The Work and the Glory (324 page)

This had proven to be wise counsel, until Jenny Pottsworth arrived, and then for Kathryn, the world seemed to collapse.

Jenny was fifteen, only a year older than Kathryn, but in many ways Jenny was leagues ahead of Kathryn. Not only was she more physically mature—much more a woman—than Kathryn, but she was emotionally and intellectually two or three years ahead of most fifteen-year-olds. And that was no surprise. Jenny had started working in the textile mills at age nine. The Steed family had been horrified one night a few days after the Pottsworths’ arrival when Sister Pottsworth told them about the shameless exploitation of children in industrial England. Even with the law Parliament finally passed in 1834, children under the age of eighteen were still working sixty-nine hours per week! That was five twelve-hour shifts and a nine-hour shift on Saturdays. In essence, Jenny had been catapulted from childhood to womanhood, missing adolescence completely.

And Peter had done the same. Orphans battling together for survival, he and Derek had lived a lifetime by the time Peter was twelve. So this bond between Jenny and Peter was more than the usual friendship. They were products of the same bleak growing-up years.

“Kathryn,” Jennifer Jo finally said, not knowing how else to comfort her. “You have to remember that Jenny and Peter were good friends in England.”

“I know.”

“
Good
friends!” she said again. “That’s all they are now. Just good friends.”

Kathryn’s head came around and there was challenge in her eyes. “Did you watch Will tonight at dinner? Do you think he thinks they are only friends?”

Jennifer Jo didn’t answer because there was only one answer. She had seen it too. All through the Thanksgiving dinner, she had watched the pain in Will’s eyes too. Like Kathryn, he would wince when Jenny, in that totally natural way she had, would lay her hand across Peter’s and they would throw back their heads and laugh together. Like Kathryn, he would look away quickly when Peter would whisper something to Jenny and she would smile and nod in delight.

“She sat by him at dinner,” Kathryn began, her voice a mixture of sadness and anger. “She sat with him afterwards. She ended up as his partner when we played the games.”

“Sometimes that was just by accident.”

“Sometimes,” Kathryn conceded darkly. “And what about the singing? Was that by accident?”

Jennifer Jo looked away. That had proven to be the worst disaster of the night. After the games, Nathan suggested they gather around the piano and sing songs. With Olivia playing for some and Caroline accompanying others, they went through their old favorites: first the more spirited ones—“Yankee Doodle,” “Comin’ Through the Rye,” and “Ol’ Zip Coon”—then the slower ones, the ones with more feeling and emotion—“ ’Tis the Last Rose of Summer,” “Shenandoah,” “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.” As they sang together, a wonderful, sweet mood descended on the whole family. And that is when it happened.

Jennifer Jo sighed. “I’m so sorry, Kathryn. When I suggested that Peter sing, I just assumed he would ask you to sing it with him.”

“So did I.”

Frowning, Jennifer Jo felt her own anger rising now. Lydia had sung one verse of “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful, and all were touched. Then on impulse she asked Jessica to sing with her. The results had been a deeply moving experience for all. That was when Jennifer Jo got the idea to have Peter and Kathryn sing together and maybe salvage something from the night. Kathryn had a favorite song, and Peter liked it too. The name of it was “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.” Kathryn and Peter had sung it once as a duet in school, and so when Jennifer Jo made the suggestion she didn’t feel that she had to suggest both their names. She wanted the request for Kathryn to come from Peter, and not from her. And that was when disaster struck. Peter had not turned to Kathryn. He had turned to Jenny and asked her if she knew the song. She did, and that was that.

“It was so beautiful,” cried Kathryn. The anguish was heavy now. “I could never sing it that beautifully.”

“You do sing it beautifully,” Jennifer Jo said loyally. But it was true. If Lydia and Jessica’s song had deeply stirred the family, then Jenny and Peter’s stunned them. Both of their voices were so pure, so perfectly on pitch, that when they sang in unison, one had to listen closely to make sure there were two voices. And when they had sung harmony, Jenny’s rich alto blending into Peter’s clear-toned tenor, even Jennifer Jo had felt chills go up and down her back.

“It’s my song,” Kathryn suddenly burst out. “I taught it to him.”

Jennifer Jo’s eyebrows rose. “You did?”

“Yes. Margaret Naylor taught it to me.” Suddenly the tears were overflowing. “And she’s the one who told me the story behind it.”

