A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH.
For a moment, Erma believes this extraordinary statement, and falters,
seeming almost to invite his caresses, at least not to repulse them.
Seeing this, Ralph Travenion mutters, "Thank God, you believe me!" and
flies to take her in his arms; but suddenly her dead mother's face seems
to the girl to rise between her father and herself. She shudders, turns
away from him, and says coldly: "You ask me to believe this monstrous
thing,--that for my sake you became a Mormon?"
"Yes, as God is above me!--to make you rich,--to place you above the
care of poverty,--to surround you with luxury,--the thing that has been
my one thought in life."
"Was that your thought?" cries the girl suddenly, with a face that to
him is beautiful as an angel's, but just as that of the angel's
God--"was that your thought when you entered into polygamous marriage
with those women down there? Oh, don't attempt to deny it!" for he is
about to open his lips. "I saw two of them. I was at the Sunday-school
meeting of the Twenty-fifth Ward, and beheld your hostages to your
faith--five little ones, I believe. One of them, a girl, Mr. Oliver
Livingston was kind enough to say, looked like me."
To this, for a moment, he does not reply. Then suddenly, forcing his
tongue to do his wish, he repeats: "For your sake I did that also!"
"For my sake?" gasps Erma, astounded, then cries out: "Absurd!
Impossible!" and having exhausted tears two days before, mocks him with
unbelieving laugh.
"As God is above me!"
"Prove it!"
"I will!" And so, being driven to his defence, and knowing that he is
pleading for his own happiness--for this child of his _other_ life is to
Ralph Travenion, once club man of New York City, but now Mormon bishop
of Salt Lake, the thing he loves best in this world--he begins to tell
his story, earnestly, as a man struggling to win the lost respect and
esteem of the one woman whose respect and esteem he must
have,--pathetically, as a father striving to keep his daughter's love.
His voice trembles slightly as he begins: "In New York, Wall Street
practically ruined me. The ample fortune that I had determined to devote
to your happiness and your life, Erma, my daughter, had passed from me.
I had, after leaving sufficient for your education, but a few thousand
dollars to take with me to this Western world. I had promised my old
friend to settle a million dollars on you, so that if he kept his
contract to make over a like amount to his son, you could wed Oliver
Livingston and take the place in New York society to which you had been
born. To keep this promise, I left the old life that was pleasant to me,
and came, God help me, to _this_!" He looks about the bare room, with
its rough furniture, its uncarpeted floor, its pioneer discomfort, and
out through the open window over the long waste that covers the West
Tintic Valley. And she looks also, and sees naught but sage brush,
unrelieved save by a few floating clouds of dust that, thick and heavy,
mark the course of ore-teams from the Scotia mine, making their hot and
alkaline way towards the furnaces in Homansville.
Then Ralph iterates, "I came to this life for your sake," a far-away
look getting into his eyes, for recollections of his old club life and
the friends and companions and chums of other days, and pretty yachting
excursions on the Sound, and gay opera and dinner parties and _fetes_ at
fashionable Newport, come to this exile.
Noting this, some idea of what is in his mind comes also to his
daughter, and makes her tender to him, and this change in her face gives
him courage.
He goes on, "For your sake I did this!"
"For my sake it was not necessary to be a Mormon."
"To make a fortune it was!" he cries. "I wandered about the Mississippi
for a year. At the end of that time, I was poorer than when I left New
York. St. Louis and Chicago did not seem to me a quick enough
opportunity. I came further West. I had a wild hope of making money in
furs, in some stage line, as Indian trader, but found no chance, and so,
in pursuit of one will-o'-the-wisp and another, I journeyed on until I
found myself in Salt Lake City. Here I saw a fortune for a man of
ability. The Transcontinental Telegraph Company was building its line. A
contract to supply them with telegraph poles, properly handled, would
make me rich. But it could be so handled only by a Mormon, and I joined
the Church of Latter-Day Saints,--a stern sect, who will have no
wavering disciples, no half-way apostates in its ranks. By that contract
I made a considerable sum. Then the building of the Union Pacific
Railway came, and by it I made a fortune, because I was a Mormon."
"A Gentile might also have succeeded," suggests his daughter.
"Impossible! As a Mormon, and only as a Mormon, I could hire thousands
of Mormon laborers at one dollar and fifty cents per day,--and pay them
by store orders on Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, who
liquidated them in goods at, practically, fifty cents on the dollar.
