Chapter 4
Silence hung between us as the road split again and Jacob guided the cart off to the left.
A patch of cottonwood trees lined the slight bend of the road, marking the edge of a property.
The dirt road became bumpier, though I could see Jacob was doing his best to steer the horse and cart around the largest potholes.
A sense of finality sunk into my stomach. We had arrived.
Around the last tree, a house came into view.
My mouth dropped open at its magnitude. This house rivaled Brigham’s houses in size.
A pointed tower sprouted up toward the heavens with a twisted weathervane perched at the top.
Alongside it, impressive gables protruded up and out, revealing a line of large windows.
The house was a mix of dark red brick and white painted boards.
A porch with ornate lacing around the top and short wooden steps leading up to the front door completed its charm.
This house, in the far-flung reaches of the Salt Lake Valley, was something out of a dream. It was no wonder he kept three—now four—wives in this home. It could have fit an entire congregation. Elder Crowther’s promises seemed to be true.
Another pothole jostled me. I dropped my eyes from the lofty heights of the house to the land around it.
Neglect hung on the trees surrounding the drive, their branches either buckling from overgrowth or shivering, brittle and naked from the lack of new sprouts.
Those closest to the house seemed to defy the laws of gravity, appearing as though only one strong gust of wind would send them crashing to the ground.
As we drew up to a stop at the front of the house, uncertainty coiled through me. Though the May afternoon was plenty warm, a shiver ran down my spine as I took it all in. Jacob jumped down from the cart, but I made no move to remove myself.
Thick bushes that looked as if they’d once been planted and tended with care grew feral and tangled around the front porch.
Wild tawny vines crawled up the sides of the house, choking the lower windows and their weatherworn shutters, as if the terrain were trying to reclaim the home as its own.
Cracks zigzagged up the red brick and fissured out from the window corners like derelict latticework.
The half-dozen windows on the second floor seemed to loom inward as if to get a better look at me. The house watching me with blighted eyes.
I shook my head to displace the image. Houses didn’t move or watch, and they certainly didn’t have eyes.
Jacob appeared at my side, his arms held up to lift me down from the cart. For a moment, I held my breath, allowing my jumbled and thorny worries to root inside me.
It wasn’t that the house being in disrepair offended my sensibilities.
It was a whisper of concern that something about it—its strange, forsaken structure—didn’t measure up.
Both Elder Crowther and Father had assured me that Jacob was wealthy, and he himself had promised that he could take care of me.
Too many women across the Territory suffered in silent poverty brought on by polygamy, but I had been promised that wasn’t my fate.
“This is your house?” I asked.
Jacob’s hands wrapped around my waist. Their warmth as he lifted me from the wagon fought the foreboding feeling throbbing against my rib cage.
“Indeed, it is. Our house, Hazel.” His fingers held me firm as he lowered me to the ground. He gripped me tight an extra moment before releasing me and stepping back with an outstretched hand. “Welcome to Manwaring Manor.”
A manor. Such places existed only in fairy tales, though this one appeared trapped in a dark story, long forgotten and eaten back up by the forest. The house creaked and I had the distinct impression that it listened for my response. I swallowed the strange thought.
“It’s a fine house, isn’t it? I bought it from a man who built it and then abandoned it. Some railroad speculation gone wrong. And don’t worry about how it appears now. I’ve got so many plans for it, just you wait. I think you’ll find it’s plenty comfortable.”
“It’s lovely,” I said, recalling my earlier convictions. “Some paint will brighten it right up. Perhaps some new shutters?”
A curtain fluttered in the top window of the spire, drawing my attention. Somebody stared back at me through the narrow gap, lit by a soft glow. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the curtains closed and they were gone.
“Come, let’s get inside before the sun sets and we catch a chill.”
Jacob held out his hand. I ignored the pang of discomfort at being watched and gladly took his steady arm.
The wooden steps creaked as we walked up to the door. A thin layer of moss grew across the edges of the porch, and the boards sagged beneath our weight. I drew in a soft breath.
