The Wedding Dress (28 page)

When Ann answered Rebecca's knock, she drew her hastily into the house. Rebecca watched her glance quickly around as she closed the door. Her greetings weren't hiding the anxiety in her eyes. As Rebecca pulled the shawl from her shoulders, she exclaimed, “Ann, what's troubling you? I'd swear you turned pale. Your peering around that lilac bush made my scalp tingle. Indians?”

“I'm sorry,” she murmured, “I've just had, well, I'm afraid.”

“Of what?”

Ann was frowning, her eyes were sharp as she studied Rebecca's face. “Girl, are you living your religion?”

Rebecca blinked in surprise. “Why, of course, Ann. What's got into you?”

“There's this foreboding spirit. Becky, answer me straight. I promise I'll never breathe a word of this. Have you been writing to that Gentile, that Joshua Smyth?”

The contempt in Ann's voice made Rebecca gasp. “Ann, of course not! I'm married.”

“Well, he seemed awful agitated and way overly polite. Kept telling me he meant no harm, but he just must see you and make sure you're all right. He didn't know you were married. Said he's tried to find you down south but no one would give him any help. Seems likely. He looks Gentile.”

A strange numbness built around Rebecca's heart. “After all this time, Joshua's come looking for me?”

“Yes, and don't you go looking like that. You're a married woman.”

“He didn't say what he wanted?”

“No. You'd have thought he was on a holy mission, he was that persistent. I finally convinced him he'd best stay away if he didn't want a load of buckshot. I promised him I'd talk to you, ask if you wanted to see him.”

“But, of course! Ann, he's practically family.”

“You was sweet on him.” She studied Rebecca's face again, slowly saying, “I had the strangest feelings while I was talking. It was like the Lord was telling me this was no regular call from kinfolks. Rebecca, my feelings tell me he's up to no good, that he's got the power to pull you straight down to hell.”

“But there's no call to feel—” Rebecca's quick retort died, and the heaviness touched her again. She was remembering yesterday. Why had she suffered this strange compulsion to read, positive that until she was settled in her mind, it would be impossible to claim the wedding dress?

Now she whispered, “Oh, Ann, do you really think so? Yesterday I was fearfully torn until I settled it in my own mind I would cling to my religion and never allow myself to complain again. Is this some trick of the wicked one to lead me astray?”

Ann's eyes were wide. “I don't know. I only know it makes me fearful inside. Becky, if it were me, I wouldn't risk it, even if he's as dear as kinfolk.”

“Then you'd better tell him—” Her voice broke; for a moment she closed her eyes. “Say it's inconvenient to see him now. Perhaps someday—” She turned and said brightly, “That's that. Now let's have our visit.”

Later the trunk was carried out. Rebecca pressed her cheek against its dear, familiar lid. Just as she opened it, Ellen and Dee came in. There were more greetings, and then Rebecca must show the dress.

“Oh, Becky! How beautiful. To think you couldn't have it in time for your own wedding. How sad. I'd postpone my wedding forever if such a dress were mine.”

Dee—still with shy eyes and silky hair said softly, “I'm afraid I'd never feel married if it were mine and I didn't get to wear it. Rebecca, try it on.”

Rebecca rushed to wash her hands spotless and then before her reverent audience, she slowly removed the old cotton wrappings. “It's like a cocoon being burst open,” Ellen whispered. “What will the beautiful butterfly become?”

Once the dress was unwound and lifted, Rebecca could only stare. She held the dress away from her to study every detail of the creamy lace and velvet rosebuds centered with pearls. “This is the first time I've had it completely unwrapped,” she whispered. The heavy silk grew warm in her hands, the musty odor of age and faint perfume became the essence of her mother. The room dimmed while warmth and life seemed to step nearer. She clasped the dress against her. “Mother, oh, Mother,” she mourned. She sobbed, knowing that her tears were wetting the dress, but more aware of the undeniable link stretching across the years. For precious moments the dress was healing the gap and shredding the curtain of eternity.