“The story? What story?” Kathryn had never said anything about this before.

Kathryn sniffed back the tears. “It’s a true story, too,” she said mournfully. “There was once a man and a woman who were very happily married. The woman was considered to be one of the most beautiful women in all the country. She had long hair, and skin as fair as the clouds. They were very much in love. Then one day she was struck down with smallpox. She nearly died, and her husband was not allowed to see her, lest he catch the disease too. When she finally recovered, she looked in the mirror and saw that she was horribly scarred. Her beautiful hair was mostly gone. She was so devastated that she locked herself in her room and swore she would never again see the light of day.”

“So what happened?” Jennifer Jo asked, caught up totally in the story.

“Her husband pled with her to come out. He told her that he didn’t care what the disease had done to her, that he loved her anyway. But nothing he said changed her mind. Desperate, he went downstairs and got a pen and paper. And then . . .” She looked away.

Now Jennifer Jo was nodding. “And he wrote those wonderful words.”

“Yes.” Kathryn began to recite very softly.

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

  Which I gaze on so fondly today,

Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,

  Like fairy-gifts fading away,

Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,

  Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

  Would entwine itself verdantly still.

The room was quiet now, and Kathryn was staring at her hands. “He walked up the stairs and sang that song to her through the door. For a moment there was no sound, and then the door opened, and with tears in her eyes, the woman threw herself into her husband’s arms.”

Now Jennifer Jo fully understood what Peter and Jenny had done to Kathryn on this night. This was Kathryn’s dream. No matter that she was not as lovely as Jenny. No matter that she was not as mature and witty and composed and assured. Her Peter would someday see beyond those surface things and love her in spite of them. Singing that duet together in school had been their compact, their covenant to that fact. But tonight, the compact was shattered, the covenant was broken.

Jennifer Jo’s lips set into a tight line. It was not just Peter that she resented now. Maybe it was innocently done, but Jenny had caused deep pain this night. And Jennifer Jo could not simply brush that aside. She put her arms around Kathryn and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry, Kathryn. If only I had known, I would never have asked him.”

Chapter Notes

  The Church was very much interested in the Wisconsin pineries, as they were called, as a source of lumber. For four winter seasons, commencing in the fall of 1841 and finishing in the spring of 1845, the Church ran sawmills along Roaring Creek and the Black River. With the influx of immigrants from England, these mills provided not only much-needed building materials but also employment for many brethren. Over those four years, the Church harvested an estimated one and one-half million board feet of milled lumber, over two hundred thousand shingles, and an unknown amount of loose logs, barn boards, and hewed timbers. (See Dennis Rowley, “The Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries, 1841–1845,”
BYU Studies
32 [Winter and Spring 1992]: 119–48.)

  For some reason, the traditional Thanksgiving Day feast so popular in New England lost its place out west. Indications are that even the Saints were not observing the holiday. Eventually, some Nauvoo Saints apparently did take up the observance of Thanksgiving, though it may not have been as early as depicted here in the novel. We do know that Martha Hall Haven, a convert from Massachusetts who was determined to renew her own family traditions, held a Thanksgiving dinner in Nauvoo in 1843, the first that is recorded there. (See
Women,
pp. 64–65.) Gradually, various states made Thanksgiving a legal holiday until finally, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a general proclamation that the last Thursday in November would be a national day of thanksgiving. It was not until the beginning of World War II that, in an effort to stimulate business by providing a longer Christmas shopping season, Thanksgiving was moved up a week to the fourth Thursday and was designated as a federal holiday.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was a cold night. Snowflakes floated gently down from the sky, covering everything with a soft new layer of white. They met at Lydia’s house so that Lydia, now only a couple of weeks away from delivery, didn’t have to go out, but they came at the behest of Mary Ann. All of the women of the Steed clan were invited, including the McIntire sisters and the Pottsworths. Olivia, now thirteen, was, for this purpose, considered to be a woman too. They chose a Sabbath evening so the men could watch the children. In order that the two homes where there was no man would also be covered, Nathan took his and Lydia’s children over to Jessica’s house, and Rebecca brought Christopher there as well.

