Joshua was pleased. “Very good. It’s a pleasure doing business with a professional, Mr. Wesley.”
“May I say the same to you, Mistuh Steed. I like a man who knows what he wants and is prepared to see that he gets it.” Wesley turned to Will. “And I must say, young Mr. Mendenhall, yo knowledge of the cotton trade is very admirable for one of yo age.”
Joshua thought Will would nearly pop every button on his tailored double-breasted waistcoat. “Thank you, sir.”
Wesley leaned forward, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Wait a moment. Mendenhall. Mendenhall.” He pulled at his lip. “Was yo fathuh Donovan Mendenhall, by chance?”
“Yes, sir, he was.” Will had perceptibly straightened.
Joshua’s head came up.
Was?
“Ah,” said Wesley thoughtfully, “that explains a great deal. Give my best to yo lovely mothuh. Mrs. Wesley asks about her often.”
“I will, sir. Thank you kindly. And our best to Mrs. Wesley.”
“Thank you.”
Joshua was watching Will with new interest now. He had been most impressed with Mrs. Mendenhall yesterday, but because he had assumed she was married, he had not allowed himself to let his thoughts dwell on her.
Wesley was suddenly struck by an idea. He gave Joshua a quick, appraising look, then turned to the boy. “Say, if I remember correctly, yo mama and yo daddy were good friends with the Montagues.”
“That’s right,” Will responded eagerly. “My daddy and Mr. Montague worked together for a time.”
“I remember now.” He pulled at his lower lip. “Tell you what. I’m gonna drop over and see yo mama and have y’all come out to the Montagues too.”
Will couldn’t believe his ears. “That would be wonderful, Mr. Wesley.”
Joshua tried not to look too pleased. He could think of few things that would give him more pleasure than to spend a couple of days in proximity to Caroline Mendenhall.
“Don’t y’all be sayin’ anything, now,” Wesley warned Will. “I don’t want her thinkin’ up no excuses. It’s time she starts getting out again.”
“No, sir, I won’t, sir.” There was no way Will was going to jeopardize what was developing.
Wesley turned to Joshua. “You won’t mind, will you, Mistuh Steed? The Montagues have plenty of guest rooms.”
Joshua nearly choked. “Not at all,” he managed. “Not at all.”
As Joshua and Will walked away, they moved quietly and sedately until a row of dogwood trees screened them from the view of Wesley’s offices. Joshua turned his head to make sure they were no longer in view, then stopped and looked down at Will. “Well, Master Mendenhall,” he grinned, “you’ve just been part of your first cotton deal. What do you think?”
Will’s smile nearly split his face in two. “Great!” he said, all traces of the mature young gentleman gone. “Thank you so much for taking me, Mr. Steed. And to get to go out to the plantation—that’s terrific!”
Joshua chuckled at his excitement, then he sobered a little. “Actually, I was glad I had you. When he started asking questions about whether I wanted Sea Island cotton or American Upland, I suddenly realized how little I knew.”
Will was instantly serious. “Sea Island cotton was first grown off the southern Atlantic coast. It’s kind of like Egyptian cotton. It has long, silky fibers and makes wonderful textiles. But it’s very costly because it grows more slowly and the yields are smaller. But Upland cotton, now that—”
Joshua threw up his hands, laughing helplessly. “All right, all right. Where do you learn all this stuff?” Then he remembered their previous conversation. “From books, right?”
Will shook his head slowly, his eyes dropping. “My daddy taught me.”
Suddenly Joshua understood. “Your father was a cotton factor?”
“Yes. Not a big one. He was still learning when he died. But he would have been as good as Mr. Wesley.” The last was said with fierce intensity.
“What happened?” Joshua asked quietly.
Will was twisting a corner of his coat, staring down at it without really seeing it. “He got yellow fever.”
“How long ago?”
“Two years next September.”
Joshua fell silent, feeling the boy’s grief, but also feeling his own heart skip a beat. In the South a widow was expected to stay in mourning for a year. Wesley’s comment that it was time Will’s mother start getting out indicated that enough time had passed. Feeling guilty for his soaring thoughts, he reached out and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Was your father planning to teach you to be a cotton factor too?”
