amusing troubles of my talkative friend—charlotte with the golden hair!
not long after our separation from the mormon church, i received another visit from my talkative friend.
as, according to her custom, she was making a preliminary “fuss” at the door before entering, i heard her voice, and was at a loss to conjecture whether she came for the purpose of lamenting my apostasy and entreating my immediate return to the bosom of the church, or to condole with me concerning the brutal outrage to which we had been subjected. in both suppositions i was, however, mistaken—she came to talk about her own woes.
“you’ll be surprised, my dear sister stenhouse,” she said, “to see me looking so utterly miserable. i’m sure i must look the picture of despair, and i feel it. you don’t know what i’ve been suffering, and how shamefully i have been used.”
“you look very well i think, but i’m sorry to hear you have met with any difficulty,” said i, when she stopped for a moment to take breath.
“oh, you may say so,” she replied, “but you know you don’t think so in your heart. why, i did not even stop to put on my bonnet straight,” she said, stealing a look at the glass, “and i ran all the way here, for i felt as if i should die if i could not pour my sorrows into the bosom of some faithful-hearted friend. oh, i have been treated shamefully, and i feel it the more as you know what a reserved woman i am, and how seldom it is that i open my lips about family matters, even to my dearest friends!”
“well, but,” i said, “what really is the matter? you have not yet told me what your trouble is.”
“sister stenhouse,” she said, “you have had a few little vexations in the course of your life, i know, but they are nothing to compare to the frightful indignities that i have suffered in the course of the last few days. i never thought[362] i should come to this! i hate every man in the place, and i detest my husband most of all, and i loathe his wives, and i execrate brother brig—”
“why, sister ann, what can have happened?” i exclaimed, interrupting her.
“happened!” she cried, starting from her chair in indignation, “i tell you, sister stenhouse, nothing has ‘happened’—nothing was done by chance—he did it all with his eyes open and against my advice—i tell you he did it on purpose!”
“did what?” i asked, “and who was it that did it?” but by this time i had begun to form a shrewd guess who the culprit was.
“why, he married that wretched little shrimp of a girl, with blue eyes and red hair, and a die-away, lackadaisical manner—it was he—my husband henry—he married her this very day, and i tell you he did it on purpose!”
“i’m sorry that it annoys you,” i said; “but really i am surprised, after all you have said to me, that you should not care if he had taken half-a-dozen wives, to say nothing of the one he married this morning, and who you say is only a very little one.”
“it doesn’t matter the size, sister stenhouse,” she said, “but the colour of the eyes and the shade of the hair matters a great deal. if that miserable little minx had had black hair or green eyes, i daresay henry would not have cared two straws about her, unless he had done it out of sheer perversity, for all men are made of the same contrary stuff. but he dotes on blue eyes; i heard him myself tell her so one day, when i was listening to them through the crack of the door, and they didn’t know i was so near. but my wounded feelings would not suffer me to remain silent, and i bounced in, and, said i, ‘henry, how dare you talk such outrageous nonsense to that child in my presence?’
“‘but i didn’t know you were present,’ he said.
“‘i tell you,’ said i, ‘i’m quite disgusted with you; a man with three wives—and me one of them—to go talking twaddle to a little chattering hussy like that, with her cat’s eyes and her red hair!’
“‘golden hair, my dear,’ he said, ‘charlotte’s hair is golden.’
“‘i say red!—it’s straight, staring red—as red as red can be,’ i told him; and then we had a regular fight over it. i don’t mean that we came to blows, but we had some hot words, and he went out and left us two alone. then that young hussy was impudent, and i don’t know how it was, but somehow, when we left off our conversation, i found some of charlotte’s red hair between my fingers; and there”—she said, innocently,[363] holding out quite a respectable sized tuft of auburn hair—“there; i put it to you, sister stenhouse, is that red, or is it not?”
i was about to reply; but, without waiting an instant, she dashed the stolen locks to the ground, and said, “i daresay, sister stenhouse, you think me a little hasty, and yet among my friends i’ve always been quite proverbial for the calmness and evenness of my temper; but i’ve been tried very much lately, and—if only you would not keep interrupting me, dear!—if you’d just allow me to say a word or two in my turn!—i’d tell you something that would open your eyes to the ingratitude and wickedness of men. i don’t wonder that you have left the church; i am thinking of doing so myself, and you won’t wonder at it when you hear what i’ve got to say. what do you say to my leaving the church? won’t people be astonished? but i declare, sister stenhouse, i do seriously mean to leave the church as soon as i get my new bonnet—”
“why your new bonnet?” i asked in surprise.
