XXVII
CHRISTMAS EVE, 1858
The days and weeks of the dry, brilliant summer and autumn flew along with dusty, burnished wings. For some time the efforts of the commanding officer at Camp Floyd were measurably successful in restraining undue intercourse between his men and the people of the neighboring settlements.
In the city of Great Salt Lake the affairs of the people went on with much the same regularity and soberness that had always characterized them. Yet, underneath every act and word, one could feel the current of silent expectation and preparation among this hunted people; expectation of anything sudden and vicious which the army of Utah might attempt to do; and a consequent preparation for defense and perhaps war. There was a small reign of terror, at times, rampant in those whilom silent city streets. While the officers might hold their own men in check, they exercised no authority over the crowd of vile camp-followers which sometimes swept up and over those city thoroughfares with a terrifying cloud of debauchery and crime.
President Young was threatened continually in divers ways; by anonymous letters; by wild and erratic apostates; and he knew through reports of authorized agents that no effort would be spared by the district judges or the military force to put his freedom and his life in jeopardy. Around him, therefore, was gathered a trusty band of his bravest and best friends; and among them was found our good friend, John Stevens. His watch at the President's office came at night, and he was therefore prevented from attending many of the parties and balls which still went on in every part of the city. Brigham Young knew his people too well to allow other and less innocent occupations to usurp the place of the dance and amateur theater.
On Christmas eve, 1858, there was to be a magnificent ball given in the fine, new Social Hall. Oh, the blessed memories clinging around that dear old hall! What scenes of enjoyment, and frolic, sweet and pure, have been celebrated within its gray walls! What hearts have met their fate, what lips have spoken the words of love eternal, while mingling in the happy dance – old and young, rich and poor! No class distinctions ever marred the festivities of that generous place! No separation of old folks from the young ever jarred upon the spirit of mutual love and confidence which marked the social intercourse of the Saints. And what wonderful plays were enacted by that remarkable company of players, headed by Hiram Clawson, John T. Caine, James Ferguson and Mrs. Wheelock and Mrs. Gibson! Dear are these precious memories to the children of the pioneers; for within these walls they learned, through definite object lessons, that religion was not merely a Sabbath affair, put on as a cloak! Ah, no; it entered into the very center of pulsating life and emotion, and was a living entity in the innocent, religious pleasures, as well as the simple, trustful sorrows of this blessed people!
"I am going to bring my dress over to your house, Dian," said Ellen Tyler, early that Christmas eve, "and get ready with you, for I want you to fix my hair; you have such lovely taste. I never look so well as when you arrange my hair and dress. And then I can get the use of your looking-glass, too."
Ellen did look lovely. She had a new pink print dress, and print dresses in those days were as superior to the common calicoes of today, as are the prices of today less than were those early standards of values. The skirt was made with dainty, flying ruffles, nearly to the waist, and edged with the prettiest of hand-crocheted lace; while the waist, full and gathered into the belt, was fitted with billowy sleeves of bishop shape. At the belt and near the left shoulder were flying bows of pink ribbon; while peeping behind the right ear, a tiny bow of pink made the chestnut brown hair richer for its suggestive contrast.
"Ellie, dear, you look just like one of Aunt Clara's spice pinks! I never saw you look so lovely. I could hug you myself for very admiration."
Dian stood afar off from her friend admiring her, and approaching Ellen at last, she bestowed upon the soft, pale cheek, a small pinch, to give the delicate tint needed to complete the exquisite picture.
"Well, it's no use telling you how you look, Dian, for I am sure you know it so well yourself; the fact of your own magnificent charm is so apparent that it is nonsense for anyone to try and flatter you."
"Are you making fun of me, Ellie?" queried Diantha, as she turned around from the tiny looking-glass to ask her question. "I know well enough that I have a passably good form, and that I do have some taste in dressing myself; but I hate these ugly red cheeks, and would give anything in this world for your clear, pale complexion."
The girl looked with a positive gleam of anger in her flashing blue eyes at the image of herself reflected in the glass, and muttered as she pretended to pinch her own rose-tinted cheeks: "Oh, you ugly, scarlet things, how I hate you!"
"It makes me unhappy, Dian, to hear you call yourself ugly. You know God has blessed you with rare gifts of face and form, and you ought not to speak as you do, let alone feeling so wicked about your red cheeks. They are lovely to me. They always make me feel as if I would like to take a bite out of them, as I would from a red June apple."