Will nodded glumly. “He said when I turned eighteen we’d be partners.” He dropped the part of his coat he was holding and smoothed it out, his face struggling to hide the pain. Then he started to walk again. Joshua watched him for a moment. He had been pleased to have his young friend with him. In fact, it had given him as much pleasure as anything Joshua could remember in a long time. And then on top of that, the boy had proven his worth. Not only had Joshua been pleased, he had been grateful. And that, he was happy to recognize, had nothing to do with his growing interest in Will’s mother.
Joshua walked quickly to catch up with the boy. “I think you are going to make one fine cotton factor, Will Mendenhall.”
He looked up, brightening. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
The ear-to-ear grin suddenly erupted again. “Thank you, Mr. Steed. Today has been the best day of my whole life.”
Joshua took hold of Will’s arm and turned him so that the boy was facing him. “My friends call me Joshua,” he said soberly. “I’d like it if you called me Joshua, Will.”
Will’s shoulders came back proudly. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, I’d better get you home for your studies”—he dropped into a deep drawl—“or yo mama will skin us both and hang us out to dry.”
* * *
Arthur Wilkinson’s eyes were gray, nearly the color of a winter sky. When he was angry they changed color, becoming like the underside of a heavy thunderhead. Also, his jaw would tighten, his mouth would draw into a slight pout, and a tiny cleft in the center of his chin would appear. He always looked a year or two younger than his twenty-one years, but the changes that anger caused in his appearance made him seem all the more boyish.
Rebecca Steed watched those changes in his face now, feeling a deep sadness that it had come to this. She was tempted to reach out and smooth the cleft with her fingertip as she had done so often before, but she forced herself to keep her hands folded in her lap.
“Rebecca, I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“Of course it means something. You know that.”
They were sitting on the grass behind the Kirtland Temple. It was a clear Sabbath afternoon, the air clean and cool, with no hint of the summer heat that would soon be coming. The sunlight filtered through half-formed new leaves on the beech tree above them, dappling their faces and arms and clothing with soft patterns of light and shadow. This was Rebecca’s favorite spot in all of Kirtland, and she and Arthur often came here to talk.
“Do you love me?” he demanded.
For a moment she hesitated, considering all that those words implied, everything he would assume was included in their meaning. His eyes flashed even more darkly when she didn’t immediately answer. But finally she nodded. “Yes, Arthur,” she said softly, “I do.” She did not try to hide the pain she was feeling.
He threw up his hands. “But if I don’t read the Book of Mormon, then it’s no deal. No marriage!” His words came out sharply, snappish.
“I never said that, and you know it.”
“You asked me to read the Book of Mormon. I said I’m not interested, now you won’t marry me.”
“Do you really think I would use our love to blackmail you like that?”
His anger faltered in the face of her challenging gaze.
“Do you?” she demanded.
He finally shook his head, but it was clearly acquiescence under pressure.
“I hoped you would read the Book of Mormon because you wanted to. I hoped you would investigate the Church because you wanted to find out for yourself if it was true. I don’t want you doing it for me, Arthur. I want you to do it for you.”
“And because I’m not interested, now you won’t marry me.”
She looked away, saddened that this great gulf stood between them. And trying to tell herself they could make it work did nothing to lessen the anxiety she felt.
“Rebecca, I don’t care what you believe. If you want to be a Mormon, that’s fine with me. If you want to believe Joe Smith—”
“Joseph,” she corrected him automatically.
“
Joseph
Smith,” he said with an angry shake of his head. “If you want to believe Joseph Smith got a Bible from some angel, I don’t care. So why can’t you give me the same freedom? That’s what’s so exasperating about you Mormons. Everybody’s got to believe like you do.”
That made Rebecca’s head come up sharply. “My brother-in-law is not a Mormon. We haven’t kicked him out of the family yet. We even have him over for dinner. Right in my father’s house.”
“All right, I didn’t mean it that—”
In her anger she rode right over him. “As you know, I keep house for the Bradfords. They’re Methodists. I’m even tutoring their children a little. When the parents aren’t around, I tie the children to their beds and read the Book of Mormon to them, but they haven’t found out yet.”