Jessica and Rebecca went to Lydia’s early to help Mother Steed bake apple dumplings, so Jennifer Jo and Kathryn stayed behind to tend the children until Nathan came. Because of that, the McIntire sisters were the last to arrive. As Rebecca helped them off with their coats, Jennifer Jo saw that the only open seating left was between Caroline and Olivia on one side and Jenny Pottsworth and her mother on the other. Kathryn saw it too and shook her head quickly at her sister. But there was no other choice. Determined to make the best of it, Jennifer Jo led the way to the two seats.

“Oh, good evening, Jennifer Jo,” Jenny said, looking up. “Good evening, Kathryn.” It was said warmly and with genuine pleasure.

Jennifer Jo nodded and forced a smile. “Good evening.” Kathryn murmured something that was not distinguishable.

“Hello, Jenny,” Olivia said with a cheerful smile. She was the only one who still insisted on calling Jennifer Jo “Jenny.” She didn’t care about trying to keep the two Jennys separate.

“Hello, Livvy,” Jennifer Jo said, taking the seat closest to Jenny so that Kathryn wouldn’t have to sit right beside her. “What a lovely dress. Is that new?”

Olivia beamed with pleasure and held out the skirt so they could see more of it. “Papa bought it for me. He got Savannah one too.”

Caroline was listening and shook her head ruefully. “Joshua spoils these two girls shamelessly. You’ll have to come see Savannah’s. It’s green velvet with white ribbons. She is so proud of it, I can barely get it off her so she can go to bed.”

Jennifer Jo laughed, as did the others. That was Savannah, all right.

Sister Pottsworth leaned forward. “Have you heard from Matthew of late, Jennifer Jo?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Not for about two weeks now. Since he’s gone to London, it seems like it takes even longer for his letters to get here.”

Jenny reached out and touched Jennifer Jo’s arm. “Olivia was just telling us how she used to think she was going to marry Matthew.”

As Olivia blushed, Kathryn smiled for the first time. “Yes. For a time there, after Matthew announced that he and Jennifer Jo were promised, we didn’t know if Livvy was ever going to speak to us again.”

“But that’s all behind them now,” Caroline said. “Isn’t it, Livvy?”

Olivia cocked her head, and the wide green eyes got a little impish look in them as she looked up at Kathryn. “Yes. Now I’ve decided I’m going to marry Peter.”

At school, Olivia and Kathryn sat next to each other. Though there was a year-and-a-half difference in their ages, they had become very close friends. Olivia knew full well how Kathryn felt about Peter, and her comment was only meant to tease. Instead, Kathryn visibly flinched, and then she blushed deeply. She looked down, her hands twisting around each other.

Caroline saw instantly what had happened and decided to change the subject rather than try to smooth things over. “We were talking about Matthew,” she said to Jennifer Jo. “Abigail was saying what a fine young man he is.”

“Aye,” the Englishwoman said, puzzled by Kathryn’s reaction, but sensing this was a way to turn attention away from her and save her further embarrassment. “A finer lad I’ve not met. You’ve got good reason to be proud, Jennifer Jo.”

“I know,” she said, still half watching Kathryn out of the corner of her eye.

Jenny seemed oblivious to the undercurrents around her. She had a dreamy look in her eye as she turned to Olivia. “I don’t blame you for setting your cap for Matthew,” she said. “He would make anyone a fine husband.” Then to Jennifer Jo she added, “You are very, very lucky.”

Jennifer Jo involuntarily stiffened. “Thank you,” she finally managed, forcing a smile only with some effort. Ever since the disastrous night of the Thanksgiving dinner, Jennifer Jo had been struggling with her feelings about Jenny Pottsworth. At that time, those feelings had sprung only from her natural defensiveness for her sister. But a few days later, Matthew’s next letter came. In his first letter from London, he had told the family about the Pottsworths’ coming to America, but had said little about Jenny, other than that Peter would be very thrilled to know she was coming to Nauvoo. But in the next letter, with his characteristic honesty, Matthew told Jennifer Jo about the farewell kiss on the docks of Liverpool. He made light of it, and mentioned that Brigham had given permission only if it were on the cheek and very brief. She knew that Matthew had not been influenced by it—she could tell that from the innocent manner in which he spoke of it—but since then, not all of Jennifer Jo’s growing resentment toward Jenny Pottsworth stemmed from her sisterly concern for Kathryn. Now came this comment, wide-eyed and innocent, about Matthew’s potential as a husband. Jennifer Jo looked away, feeling herself starting a slow burn.