Dian was almost in tears now, at such a homely, unpoetic comparison, and her friend hastened to change the conversation.
"Say, Dian, do you think John Stevens can get off tonight to come down to the ball? I feel as if half of my fun would be gone without him."
"Oh, I don't know, I am sure. I haven't seen John for weeks. He is up at the President's office night and day, I guess."
"Well, I will have to content myself with Tom Allen, or Brother Leon, I guess, for I must have some fun with somebody. I am just wild for a frolic. I can hardly wait for Tom to come, I want so much to get to the party."
The girl was indeed full of the vitality of youth and health, and her pulse danced and tingled with expectant pleasure. She was young, lovely and loving, and she longed for love and admiration. Who could blame her?
XXVIII
THE BALL IN THE SOCIAL HALL
Arrived at the hall, the girls left their escorts at the door, and hurried into the crowded dressing room under the stage. What hand-shakings and laughing exchange of greetings they found there! What merry peals of gentle laughter! What garrulous exchanges of confidences as to the causes and effects of the day's labors and pleasures, were buzzing in the two low-ceiled, square dressing rooms that happy night!
Up from the basement came the fragrant odor of baking meats, and delicious pastry. A small army of cooks was busy preparing the elaborate supper; for this was one of the good old-time parties, for which the tickets cost five dollars in scrip or produce, or less in cash; and the guests came at early dusk, and after dancing for three or four hours, were served at the loaded tables in the basement, with the luxuries and delicacies of mountain food and mountain cooking; after eating heartily of the supper, all were ready then for the dance to be renewed until the early morning hours; at any time, however, the merry-makers were glad to cease from the gay quadrilles, and listen to the wise counsel or appropriate remarks made, perchance, by the Presidency of the Church or other good speakers, who were ever the merriest and best dancers in the room. At these innocent revelries also, there was a grateful lack of unholy passions and impure thoughts and words begotten by the too frequent round dancing of novel-reading youths.
"Did you ever, in your life, see Diantha and Ellie look so pretty?" asked more than one unselfish mother, as the two girls came up the little stairway from the dressing room, into the main hall, followed by their cavaliers.
Diantha was entrancing in her simple, straight-skirted, pale-blue slip – for she scorned the balloon-like hoops of the day – with no ornament save the pale gold masses of her luminous hair, and the rich pink and white of her unappreciated but glorious complexion. She herself disliked her chief charm, the warm, rich coloring, which gave so much glowing life and fascinating vitality to the otherwise somewhat cold expression and haughty air.
Both the girls danced with the lightest grace and the keenest enjoyment, and each was besieged with partners, for both were recognized belles in their own circle. Ellen Tyler watched and waited in vain for the appearance of her beloved friend, John Stevens. She had never heard a word of love from his lips; indeed, she had never given him direct encouragement to offer such words; but she knew that, with a little insistence on his part, she could pour out to him the wealth of her young heart. And with all her swarm of admirers, she was unsatisfied, and yearning for the love that had never been offered her. Yet she was too sweet and womanly to think for a moment of showing more interest in any man than his own interest in her justified. And so she waited and watched, trying to dance always in the set nearest the stairway which led to the outer north entrance of the hall.
She was not particularly surprised when a small boy came up to her and whispered that a gentleman outside wished to speak to her for a moment.
"Oh," she murmured in her heart, "it must be John."
She threw a shawl around her in passing the dressing room, and followed the boy outside. She saw no one when she got in the deserted doorway and was about to turn around and go back to the hall, for the lane looked very dark and forbidding at that late hour.
Just as she turned, a man with a dark cloak enveloping his whole form stepped out from the east corner of the building and, with a low bow, said softly:
"Forgive me, Miss Tyler, but the sight of heaven tempted me to try and draw out the angel, if but for one moment. I am lonesome, a stranger, and full of longing for the acquaintance of a sweet woman, be she sister or friend."
Ellen recognized the voice of her soldier acquaintance, and she involuntarily shrank back from him.
"Do not shrink from me, dear, sweet, gentle spirit. I am but a lonely, unhappy man, so near to a paradise of laughter, love and music, and yet unable to partake of one single element of all the glory that I see. You remember, even the angels are not ashamed to pity."