When the storm of her emotions had blown away and she was again only Rebecca alone, she was left with an aching sweetness.

Now she was shaking her head at their sober faces. “I can't—it's impossible. See, I've dampened it with my tears until it's all a soggy mess.” She turned to Ann. “I'm sorry. I've spoiled your fun. But it was as if she were here.” She took a quick breath and said, “Over the years I've dreamed of how she and Daddy must have been on that day she wore the dress. More than anything, I've wanted to wear it too. Somehow, just touching the dress—” She couldn't explain, and she turned, shaking her head. Eternity seemed more real.

The little trunk rode back to Pinto with Rebecca and Andrew. He carried it into Rebecca's house and tucked it in the corner under the bed. But he didn't ask to see the dress and, conscious as she was of that day at Ann's, Rebecca said no more about it.

The winter of 1856 came early and hard. Its heavy hand spread across the Territory with equal pressure. With the crippling cold, the loss of cattle increased. The drought's stingy yield of grain plus the heavy influx of emigrants made the position of the Saints precarious. Rebecca's harvest had seemed ample and comforting under the blaze of the autumn sun. In the dim light of a snowy November day it was a fearful little.

Barely had word trickled through the grapevine, informing her of Andrew and his new bride's housewarming, when the first snowstorm struck. Along with it came the plea to share the summer's harvest with the unfortunate of Zion. Later the frantic plea changed to frenzy, and the reformation was born. The word came from Great Salt Lake that the Saints were to pray, fast, be rebaptized. The Lord was pouring His wrath upon His sinful people. When God is pleased there would be food and freedom from the fearful attacks by the Indians.

Cora was heavy with child again, and Rebecca was filled with anxiety for her. While life had been slowly tightening its grip on Rebecca, paring her to a thin shadow, it was also moving rapidly on Cora. She, too, grew thin and pale, scarcely supplied with enough strength to care for her brood.

Fear for Cora lifted Rebecca from her own despair and loneliness. She hadn't seen Andrew since his trip to Great Salt Lake with Priscilla. Daily now, Rebecca was forcing herself out of the house, carrying extra food down the road to Cora.

One day, as Rebecca was preparing to go to Cora's, she noticed that her mother's Bible had slipped from its shelf. As she picked it up, she recalled her resolve to read the New Testament account of the second covenant. It was the resolve she had made while she and Andrew were in Great Salt Lake City.

She sighed as she looked at the snow drifted against her window. What a wonderful time that trip had been. Then the autumn had promised to last forever. She still remembered the return trip home. The oaks had been a blazing canopy of red, a cathedral of color, while aspen had shaken its gold dollars from the top of white colonnades. Had her determination to live her religion fostered the picture of cathedrals and colonnades?

Rebecca moved away from the window, thinking. For years the Bible had lain beside the wedding dress in the trunk. Hadn't it ought to be there now? On hands and knees, she pulled the trunk from under the bed and opened it. As she was tucking the Book beneath the cotton swathed dress, her hands stilled and her mother's words resounded through her.
Guard the trunk, in it is your only hope.

Until Rebecca had left Illinois, the trunk had contained two items, the wedding dress and the Bible. Now Rebecca slowly withdrew the Bible and looked at it.

Was it possible that her mother had referred to the Bible instead of the dress?

She settled back on her heels and tried to recall her mother's voice. The urgency in her voice had been real. Was there something escaping her attention?

With closed eyes, Rebecca leaned against the bed, trying to bring back the memory of her parents and the life they had lived together. There had been good times as well as bad. Now the good times were only a memory of love. She recalled that restless time before they had settled in the little cabin next to the Smyths.

There were shadow memories of wagon-living on the banks of the Mississippi. It hadn't been good living, she recalled, and it wasn't only the flies and mosquitoes; there had been questionings and arguments. And it was her parents doing the asking. She recalled her father's protective arm around her white-faced mother. After that time, they moved up the hill away from the river, to be neighbors to the people who had befriended Rebecca that next year when the sickness claimed the Wolstones' lives.