Mormon labor cost me seventy-five cents per day against Gentile labor at
three or four dollars; as a Latter-Day Saint I could command the cheap
article. That is why I joined the Mormon Church--for your fortune and
your happiness."
"Was it for my happiness that you accepted their infamous creed for the
degradation of my sex--that you entered into plural marriage--that you
are now surrounded by children of polygamy?" asks the girl, a bitter
sarcasm dominating her voice.
"THAT WAS TO SAVE MY LIFE!"
"To save your life? What nonsense!"
"Hush! Listen to me!" and Ralph Travenion speaks very low, as if he
almost feared the walls would hear him. "A year after I had joined it,
it was spoken unto me by the President that the Church doubted my
sincerity because I had not entered into polygamy. To be doubted in
those days,--in 1865 and '66,--meant the atonement of blood, such as was
carried out on Almon, Babbitt and the Parrishes--it meant being cut off
'below the ears.' Had I died here then, my fortune would have never been
accumulated for you. You would not now have a million to give you
prestige,--to give you power,--to make you reign beauty as you are. You
would not now be called Miss Dividends," and the old man would put his
arms about his daughter to caress her, and take her to his heart--for
her loveliness has made him, her father, very proud.
But Erma cries to him hoarsely, "What kind of a dividend have you given
me? _The dividend of shame!_ Society shudders and turns from me. The
Livingstons have already done so."
To this he answers, "My God, what do you mean?" sinking upon a
candle-box that does duty as a chair in this uncouth department.
"I mean this," cries Erma, "that when they discovered that I was the
daughter of a Mormon, that I had little illegitimate half-brothers and
sisters, they fled from me as if I were tainted and left me to the
kindness of Bishop Kruger."
"KRUGER KNOWS YOU ARE HERE?" This is a wail of anguish from Travenion
that makes his daughter start.
She answers him, though the old man's agitation frightens her.
"Certainly. He learnt of my coming in New York, and returned on the same
train with the Livingstons and myself to Salt Lake City. He----"
But Erma pauses, astonished and horrified, the effect of her simple
words upon her father is so tremendous.
He is wringing his hands and muttering, "They have me now. My heart is
in their hands!" Then he steps quickly to the door, and she hears him
speak to the man who has driven her from Salt Lake. "Take your horses to
the stable at Eureka. Feed and water them and be ready to return this
evening at seven o'clock."
"I don't see as I can, bishop," answers the driver. "The team won't
stand it. They are putty nigh tuckered out now."
"Then be ready to-morrow morning," he says hurriedly, and returns to the
room where Erma still sits, and sighs to himself, "I don't suppose it
would be much use. If they know you are here, they know that they have
my heart in their hands."
"Your heart in their hands? What do you mean by that?" whispers the
young lady.
"I mean _you_! You are my heart,--YOU. My darling! My pet! My treasure!
Who has put peril upon herself because she loved her old papa!" and
before she can prevent it, he has her in his arms and is pressing her to
his heart, and caressing her, and crying over her the tears of a strong
man in his extremity.
And now she struggles not, for his kisses bring remembrance of his other
kisses in happier days, in far-away New York, when she has looked for
his coming at her school, and afterwards as a young lady has flown to
this heart, that she knows has always beat for her.
After a moment, his agitation and words make her ask, "What latent
danger is there to me?"
"Nothing immediate," he answers. "Perhaps none at all--perhaps I am a
fool; for in 1871 there are many Gentiles in this Territory, and United
States troops at Camp Douglas. _But I remember!_ And the thought of
what once was, makes me fear what may now be." Then he says suddenly and
impressively, as if some new idea alarmed him, "Tell me about your trip
from New York. Omit no details. _Minutiae_ may mean safety for us both.
But first--" And it now being the dusk of the evening, he illuminates
the room with the flicker of a coal-oil lamp and the yellow glow of a
tallow dip, and places her very tenderly on the only chair in the room.
Seated on this, she tells him her story, he interrupting her now and
then to ask pertinent questions, most of them in regard to the actions
of Kruger. And getting answers that he doesn't like, he seems to grow
more despondent the more her words indicate the Mormon bishop has taken
interest in her movements.
But as she tells about Harry Lawrence, and the trouble the injunction on
his mine has brought upon the young man, the old man's eyes gleam and he
chuckles: "Yes, I rather think I have put that bantam into a business
hole he won't get out of!"
He seems so happy and so triumphant over this affair, that Erma, his
daughter as she is, almost hates him.
This brings her to her contribution to Harry's bank account, to defeat
Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake and Zion's Co-operative Mining Institution,
and telling this with some embarrassment and pauses and blushes, she
notes her father's face grow long and his features puzzled.