Just then someone came into the lane from the sidewalk, and Ellen hurriedly moved away to enter the deep doorway. As she turned, she felt a note thrust into her hand and then she was once more inside the safe precincts of the lighted, noisy building, and she put the note deep down into her pocket for future reference.
When she once more made her way into the dancing hall, she was surprised to find John Stevens dancing on the floor, and with no less a person than her dear friend Diantha. She wondered how she had missed him, but reflected that he must have come in while she was in the dressing room hunting her shawl.
"He will soon come to me," she whispered to herself, and waited impatiently for that coming.
But he did not come. Diantha and he danced together the first time and the second and the third time, and as Ellen had refused to dance, and was sitting on the side benches, she could easily follow them as the couple moved through the mazes of the quadrille and reel. Diantha's cheeks were glowing, and her eyes looked like blazing stars in the azure blue, while her lips were like the red balls on the winter wild rose bushes. And Ellen's sharp eyes noted that Diantha was not now wearing Charlie's ring. What was happening? Dian floated round with a rhythmical grace that was always so witching an accomplishment of her queenly beauty. Ellen watched and listened. She was too shrewd not to detect some meaning beneath all this throbbing excitement, and she knew that there was more than the usual effort to fascinate, in the manner of her friend Dian.
As for John, he seemed almost another man. Talk about blazing eyes; his almost burned into flame as he kept his intense gaze fastened upon the uplifted glances of his companion. He said little; Ellen could see that; but his look and his manner as he came near his dancing partner betrayed his whole secret. It was for the first time, too, for never before had he received such open, such undisguised encouragement from the girl beside him.
"John never looked at me like that," whispered Ellen in her own heart, "never, never!"
The two dancers were so absorbed in each other that they gave no heed whatever to anyone about them, and so it came to pass that the brief space of time spent by John in that eventful ball was spent wholly in the society of Diantha.
Ellen's enjoyment was all over. She felt nothing but a thrill of jealous regret, mingled with a passionate wish for another love to prove to John Stevens that she, too, could be sought and she felt as well an intense desire for the love itself. She was such a tender, clinging nature, physical love to her was not an incident, it was life itself.
When she was safely at home she opened her note and by the light of her tallow candle, she read:
"My Dear Young Friend:
"I trust you will pardon the seeming forwardness of this letter. Yours is such a gentle, forgiving nature, that you can but excuse, especially when you know that the act is prompted by as deep an affection and as earnest an admiration as could be bestowed by the heart of a man. I am heartsick and alone. I find myself filled with a love which is as hopeless as it is passionate; will you not let me at least have the mournful pleasure of expressing that love, although I know too well its hopeless character? You are so good, so pure that it cannot hurt you to become the one star of peace in a stranger's dark horizon. I would offer you all the love, protection and devotion usual to my walk in life, if I knew that I dared.
"At least, let me have the opportunity of telling you, once for all, the love that fills my whole being for the angel who saved my life at the risk of the anger and ostracism of her own people. Will you not meet me for a few happy, happy moments while I tell you of my friendship and esteem? I will be on the northeast corner of the block on which you live, with a sleigh, tomorrow evening after nine o'clock. If you wear a white scarf over your head I shall see you in the distance, and know you are coming.
"I am forever your hopeless, despairing
"LOVER."
The note was written on heavy cream-tinted paper. It bore a beautiful crest or monogram in one corner, and it was sealed delicately with pink sealing-wax, stamped with a signet ring, which bore the device of some ancient French nobleman, and it was filled with a delicious perfumery, the odor of which floated around her like a visible presence. Ellen felt in her inmost soul that she should at once destroy this letter, and go to Aunt Clara with her whole secret; but it was such an entrancing letter! And John Stevens had flouted her so cruelly. No! She would keep the letter just to read it again! And then Ellen gave herself over to vague, delirious day-dreams.
XXIX
DIANTHA'S SUDDEN AWAKENING
Three weeks after the ball in the Social Hall, the two girls were at a rag-bee at Aunt Clara Tyler's. There was the usual light gossip, and jolly laughter, and as was always the case at Aunt Clara's home, everybody felt unusually kind and pleasant. Aunt Clara had the faculty of making everybody feel desirous of doing and saying the best that was in them.
"Did you hear that Tom Allen and his girl are to be married at last?" asked Sister Hattie Jones, who was busily threading her needle.