“because, dear, i shall become an object of interest. all the sisters will have their eyes upon me, and even gentiles will say, ‘there’s a lady who had courage to leave the mormon church and quit an ungrateful husband who was not worthy of her.’ and you know, sister stenhouse, it would not do to have people looking at me and talking about me before i got my new bonnet.”
this was a rather amusing reason for delay in changing one’s religion, but it was quite characteristic of my friend. so i humoured her a little, and tried to get her to explain how it all came about.
“oh, yes,” she said, “i ought to have told you that before, but i was to angry at what had just happened that i forgot everything else. the fact is, my husband is a man, and there’s no calculating what a man will do. women, you know, are proverbial for the constancy of their affections and their slowness in changing their minds—you know when you’re talking to a woman that she is a woman, and you know exactly what to do with her; but with a man it’s quite different. you can’t calculate a man—you can’t fathom him. when you’ve been thinking one way and another, and at last begin to fancy you know what to do, why then, a man—if it’s him you’ve got to do with—will turn just round, and while you’ve been making everything smooth for him to do one thing, he’ll go and do exactly the opposite. i know what men are by this time, and i speak from experience.
[364]
“it was just so with henry and this girl. he has gone quite against the grain with me, and i feel it all the more because he used to be so quiet and anxious to do exactly what i wanted. but he doesn’t care a fig now whether i’m pleased or not—he only thinks about this red-headed girl. in fact, he’s quite crazy about her, and if there’s any sin in apostasy, you may remember that it was he who drove me into it.”
“that seems hardly fair,” i said, “for you knew all along that it was his privilege to take more wives.”
“that’s very true,” she exclaimed; “it is his privilege to take wives, but it’s my privilege to choose them for him. i’m a good mormon, and i don’t mind how many wives my husband takes, if he’ll only act reasonably about getting them. but, sister stenhouse, i do not want a parcel of girls about the house. i’m so far from wishing to usurp authority, that, as i told henry, i would not mind if his wives were even a little older than me, but i won’t have them younger. it makes henry look so silly. why, to see him with that girl charlotte, now, who isn’t more than half my own age—no; i don’t mean that, i mean she’s slightly younger than i am—you might really almost imagine that he thought more of her than he does of me. i know he doesn’t, for he has told me so; but any one to see them together would get quite a wrong impression.”
“when did he marry charlotte?” i asked. “you spoke so hastily, sister ann, that i did not quite understand you.”
“when? why he married her this morning, as i thought i told you; he has only just done it. he said he was anxious to be in a quiet state of mind to-day, so i gave him a piece of my mind, and he was so astonished at the pointed way in which i explained to him what a fool he’d been making of himself that he quite showed it in his face. the fact is, sister stenhouse, he has lately become rather more than i could manage.”
“well, sister,” i said, “i should have thought that his finding a wife for himself would have saved you a world of trouble.”
“oh dear no, sister stenhouse,” she replied; “it was trouble i did not want to be saved. men have no business, in my opinion, to choose their own wives, after the first. i know the men do do it, one and all; but it’s a shameful stretch of authority. i should like to know whether it is not of much more consequence to me what wife my husband has than it is to him? however, i resolved that my husband should never[365] marry the red-headed girl, and i told him so; and what do you think the inhuman creature said? ‘you’ve been persuading me all these years,’ he said, ‘to take another wife, although i’ve already got three, and now i’ve begun to do so you blame me. i think i’ve as good a right as any one to say who i’ll marry and who i won’t.’ did you ever hear of such ingratitude? would you hear of such a thing from your husband, sister stenhouse?”
i told her that with mormonism my husband had given up polygamy, and she continued:
“well, i tried to bring him to reason, but it was of no use. and then i told him that the girl should never set foot inside the house while i was in it. this was a very unfortunate speech, for i do believe that up to that time he wanted as much as possible to keep the girl out of my way; but the moment i said that, to show his dignity, i suppose, he declared that she should come to tea with us that very afternoon, and he would go and fetch her; and he did so. i wouldn’t go down to tea at first, though both the other wives were there and he sent up for me, but my pride would not allow me to stoop. at last i got tired of being all alone, and as it occurred to me that perhaps they might be enjoying themselves without me, i resolved to go down and see if i could not do something to annoy them. down i went, and henry, all smiling, introduced the girl to me as ‘sister charlotte,’ talking of her as if he had known her for years. was it not shameful?”