Then, as she describes her visit to the Twenty-fifth Ward meeting, and
Oliver Livingston's treatment of her after his discovery that she is the
daughter of a polygamist, he mutters sadly: "To see you married to
Livingston--a man of your own rank and place in New York society--has
been the hope of my old age!"
Here the girl astonishes him. She answers: "Had you been the greatest
saint this earth has ever seen, Oliver Livingston would never have had
me for his wife. Besides"--and she laughs airily--"I could have Mr.
Ollie back at my side in a week. He loves my million well enough to take
me for it."
"Then bring him back!"
"Never!"
"Never! Why not?" This last almost savagely.
"Because _I_ will not marry _him_!"
There is an enthusiasm and determination in the girl's manner that makes
this gentleman--who is well accustomed to reading men, and perhaps has
had some experience, in his plural marriages, of women--suddenly cry
out: "No, you will not wed Livingston because you love another!"
"Who is that?" says the girl, attempting a laugh, but her face becoming
very red in the dim light of flickering tallow and kerosene oil.
"Harry Lawrence, who hates Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake so much that I
hardly think he will marry the daughter of Ralph Travenion of New York!"
returns her father easily.
But Erma does not answer this. She has turned away to the window, and is
looking down the hill and over the alkaline plains, and her blushes are
only seen by a jack-rabbit who peers at her from behind a sage bush.
Then she faces her father and cries: "No matter what comes, you shall do
justice to Harry Lawrence! You shall withdraw your claim to his
property!"
"Oh ho!" laughs the Mormon. "Give up what I am on the point of winning?
Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake will never do that. That is not his style."
"No," cries the girl; "but my father, Ralph Travenion, of New York, who
was once worthy the love of all who knew him, will do justice to a
wronged man, because he still loves the daughter who has travelled over
two thousand miles to meet him here, and who he says has brought peril
upon herself, for love of him!" And looking on him, her eyes grow soft
and tender as they used to gaze at him when she was proud of him at
party and _fete_ in far-away New York, as she murmurs: "What will Ralph
Travenion do for his daughter?"
"For his daughter's sake, Ralph Travenion will do anything!" mutters the
old man; then says pathetically, almost brokenly: "For God's sake, give
me one kiss of your own will! You have spoken to me an hour, and as yet
no daughter's kiss!"
With that the girl comes to him, puts her arms about him, and kisses
him, as she used to when she was a child, and before she knew he was a
Mormon and a polygamist.
"Do with me what you will!" he continues. "What do you want for this
young man, who I can see is getting the first place in your heart?"
"Justice!" cries Erma. "I want you to telegraph your lawyer to stipulate
that the injunction on his mine be removed."
"And what more?"
"Resign your claim to his property."
"But Kruger also owns stock in the Zion Co-operative Mining
Institution."
"Buy his stock!"
"Very well, though you are robbing yourself!" mutters the man. "I'll do
it!--if--if you'll forgive me."
"I'll forgive you, if you'll let me lead you away from this awful
place--away from sin!" cries Erma.
But here he astonishes and horrifies her, for he whispers to her: "_Yes,
if we can get away alive!_"
"What is to stop us?" falters the young lady.
Before answering her, Ralph takes up the light, walks into the other
room, examines it; goes up the ladder, into the loft overhead, and
finally inspects the outside of the house; then he returns, saying: "No
one is within hearing!" comes up to her, and whispers:
"The Mormon Church!"
"What authority has the Mormon Church over me?" asks the young lady,
raising her voice a little.
"Hush! Not so loud!" he returns. "The Mormon Church claims authority
over the children, by virtue of their authority over the parent. In
ordinary cases they perhaps would not at this late date exercise it, but
in my case it is different. I am so prominent. They know to lose me
would be a blow to them. At present they have lost several rich members,
and they are desperate! And I"--here his lips approach her ear, and form
rather than say the words--his voice is so low, his lips so
trembling--"and I have been making arrangements to _apostatize_!"
"God bless you for that!" cries Erma.