"You don't mean it?" answered Rachel Winthrop. "I really thought he was going to 'play off' on her and marry Ellie."
"I don't know how you could think that, Aunt Rachel," said Ellen, a trifle sharply; "I have never had the least notion of trying to cut Luna out, and my friendship for Tom was of the most platonic nature, I assure you."
Mrs. Jones saw she had made a mistake, and to cover her confusion, she began on another subject.
"Our Mark says that these soldiers are getting pretty impudent around here. He says he has seen an officer riding around this ward in a sleigh every night for the last three weeks. And he says, too, that this stranger had one of our girls with him, for he saw her get out one night, and he declares it is one of the girls in our ward. But he won't tell who; he is going to get a better look at the girl, he says, before he tells anyone who it is. I declare I don't see what our silly girls are thinking of, to run around with these soldiers, who will ruin them as quick as a wink, and then if they felt like it, they would shoot 'em besides."
Diantha looked in quick surprise at Ellen, the moment this story began, and she saw with infinite alarm the sudden flush which spread over her friend's usually pale cheek; and with the quick intuition of love, she divined that Ellen was the guilty girl. What on earth could she do? The talk drifted on and on, and Diantha listened and kept her intent, loving gaze fixed upon the drooping eyes of her beloved friend. The two girls cleaned up the supper dishes. Ellen talked with rapid garrulity, as if to prevent a single word being said by her companion. At last, when bedtime came, Diantha said, as calmly and as indifferently as she could:
"I believe I'll stay all night with you, Ellie darling, for Aunt Clara is going out again tonight, she says, to nurse the sick; she has to go out so much, doesn't she? But what would we do without Aunt Clara? She is a whole Relief Society of herself, isn't she? You and I haven't had a good talk since Christmas."
"Well, all right. But," the girl added hesitatingly, "I'm afraid we'll have to sleep three in a bed, for Aunt Clara has sent Cousin Alice to sleep with me tonight."
"Never mind," cheerfully responded Diantha, resolved not to be balked in her endeavor to know more about her friend's walks and ways; "I can easily do that, for I often have extra company, and you and I don't mind crowding a bit."
The girls hurried up to their room, soon after the evening prayers were over, and Diantha looked in vain for a third bedfellow. But she refrained from asking where the invisible Alice was, for she instinctively felt that Ellen had lied to her to make an excuse to prevent the talk Diantha had resolved to have with her friend. Dian was a wise girl, and she felt instinctively that it would not be prudent to urge herself upon her friend's confidence. So she chatted on other topics, and they were soon undressed and in bed. For some reason, Dian felt unusually wakeful, and she lay for a long time awake, with a curious feeling, a sort of expectancy of something, or somebody, which made the chills of uncomfortable fear race up and down her back. But at last she fell asleep, trying dimly to account for her strange sensations, and wondering vaguely who was coming. Sometime in the night she awoke, half-startled, and in a moment she was conscious, wide awake, and in perfect control of her faculties. It was the complete instant wakefulness which comes to mothers with sick children, or to men who watch their homes and loved ones in times of danger! She wondered for one brief instant why she was not in her own room, and then it flashed over her. She reached out her hand, and although she was in some way curiously prepared for it, she found her companion not at her side, and she felt all the shock of surprised dread which that discovery would necessarily entail. She lay still a moment, trying to persuade herself that Ellen had gone down stairs for a drink, or that she had gone into Aunt Clara's room, for some purpose, and at last she called out softly:
"Ellie, Ellie, dear!"
No answer came, and she was about to get up and find a light, when she heard the front door open, and directly after, the sound of hurried, muffled footsteps running up the stairs to her room, and she knew instinctively who it was.
"Ellen?" she said at once, as soon as the door opened.
"Yes," came the breathless answer, from out the darkness.
"Where have you been?" was Dian's rather stern question.
"Down stairs after some oil. I have a sore throat."
That was the second lie her friend had told her that night. Dian knew it would be useless to try to learn anything further, for more questions would only bring more lies, and she dreaded to hear another. It hurt her that her beloved Ellen should feel it possible to tell lies to anyone or for any purpose.
Dian could hear in the darkness the swift motions of the girl unrobing, and she rashly tried another question:
"What on earth did you dress for, Ellie, just to go down stairs after oil?"