And as I exhaled, so did someone else. I heard it distinctly, sharp in my ears. It felt cold, almost impossibly so, on the back of my neck.
I spun around, but there was no one there.
It was only a breeze.
The broad doorframe was trimmed in a fading spring green with a muted pattern of pink flowers painted across the top, suggesting that once someone had loved this place enough to paint it with strokes of care and hope. But now the decoration moldered away to almost nothing, forlorn from neglect.
I gasped as Jacob swept me up into his arms. My body seized up tight at the shock of being quite literally in his embrace, our bodies pressed against each other as they never had been before. All thoughts of the house flew from mind as I remembered that this was also my wedding night.
I dizzied at his scent—the residue of lavender soap and musk of sweat from the day.
Everything about him was so much more real and solid as I breathed him in.
The warmth I’d felt earlier in the wagon ride once again swept through me.
I dared to wrap my arms around his neck and leaned in closer, trampling the image of Elijah’s face that motion conjured.
His chest rumbled against my ear as he carried me across the threshold. His heartbeat seemed to mimic mine in a tight but wild rhythm. With me cradled in his arms, we studied each other. His eyes traced mine, etching back and forth until they dropped down to my lips.
The thought of savoring his lips against mine was maddening, enticing even. I blinked. Elijah’s lips had tasted of the crisp apple we’d pulled from the tree to share minutes before our first embrace. I tried to flick the memory from my mind, to burn it to ashes.
“Jacob?”
A soft voice cut through our trance. His breath hitched.
Our eyes lifted from our tangled stare toward the call.
In the entry room, across from the grand staircase leading upstairs, a figure stood in a doorway.
She was illuminated by a beam of golden sunlight falling through a nearby window. My cheeks flushed from our almost-kiss.
The voice belonged to a woman—a quite pregnant woman. My stomach twisted. I was bearing witness to the consequences of my own plural marriage for the first time. Watching the Principle growing up didn’t prepare me for this visceral pain.
Jacob released my knees and placed me back on the floor.
I smoothed my skirt with shaking hands, praying she wouldn’t notice my tremor.
She was short and slender except for her swollen belly protruding underneath the cream apron tied beneath her bust. Her sunflower-blond hair tousled in waves over her shoulders giving her an otherworldly glow in the early evening light.
She was beautiful—far more beautiful than me.
“Prudence, so nice to see you.” Jacob’s tone stayed firm but jovial, as if he were greeting a casual friend in passing, and not the woman so clearly carrying his child while he brought his new bride through the doorway. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said in a gentle voice. Her eyes brushed me up and down, and heat crawled up my back. She might hate me, the horrid voices whispered in my head. I’d just burst through the door of her home in the arms of her husband. My husband. Our husband.
My chest tightened.
Another face popped around the corner, severe and angular enough to cut you with only a glance.
“Prudence, why do you insist on standing there? Can’t you see my hands are full of laundry?
” A willowy woman stepped up behind the other with a large basket in her arms. Her graying hair pulled up in a tight bun, exaggerating her sharp features.
With glasses balanced on her nose and the scowl on her lips, she reminded me of a strict schoolteacher.
She bristled when she noticed me, straightening her shoulders as she raked me up and down.
I fought the urge to cower behind Jacob.
“Who is this?” she asked in a tone that suggested swallowed surprise. Why would she pretend not to know?
“Flora, hello. How are you?” Jacob’s pleasant tone didn’t change as he shuffled a step closer to me. His hand rested on the small of my back, the intense warmth beneath his fingertips like fire.
“I’m well,” she said, not taking her eyes off me. Her gaze dropped to my waistline and she clicked her tongue as if sizing me up. His grip tightened on my bodice like he sensed it too.
Tension clouded the room, so thick I was certain we would soon see it as a fog.
It brought with it a rush and electric silence, like the minutes before a mountain thunderstorm.
No one spoke. I choked at the invisible weight lodging in my chest. I tried to take in more air as discreetly as I could.