Rebecca clenched her fists. “Why, oh, why didn't I ask Mrs. Smyth? She could have answered my questions.”

But would she? Vividly she recalled the troubled expression on Cynthia's face when she had been questioned about the community on the river.

It was cold on the floor, and Rebecca was conscious of a numbness creeping through her body. She closed the lid of the trunk and started to shove it under the bed. Now she hesitated, lost in a strange urgency to bring her mother close. Would it, by chance, be possible to bring that sweet presence close if she were to read the Bible? She hesitated and then plucked the Book back out of the trunk.

That evening, when she returned from Cora's, the Book caught her attention. She built up the fire and waited for the kettle to boil while she thought about it.

That evening Rebecca ate her porridge flavored with a touch of salt. Just a speck of bacon fat remained, and the flour was getting low. If only Andrew would come. She ate slowly, trying to make the meal last as long as possible.

Her thoughts kept returning to Cora's miserable cabin. Their dinner would be no better than hers. Recalling their shrinking bag of flour, Rebecca murmured, “Cora could be using the services of that young Jessie now, but I do believe they're lucky she apostatized and left the country.”

After she washed her bowl and spoon and scraped the iron kettle to prevent rusting, she pulled her rocker close to the fire and bundled into a quilt.

The flickering light of the fire played across the Book, and Rebecca ran her fingers over the cover, recalling each time she had ventured into it.

The scripture she had memorized at Kanesville still surfaced occasionally, but most vividly etched on her mind were the passages she had studied for her pupils' presentation of the first covenant. Now was the time to read the second covenant; could it provide as much enjoyment as the first?

She found the New Testament and then thumbed the pages, wondering where the story of the second covenant began. Random verses claimed her attention. She read, skipped, and read again until finally she rubbed her weary eyes. She rose, piled on a backlog and went to her lonely, cold bed.

The next day a blizzard whited out all except Rebecca's front step. She settled by her hearth, thanking the foresight that had led her to winter her cow with Cora's. While the storm continued to rage, she found it in her heart to be grateful that she had eaten her last hen before the blizzard had come to claim it.

“Well, cornmeal and sweet potatoes with a bit of biscuit isn't much of a promise for Christmas,” she acknowledged, trying to shut out the lonesome thoughts of that holiday, “but at least I'll be warm and dry until the storm is over.”

The wind was forcing snow through the crumbling clay between the logs of her cabin. She moved the bed close to the fire and, as the cold grew more intense, she stretched a canopy of canvas salvaged from an abandoned wagon. Extending from the rafters over the fireplace to the posts of the bed, the canvas pocketed heat and light. Rebecca settled with her Book and her fire.

While anxiety gnawed at her as surely as the mouse gnawed in the corner, Rebecca turned pages and listened to the wind howl. But the world outside her canopy faded as her reading carried her to the sun-drenched land where she followed the story of Jesus. Occasionally she stirred uneasily to the howl of the wind and tried harder to concentrate on the words before her.

In the snowbound days that followed, every moment not claimed by the task of daily life was given to reading. There was a new something grasping for her thoughts, and she must deal with it.

She added the Book of Mormon to the table beside the Bible. Now twin fingers traced twin pathways down parallel passages and her wonder grew as she admitted the puzzle was becoming more complex.

She was seeing the Book of Mormon in a new light. In the past she had stood intimidated before it, not understanding it, nor even able to pick out the importance of it all. Now she read with a restlessness growing inside. She found she couldn't help comparing the two books. Finally she shoved aside the Book of Mormon and exclaimed, “Oh, why don't they just say something! I catch promises of something, and then it disappears like a cloud in the sky.”

She returned the book to its shelf, announcing, “I'll not touch it again until I first understand what the Bible is saying to me. One thing is certain, and I'll cling to the thought, I'm on the right path. I heard Brother Grant has said himself that the Book of Mormon and the Bible agree with each other, and that both contain a true account of the gospel. I can rely on that and I need not fear that I will be led astray in my thinking.”