"Would you like to run all over the house such a bitter cold night as this without any clothes on?" sharply asked Ellen.
Dian lay still after that, realizing how hopeless it was to think of probing the confidence of the girl she had driven away from her by her abstractions and neglect.
Dian's thoughts were bitter and remorseful. She could see now how at times she had paid little attention to the affectionate girl by her side, and how often she had allowed their confidences to remain unspoken when she herself was absorbed in some more congenial pursuit. She saw, too, her own thoughtless selfishness – was it selfishness? Dian was loath to admit that it was selfishness on her part which had driven Ellen to seek for friendship and confidence where it was given more freely. Was she, Dian, really selfish? Or was she just self-absorbed? And which was which? Whichever it might be, Dian felt she could never again be so self-centered. She must think of others more, and of her own life less. As to who had gained this confidence, even Dian dared not think. Neither of the girls could sleep, both were too agitated for repose. But neither felt to break the strained silence between them.
"I heard today at the rag-bee, Ellen," said Dian at last, gently, "that John Stevens was coming home from that trip into the north country. If he is here tomorrow night, we will have him over to our house, and have a candy-pulling."
"You'd better have him all to yourself, Diantha, for that will please both of you, and I guess it will hurt nobody else."
Ellen spoke in so low and bitter a tone, that Dian felt unable to say anything more until she had fathomed the reason for such anger.
"What has John, or what have I done that you should speak like that, Ellie?"
"Done? Done nothing, I guess!" still bitterly. "But it didn't take any smartness or particular discernment to see what was going on between you two at the Christmas ball. I can see as far through a mill-stone as anyone else, as your sister-in-law Rachel says."
Diantha was silenced.
What could it mean; Ellen Tyler sarcastic, bitter, and deceitful? What did it all mean? Diantha lay quite still, but she could not sleep. Her past life and her own faults came before her with startling vividness and she felt that in some respects she had been a sorry failure. She hated herself for all the thoughtless disregard for other people's feelings which had at times hurt her best friends. And she knew, too, that within herself there lay a wealth of devoted self-sacrifice at the roots of her soul. Life was at last assuming an impersonal attitude to this awakening heart.
What about Ellen? One thing Dian knew, and that was that Ellen had really liked John Stevens, and what did her bitter anger and her sarcasm at herself mean? She concluded that Ellen was jealous of her. Jealous! jealous of her, Diantha! What, then? What had she done to make her jealous? To think that they two should be at loggerheads over big, silent John Stevens! She herself had always openly declared that she never could love a red-bearded man. Well, John's hair was fine and wavy and it was rich brown, any one could see that. But his long silken beard! As she thought about it, it really seemed to her to be not so bad either. The heroes in the few novels and theaters she had read and witnessed all had mustaches, silken mustaches. None of them were pictured with long beards. That was for old men and farmers. However, there was something harmonious in the long beard of the tall, silent John Stevens. As she reached this point, the girl beside her sighed a deep, heavy, heart-sad sigh, which struck Dian as very unusual, especially with sunny Ellen Tyler.
What was Ellen sighing for? Oh, yes, she was jealous of her and John Stevens. Well, what would she, Diantha, do about it? She resented the suggestion which came into her mind, that she would show forth fruits meet for repentance for all her past selfishness by now being supremely unselfish, and giving up every hope of John Stevens. Then there flashed into her mind the attentions which that wicked soldier had been paying on the sly to Ellen; and now that she thought of it, why, of course that was where Ellen had been that night. And that was the reason that she herself had felt so strangely when she awoke. Ellen was in danger, and the inspiration of the Spirit and her natural instinct had warned her of her friend's danger. Ellen had been out with him! Now that she was in possession of the whole fearful secret what should she do?
Another deep sigh by her side made Dian turn swiftly over, and putting her arms around the girl, she drew her to her and as Ellen burst into a fit of passionate weeping, Diantha stroked her hair and soothed her without asking questions or attempting to pry into the confidence of the sobbing girl. Diantha knew that forced confidence is neither full nor satisfactory. Ellen sobbed herself to sleep, after which Diantha did some very serious thinking. She made her decision at last, and then with a deep sigh from her own heart, she fell into a broken, restless sleep, which morning broke with a glad release.
What that resolve was, was shadowed forth in her next meeting with John Stevens.