To this he whispers: "You don't suppose that I ever swallowed the dogmas
of Joe Smith, which I preached as Mormon bishop? I joined them to desert
them the moment I had made what money I wanted out of these Latter-Day
Saints!" And, forgetting himself, he gives out two or three jeering
scoffs. But the next moment his face grows frightened, and he mutters:
"I have been"--his voice is very low again--"making arrangements to
withdraw all my property from this Territory. I have now in New York,
besides the million settled on you, a very large sum of money; but I
have also such a block of stock of the Utah Central Railway that, if I
sell it to the right parties, the Mormon Church will lose control of the
road; that I have not yet been able to remove. But they suspect me!" he
goes on dolefully. "I have been asked to immediately pay my tithing,
which they figure at one hundred thousand dollars for this year,
claiming that I have made a million. I have hidden the stock and I was
about to refuse, but your coming here has made that, I fear,
impossible."
Then he wrings his hands, and says: "When an apostate is cut off, he is
destroyed--root and branch. The family suffer as well as the man, and
you--and _you_, Erma--YOU!"
"Your stock! Is it near here?" asks the girl eagerly.
"Certainly." Here he whispers to her: "In case of anything happening to
me, it is hidden in the level running from Shaft No. 2 in the mine, on
this hillside. It is in a tin box under the fourth set of timbers to the
right of the incline. Remember it!"
"Why not take it? Leave to-night--fly on horseback."
"Where?"
"To the Pacific Railroad."
He laughs grimly, and taking her to the window, cries: "This is a fine
country to get out of!" Then he points over the sage brush and explains:
"To the west is the Tintic Valley--thirty miles of alkali; but, beyond
it, hills and one spring; then one hundred miles of desert, burning
sand, and no water that man or beast can drink. Could we travel over
that and live to reach the railroad? To the south,--Mormon settlements
on the Servier River--Beaver, Parowan, the very hot-bed of Mormonism.
Beyond them, Lee's Ferry on the Colorado!" And he shudders as he
mentions the name of John D. Lee, not as yet sacrificed by the Mormon
Church, for whom he murdered one hundred and thirty-three men, women,
and children, at Mountain Meadows. "After Lee's Ferry, deserts and the
Apache. To the east, Mormon settlements--Santaquin, Nephi, Juab,
Manti--and, back of them, the impassable desert-plateaus and mountain
ranges of the Rockies--mighty rivers that foam through gorges thousands
of feet deep--and Ute Indians!"
"But to the north, father--the way I came--hardly one hundred miles!"
"That is our only path," mutters the man. Then he says, doubtingly: "But
still all Mormon. We may never reach Salt Lake City."
"Who'll stop us?"
"That will never be known! But it is our one chance, and, once in Salt
Lake, I think they dare not touch me. I'll make arrangements to take you
up to-morrow. Come with me now to the hotel."
"Why cannot I stay with you?"
"Humph!" he laughs. "The hotel is better than this. There is only one
bed here. Besides, some one would say," he chuckles rather grimly,
"Bishop Tranyon has taken another wife! And I do not wish it to be
generally known you are my daughter. Then, too, I have a telegram to
send."
"Oh, yes!" cries the girl, "for Captain Lawrence!" And she accompanies
him down the trail that winds to the road coming from Silver City to
Eureka.
So, in about half an hour, Miss Travenion finds herself seated at a
comfortable supper in the hotel. And some time after--her father having
gone off to send the promised telegram--being very tired, she goes up to
her room, where she finds a clean cot bed, and goes to rest, thinking:
"If my life is ruined, his life has been, perhaps, made more happy by
this day's work--he will be rich."
So, pondering of the absent man, who is not yet her lover, yet whom she
now knows she loves, she murmurs: "He will come here to put men at work
once more upon his mine; he will learn that I am the daughter of
Tranyon, the Mormon bishop!" and shudders and writhes at the thought.
Next she says more hopefully: "Perhaps when he finds his property his
own once more he will not hate the Mormon bishop so much as he did
yesterday," and this seems to comfort her a little, for she goes to
sleep.
Early next morning, Erma is awakened by her father's sharp knock upon
the door. He whispers to her: "Quick! You must be ready to start soon!"
But, a few minutes after, coming into the hall, she hears: "Wall,
bishop, did Miss Ermie arrive all right? I saw her off in good style,
and I've come down here, first to look after the mine, and then to
consult ye on some church business. What a beautiful lamb of Zion your
darter is!"
It is the voice of Kruger, the Mormon! And Miss Travenion grows pale as
marble, for she knows that the Church of Latter-Day Saints has its eye
on Tranyon, its bishop, and Erma, his daughter, last season's
prize-beauty in New York society, and Newport's latest summer craze; but
now regarded by the Prophet Brigham and his Council of Seventy, as one
of the elect of Zion, whom God has given into their hands to save, or
lose--to elect, or to cut off, even unto the atonement of blood.