He threw up his hands. “All right, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out like I meant it to.” He sighed deeply. “But if it doesn’t bother you that they’re Methodists, why is it so important to you that I be a Mormon?”
She shook her head. That was what frustrated her more than anything. He couldn’t even begin to understand what she was trying to say. She took a breath, wanting to try again, wanting to make him see. She did love him. The thoughts of being his wife left her a little dizzy with joy. But there was also the other part of her. Her heart couldn’t completely silence her head.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I clean house for the Methodist family, Arthur,” she said, fighting to keep the impatience out of her voice. “They haven’t asked me to live with them for the rest of my life. They haven’t asked me to bear their children.”
He shot forward. “Well, I have. That’s all that matters. I love you, Rebecca, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Don’t you understand that? I don’t care if you are a Mormon.”
She closed her eyes, the pain inside her so sharp that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. It was like this every time. He would demand answers, and then when she gave them he would brush them aside without a moment’s consideration. Just one week before, she had sat inside the building that loomed above them. And there the Savior had appeared. Just feet away from her. She had thrilled to that. She wanted to share her feelings with Arthur. But she couldn’t. Not about what had happened a week ago. Not about many other things. She had come today, hoping against hope that this time they could break the impasse, that this time she could get through to him. She had also come with the determination that if they failed, there would not be a next time. It was too painful for the both of them.
“May I ask you a question?” she said, looking up to search his face.
“Of course.”
“When our first child is old enough, I’m going to teach him about Heavenly Father. I’m going to teach him about Jesus. But I’m also going to teach him that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I’m going to teach him that the Book of Mormon is scripture, just like the Bible. Will that bother you?”
Now it was Arthur who hesitated. She was sorely tempted to pounce on his momentary discomfiture, but she didn’t want this to turn into a game of strike and counter-strike. Finally, he shook his head—a little begrudgingly, she thought. “I can live with it.”
“And when our child is five or six and comes to you and says, ‘Papa, do you believe Joseph Smith is a prophet?’ what are you going to say to him?”
Arthur suddenly grinned. “You keep saying
him?
” he echoed. “So it’s going to be a boy?”
The smile was more painful to her than his anger, for Rebecca loved how his whole countenance lightened when he smiled. She couldn’t bear it, and stood quickly, turning away from him to gaze at the temple. She blinked hard, fighting the tears she felt welling up behind her eyelids.
He stood too and stepped to her, taking her gently by the shoulders. “Rebecca, I don’t know all the answers. I guess I’ll just say to him that I don’t believe in all that, but you do, and if he wants to, that’s fine.”
“So at six, he must decide who is right, his father or his mother.”
His fingers were suddenly digging into her arms. “I don’t know, Rebecca!” he exploded. “I can’t see the future. All I know is that I love you and you love me. Isn’t that enough for now?”
She made no move to turn around. The moment had come. There was no escaping it. “No, Arthur,” she whispered. “It is not.”
He stepped back, jerking his hands away from her as though she had turned to fire.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” she went on, fighting the tremor in her voice. “But there is a future, and there are others in it besides you and me. I can’t just ignore them.”
She could hear his breathing behind her, and turned to face him. His face was mottled and drawn back into an ugly mask. She recoiled a step at the fury she saw there. She reached out a hand, frightened at what she had done. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I don’t want to hurt you. I do love you—”
“No!” He was raging now. “Don’t you say it! Don’t you dare say it.” He started to back away from her, his hands up at waist height, clenching and unclenching, his eyes now like two smoldering coals.
“Please, Arthur, I . . .”
Suddenly the rage was gone and he was more rigid than the huge blocks of ice the men cut from Lake Erie in the dead of winter. “Well, that’s fine. You and your Mormon church can burn in hell, as far as I’m concerned,” he hissed.
His hands dropped to his sides. He spun on his heel and stalked away. As he reached the corner of the temple, he turned his head and spat on the stuccoed surface. He rounded the building without looking back.
Rebecca stared after him. Inside her there was a searing pain, but it was far too great to be contained by the hollowness there. With one terrible, wrenching sob, she dropped to her knees on the grass and buried her face in her hands.