Why did the Devil have to take me now with his panics?
Shrill laughter cut through the room. A new voice. The others turned their attention to the grand staircase across the entry as if they knew exactly from where she would come.
Another woman descended the stairs and sat on the bottom step, her arms resting atop her knees. She appeared casual and calm, watching the show unravel before her. Her face was unreadable, a queer smile dancing on her lips.
Three voices, three wives.
Though this woman was probably more than a decade my senior like Jacob, she was breathtakingly beautiful.
Fiery red curls framed her face, bringing out the punch of her gemstone-green eyes.
A constellation of freckles dotted her porcelain cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
Even without having said a word, her presence was commanding.
She filled all the space around her; she knew she was mesmerizing.
The wife on the stairs laughed again.
“So, you brought home another wife. How charming.” Her tone was peculiar. I couldn’t tell if she meant to be scathing or condoning.
Jacob didn’t relinquish his grip on me. “Yes, I have. This is Hazel.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said between shallow breaths.
The panic couldn’t happen, not now, not here. I needed to make a good impression on my new family.
“Ah, so that’s where you’ve been spending your evenings then.” The woman on the stairs didn’t take her eyes off our husband. She dropped her hands to her sides and leaned back, fully revealing her large bosom and trim waist.
I tried my best not to stare, instead turning toward the other pair of wives, who were averting their gaze.
“You didn’t know?” I asked, then turned back to Jacob. “You hadn’t told them you were getting married?” I thought for a moment that the floorboards quaked beneath my feet.
“We trust that Jacob knows best as the head of this family,” the tall wife—Flora, was it?—cut in.
The other beside her nodded in agreement.
Jacob beamed. “My family knows that their patriarch holds wisdom beyond their own. What a great blessing you all are to me.”
“As you are to us,” Flora said, shooting a look at the unnamed wife on the stairs.
“Yes, and isn’t it exciting how the Lord chooses to bless us next?” The wife on the stairs pushed herself to standing, towering over us on her perch. “Why, you’re even younger than the last. We’re going to have to build another nursery.”
I wasn’t certain if that was an insult to my age or a suggestion about my womb. Her kind smile didn’t ease the weight on my chest as I tried harder to breathe.
The room took on a purple hue in the growing dusk.
The unnamed wife walked down the stairs, stopping directly in front of Jacob and me.
No one had offered her name yet and I was too afraid to ask.
A ripple of fresh panic crested through me.
I was trapped between my husband and his wife. I wasn’t prepared for any of this.
She tilted her head. “Oh dear, is she all right? I’m not sure she’s even breathing.”
Jacob’s arm slid around my shoulders.
“Hazel is fine.” He glanced down at me. “I’m here, dear. You can calm down.”
“I’m just—it’s only—”
The wife grabbed my hand and tugged it toward her.
“Long day, my dear?” she said.
She sounded sincere. I simply nodded as she worked to unclench my fisted fingers.
“I understand it’s overwhelming on one’s special day. But it’ll be fine. You’re here with us now and we’ll all make the best of it. Welcome, little Hazel, to Manwaring Manor.”
“Yes, welcome,” the short wife—Prudence?—said in agreement. The tall wife nodded solemnly as if accepting her fate.
Welcome. They said I was welcome. I’d come unannounced and unexpected, and they welcomed me. Surely that meant this was a good place, that I’d made the right choice of husband.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning into Jacob’s side. My anchor in this new storm.
The wife Flora tutted loudly as if signaling an end to the party.
Prudence smiled softly. “Sister Hazel, it’s late and I’m sure you’re tired, so we can save all the introductions for tomorrow.”
“Yes, you better go on up to your room for this important night,” the still unnamed wife from the stairs added, giving my fingers one final sharp squeeze. “Sleep well, Sister Manwaring. You’re in good company.”
With a flick of her wrist, she removed her hand and brushed past us, disappearing through the open doorway. After a quick shuffle of bodies and last glances over at me, the others followed close behind her.
Sister Manwaring. One of four. This was my life now.