“it must have been very awkward for you,” i said.
“it was indeed, sister stenhouse, and i soon made it awkward for them. i assure you, after i joined them, there was not a soul present who had a moment’s comfort till that girl went away. my husband, however, took her home, and from that very day he seemed resolved to have the upper hand. he never for a moment would listen to a word i said about the girl; he brought her in every evening and took her to the theatre constantly, and paid her ten times more attention than he ever paid me. i wasn’t jealous, sister stenhouse; no one—as i said before—could ever suspect me of jealousy, but i did hate that girl. if he had not loved her, i can’t say whether i myself might not have liked her. but the very fact of him loving her makes me detest her; but it’s only a little proper pride on my part—i’m not in the least jealous, oh dear no!”
“of course not,” i said.
[366]
“i don’t know about that,” she said, “i’ve borne enough from those two to drive fifty women crazy with jealousy, and things went on from bad to worse, until the other day when, as i told you, we had that little unpleasantness. my husband, when he came back, was downright angry, and made use of shocking language, and told me that, if he could not have peace in the house, he would have me board out by myself in some other part of the city. he said that i had scratched charlotte’s face and torn out her hair; but that was quite untrue, as i told him; and as for the hair which fell out, it was all an accident. he said that charlotte did not like such accidents, and that he would not put up with it. he was very cross and disagreeable all the rest of the day, and made me quite miserable and broken-hearted; and the next day, to wind it all up, he told me that he and charlotte had arranged the day of the wedding. i was forced to go over with him to the endowment house, to give him that detestable little vixen. i tell you, sister stenhouse, i hate her; and oh, oh dear, what shall i do now my husband has fallen in love with her!”
here, to my infinite astonishment, she rose from her seat and rushed about the room, wringing her hands and exclaiming, “oh dear! oh dear!” she then threw herself right down on the couch and actually burst into tears, crying out, “oh dear, what shall i do with my henry and that girl!”
after that i did not see her for several weeks, and then i accidentally met her in the street, and asked her why she had not called upon me lately.
“oh, sister stenhouse,” she said, “i’m delighted to see you! you’ve been constantly in my thoughts, but i’ve been so hard at work—oh, so busy, that i really had not time for anything—not even to apostatize. then, too, you see i’ve had my hands full. if you want to make a man slight one woman and get tired of her, there’s nothing like putting a nicer woman than her in his way. so i reconsidered the matter and resolved, cost what it might, i’d get another wife for my husband right away. i don’t care now whether she’s old or young, ugly or pretty, so long as she cuts out that detestable red-headed girl. i’ve run all over the town and rushed about here and there, all for his sake, though he’ll never be grateful for it; and now at last, do you know, dear, i really do think i’ve got the girl i want. she’s all dark—dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. if he marries her, as i mean him to do, she’ll lead him a fine life, notwithstanding all her winning ways. i wouldn’t stand in his shoes when she’s his wife; but[367] i know i shall be able to manage her, for i have a deeper insight into character than he has, and a better command of temper. she’ll teach miss charlotte to keep her place, and she’ll make henry mind too. it’ll do him good; i’ve done it all out of love to him, not a spark of jealousy or ill-feeling, as you are well aware.”
the idea of setting one wife against another, in order to keep the peace, would appear in the case of my talkative friend to have been successful; for, sure enough, six months after the time of which i have just spoken, her henry did marry the dark beauty, and she and her auburn predecessor presented an interesting contrast when they chanced to appear in the street together in the company of their husband. there did not seem to be much love lost between them.
successful in her plans, and having, as she said, now brought her henry to reason, my talkative friend gave up all idea of leaving the church, and when i last saw her she said, “i’m busy now looking after a likely girl, for i do think a man in my henry’s position ought to live his religion and have at least seven wives!—seven, you know, is such a very lucky number.”
