonder where the Meachams did stay, then?" asked John, uneasily.
"I ain't sure, but I think they camped in the Tithing Yard; you know they have a good wagon, and as they are pretty independent, they would rather do for themselves than to stay with anyone, unless it was an own brother or sister."
John picked up his hat with his usual slow, decisive motion, and refusing Aunt Clara's warm invitation to stay awhile and chat with her, he left the house, with his long, swinging strides, and was soon out of the gate, on his way to the Tithing Yard. He did not stop to ask himself why he was going there, for he knew that most of the teams which had camped there would be on their hurried way for home, as soon as the Conference was once closed. Yet he walked as rapidly as was possible for him, and he told himself that all he hoped to find out was what hour the Meachams left, and who else was with Ellen Tyler.
It was a dark night in the early spring. Once inside the yard he made his way through the mass of debris and over outstretched wagon tongues to the one lone campfire burning brightly in a distant corner of the yard. The children were sitting with sleepy, bent heads upon their mother's knees, listening with all but unconscious ears as one or another gave the company the benefit of some imitation of Yorkshire dialect, or spun a yarn in canny Scotch. As John approached the group, he noted one face, with a positive start.
"James Meacham," he called out, unable to contain himself, "I thought you were on your road to Provo. I was told you had started this afternoon; and also, that you had Ellen Tyler with you, who was going with your wife and daughter to make a short visit. How is it I find you here?"
"Well, Brother John, you find me here because I am not there; I did not start, because I was not ready to start. And I haven't seen your precious young friend, Ellen Tyler; no more has my wife, nor my girl Maggie, I think. She was to be here tonight to let us know if she could go down with us. And what's more, I am wondering why it is you are so particular to know. Are you going to marry that fine young woman?"
"Where is Sister Meacham?" asked John, in a low tone, unheeding his friend's raillery.
"She is just gone to bed in the wagon. Here, Maggie," he called, at the side of the wagon, as he led the way for John, "here's John Stevens huntin' up pretty Ellie Tyler."
"Sister Meacham, have you seen Ellen today, and do you know whether she went to Provo with anyone else?"
"Why, Brother Stevens, I saw Ellie yesterday, and she told me she was going to go with us down to Provo for a day or two, but she hasn't been around today, and as I thought maybe she was wanting to get a bit readier. I asked James to wait all night and we would go down to Tyler's in the morning on our way out of town and pick Ellie up. Have you been down to her house? I guess she is there, all right."
John said a few hurried words, and then hastened away in the silent night, leaving the Meachams with a little wonder on their minds, but no suspicion of anything serious. He remembered that Ellen often stayed at Winthrops over night when Aunt Clara had to be out nursing, and he would go there before he gave way to the horrible doubts and fears that were nearly overmastering him. His knock at the door was answered by Diantha herself, and she held out her hand to John with a pretty attempt which began at serious coldness, but which ended like an invitation to forgive and forget. John did not see her outstretched hand. He was too full of other emotions to even see the welcoming sparkle in her blue eyes. He merely took off his hat and asked laconically:
"Is Ellen Tyler over here?"
"No, I've hardly seen Ellen for weeks, that is, except at a distance." Her manner was cold at once. He had come hunting another girl.
John's next words dispelled this coldness, and communicated to her something of the excited fears which tore the breast of the man before her.
"Diantha, Ellen Tyler left her home this afternoon just after meeting, telling Aunt Clara that she was going to Provo with James Meacham's family to spend a fortnight. Aunt Clara is near worn out with nursing and Conference visitors, and consented to let Ellie go for two weeks. Ellen took her clothes with her, and bade them all goodbye. She is not with the Meachams, who are still encamped in the Tithing Yard, nor is she at home nor here. Where is she?"
Diantha looked with fixed, widening eyes at the pale face before her, and she repeated slowly and mechanically, as if too stunned to think:
"Where is she?"
XXXIV
IS SHE AT THE CHASE MILL?
Diantha turned without another word to John, and, flying upstairs, she was down in a moment, with a shawl thrown around her shoulders and head.
"Come," she said, breathlessly.
"Where are you going?"
"Over to Aunt Clara, to ask her what to do. My brother Appleton is away, and Aunt Clara will know better than anyone else what to do."
They sped along in the cool, spring evening, not exchanging one word, for both hearts were heavy with the weight of remorse. Each knew that the word of inspiration had warned both that Ellen was on dangerous ground, and each knew that the word had not been heeded to the extent that it should have been.
"Oh, for one moment to undo the past," was the pitiful tale which each heart was telling its silent listener.
Aunt Clara's face whitened with a pallor like their own when the whole story had been told; but in spite of the sure feeling of catastrophe which assailed all three, Aunt Clara was too wise to allow fear to master her.
"Now, don't go to imagining that Ellen has run away because we can't just now get trace of her. Everything will turn out all right. You haven't half looked for her. She may have gone down with the Harpers instead of the Meachams. Or, she may have gone out to the Chase Mill, for you remember she did not see me the very last minute. She bade us goodbye before we went to meeting, for she said she would not wait till we got home, we always stay so long talking, and she wanted to get off. No, the thing to do tonight is to find out if she is at the Chase Mill. You see, if the Meachams have not gone, she may have found a chance to go down to the mill over night, thinking she could go on with them in the morning."
There was a very faint glimmering of hope in this suggestion, and without saying anything further, it was arranged that John should get permission from the President for a three days' absence from his duties as night guardsman, and then he should come for both Aunt Clara and Dian in his own light spring wagon with a cover, for Dian would not listen to the others going without her. She felt so unhappy that she could scarcely bear her own sorrow, and she would have followed them on foot, so great was her anxiety to know the whole truth about her beloved friend.
She sat with Aunt Clara, telling her, now that it was too late, all the things that she knew and suspected of Ellen; of the night of the Christmas ball and of her subsequent determination to give John up entirely to Ellen; and of how Ellen had avoided her all winter, and how she had not broken through her reserve, for she had thought it was due to a little jealousy on Ellen's part on account of John. She also told her of how skilfully Ellen had parried all her questions and all attempts to draw her out the night they slept together; lastly she told of their stormy interview the day before.
All this the girl told with streaming eyes, and broken, sobbing breaths. Her self-reproach and agony were terrible, and Aunt Clara wisely allowed the first flood of her grief to spend itself before she interrupted or tried to calm the excited girl. At last, however, the elder woman saw a chance to relieve in a measure the unnecessary remorse, and she asked gently: