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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10519-0.txt b/10519-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4eb114 --- /dev/null +++ b/10519-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7777 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10519 *** + +MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE. + + +1876 + + + + +I. + +_To one who found us on a starless night, +All helpless, groping in a dangerous way, +Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay, +And, seeing all our peril, flashed a light +To show to our bewildered, blinded sight, +By one swift, clear, and piercing ray, +The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the height +Of our great thankfulness? And yet, at most, +The most he saved was this poor, paltry life +Of flesh, which is so little worth its cost, +Which eager sows, but may not stay to reap, +And so soon breathless with the strain and strife, +Its work half-done, exhausted, falls asleep._ + +II. + +_But unto him who finds men's souls astray +In night that they know not is night at all, +Walking, with reckless feet, where they may fall +Each moment into deadlier deaths than slay +The flesh,--to him whose truth can rend away +From such lost souls their moral night's black pall,-- +Oh, unto him what words can hearts recall +Which their deep gratitude finds fit to say? +No words but these,--and these to him are best:-- +That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame, +His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine; +His memory be truth worshipped and confessed; +Our gratitude and love, the priestess line, +Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name._ + + + + +Mercy Philbrick's Choice. + + + + +Chapter I. + + + +It was late in the afternoon of a November day. The sky had worn all day +that pale leaden gray color, which is depressing even to the least +sensitive of souls. Now, at sunset, a dull red tint was slowly stealing +over the west; but the gray cloud was too thick for the sun to pierce, and +the struggle of the crimson color with the unyielding sky only made the +heavens look more stern and pitiless than before. + +Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut +off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in +which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic +in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a +fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and +only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and +gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can +look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your +neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you +say on a summer night, where windows are open. + +One cannot walk through the streets of a New England village, without +being impressed by a sense of this futile semblance of barrier, this +touching effort at withdrawal and reticence. Often we see the tacit +recognition of its uselessness in an old gate shoved back to its farthest, +and left standing so till the very grass roots have embanked themselves on +each side of it, and it can never again be closed without digging away the +sods in which it is wedged. The gate on which Stephen White was leaning +had stood open in that way for years before Stephen rented the house; had +stood open, in fact, ever since old Billy Jacobs, the owner of the house, +had been carried out of it dead, in a coffin so wide that at first the +bearers had thought it could not pass through the gate; but by huddling +close, three at the head and three at the feet, they managed to tug the +heavy old man through without taking down the palings. This was so long +ago that now there was nobody left who remembered Billy Jacobs distinctly, +except his widow, who lived in a poor little house on the outskirts of the +town, her only income being that derived from the renting of the large +house, in which she had once lived in comfort with her husband and son. +The house was a double house; and for a few years Billy Jacobs's twin +brother, a sea captain, had lived in the other half of it. But Mrs. Billy +could not abide Mrs. John, and so with a big heart wrench the two +brothers, who loved each other as only twin children can love, had +separated. Captain John took his wife and went to sea again. The ship was +never heard of, and to the day of Billy Jacobs's death he never forgave +his wife. In his heart he looked upon her as his brother's murderer. Very +much like the perpetual presence of a ghost under her roof it must have +been to the woman also, the unbroken silence of those untenanted rooms, +and that never opened door on the left side of her hall, which she must +pass whenever she went in or out of her house. There were those who said +that she was never seen to look towards that door; and that whenever a +noise, as of a rat in the wall, or a blind creaking in the wind, came from +that side of the house, Mrs. Billy turned white, and shuddered. Well she +might. It is a fearful thing to have lying on one's heart in this life the +consciousness that one has been ever so innocently the occasion, if not +the cause, of a fellow-creature's turning aside into the path which was +destined to take him to his death. + +The very next day after Billy Jacobs's funeral, his widow left the house. +She sold all the furniture, except what was absolutely necessary for a +very meagre outfitting of the little cottage into which she moved. The +miserly habit of her husband seemed to have suddenly fallen on her like a +mantle. Her life shrank and dwindled in every possible way; she almost +starved herself and her boy, although the rent of her old homestead was +quite enough to make them comfortable. In a few years, to complete the +poor woman's misery, her son ran away and went to sea. The sea-farer's +stories which his Uncle John had told him, when he was a little child, +had never left his mind; and the drearier his mother made life for him on +land, the more longingly he dwelt on his fancies of life at sea, till at +last, when he was only fifteen, he disappeared one day, leaving a note, +not for his mother, but for his Sunday-school teacher,--the only human +being he loved. This young woman carried the note to Mrs. Jacobs. She read +it, made no comment, and handed it back. Her visitor was chilled and +terrified by her manner. + +"Can I do any thing for you, Mrs. Jacobs?" she said. "I do assure you I +sympathize with you most deeply. I think the boy will soon come back. He +will find the sea life very different from what he has dreamed." + +"No, you can do nothing for me," replied Mrs. Jacobs, in a voice as +unmoved as her face. "He will never come back. He will be drowned." And +from that day no one ever heard her mention her son. It was believed, +however, that she had news from him, and that she sent him money; for, +although the rents of her house were paid to her regularly, she grew if +possible more and more penurious every year, allowing herself barely +enough food to support life, and wearing such tattered and patched clothes +that she was almost an object of terror to children when they met her in +lonely fields and woods, bending down to the ground and searching for +herbs like an old witch. At one time, also, she went in great haste to a +lawyer in the village, and with his assistance raised three thousand +dollars on a mortgage on her house, mortgaging it very nearly to its full +value. In vain he represented to her that, in case the house should chance +to stand empty for a year, she would have no money to pay the interest on +her mortgage, and would lose the property. She either could not +understand, or did not care for what he said. The house always had brought +her in about so many dollars a year; she believed it always would; at any +rate, she wanted this money. And so it came to pass that the mortgage on +the old Jacobs house had come into Stephen White's hands, and he was now +living in one half of it, his own tenant and landlord at once, as he often +laughingly said. + +These old rumors and sayings about the Jacobs's family history were +running in Stephen's head this evening, as he stood listlessly leaning on +the gate, and looking down at the unsightly spot of bare earth still left +where the gate had so long stood pressed back against the fence. + +"I wonder how long it'll take to get that old rut smooth and green like +the rest of the yard," he thought. Stephen White absolutely hated +ugliness. It did not merely irritate and depress him, as it does everybody +of fine fastidiousness: he hated not only the sight of it, he hated it +with a sort of unreasoning vindictiveness. If it were a picture, he wanted +to burn the picture, cut it, tear it, trample it under foot, get it off +the face of the earth immediately, at any cost or risk. It had no business +to exist: if nobody else would make way with it, he must. He often saw +places that he would have liked to devastate, to blot out of existence if +he could, just because they were barren and unsightly. Once, when he was a +very little child, he suddenly seized a book of his father's,--an old, +shabby, worn dictionary,--and flung it into the fire with uncontrollable +passion; and, on being asked why he did it, had nothing to say in +justification of his act, except this extraordinary statement: "It was an +ugly book; it hurt me. Ugly books ought to go in the fire." What the child +suffered, and, still more, what the man suffered from this hatred of +ugliness, no words could portray. Ever since he could remember, he had +been unhappy from the lack of the beautiful in the surroundings of his +daily life. His father had been poor; his mother had been an invalid; and +neither father nor mother had a trace of the artistic temperament. From +what long-forgotten ancestor in his plain, hard-working family had come +Stephen's passionate love of beauty, nobody knew. It was the despair of +his father, the torment of his mother. From childhood to boyhood, from +boyhood to manhood, he had felt himself needlessly hurt and perversely +misunderstood on this one point. But it had not soured him: it had only +saddened him, and made him reticent. In his own quiet way, he went slowly +on, adding each year some new touch of simple adornment to their home. +Every dollar he could spare out of his earnings went into something for +the eye to feast on; and, in spite of the old people's perpetual grumbling +and perpetual antagonism, it came about that they grew to be, in a surly +fashion, proud of Stephen's having made their home unlike the homes of +their neighbors. + +"That's Stephen's last notion. He's never satisfied without he's sticking +up suthin' new or different," they would say, as they called attention to +some new picture or shelf or improvement in the house. "It's all +tom-foolery. Things was well enough before." But in their hearts they were +secretly a little elate, as in latter years they had come to know, by +books and papers which Stephen forced them to hear or to read, that he was +really in sympathy with well-known writers in this matter of the adornment +of homes, the love of beautiful things even in every-day life. + +A little more than a year before the time at which our story begins, +Stephen's father had died. On an investigation of his affairs, it was +found that after the settling of the estate very little would remain for +Stephen and his mother. The mortgage on the old Jacobs house was the +greater part of their property. Very reluctantly Stephen decided that +their wisest--in fact, their only--course was to move into this house to +live. Many and many a time he had walked past the old house, and thought, +as he looked at it, what a bare, staring, hopeless, joyless-looking old +house it was. It had originally been a small, square house. The addition +which Billy Jacobs had made to it was oblong, running out to the south, +and projecting on the front a few feet beyond the other part. This +obtrusive jog was certainly very ugly; and it was impossible to conceive +of any reason for it. Very possibly, it was only a carpenter's blunder; +for Billy Jacobs was, no doubt, his own architect, and left all details of +the work to the builders. Be that as it may, the little, clumsy, +meaningless jog ruined the house,--gave it an uncomfortably awry look, +like a dining-table awkwardly pieced out for an emergency by another table +a little too narrow. + +The house had been for several years occupied by families of mill +operatives, and had gradually acquired that indefinable, but unmistakable +tenement-house look, which not even neatness and good repair can wholly +banish from a house. The orchard behind the house had so run down for want +of care that it looked more like a tangle of wild trees than like any +thing which had ever been an orchard. Yet the Roxbury Russets and Baldwins +of that orchard had once been Billy Jacobs's great pride, the one point of +hospitality which his miserliness never conquered. Long after it would +have broken his heart to set out a generous dinner for a neighbor, he +would feast him on choice apples, and send him away with a big basket full +in his hands. Now every passing school-boy helped himself to the wan, +withered, and scanty fruit; and nobody had thought it worth while to mend +the dilapidated fences which might have helped to shut them out. + +Even Mrs. White, with all her indifference to externals, rebelled at first +at the idea of going to live in the old Jacobs house. + +"I'll never go there, Stephen," she said petulantly. "I'm not going to +live in half a house with the mill people; and it's no better than a barn, +the hideous, old, faded, yellow thing!" + +If it crossed Stephen's mind that there was a touch of late retribution +in his mother's having come at last to a sense of suffering because she +must live in an unsightly house, he did not betray it. + +He replied very gently. He was never heard to speak other than gently to +his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and +dictatorial. + +"But, mother, I think we must. It is the only way that we can be sure of +the rent. And, if we live ourselves in one half of it, we shall find it +much easier to get good tenants for the other part. I promise you none of +the mill people shall ever live there again. Please do not make it hard +for me, mother. We must do it." + +When Stephen said "must," his mother never gainsaid him. He was only +twenty-five, but his will was stronger than hers,--as much stronger as his +temper was better. Persons judging hastily, by her violent assertions and +vehement statements of her determination, as contrasted with Stephen's +gentle, slow, almost hesitating utterance of his opinions or intentions, +might have assumed that she would always conquer; but it was not so. In +all little things, Stephen was her slave, because she was a suffering +invalid and his mother. But, in all important decisions, he was the +master; and she recognized it, and leaned upon it in a way which was +almost ludicrous in its alternation with her petulance and perpetual +dictating to him in trifles. + +And so they went to live in the old Jacobs house. They took the northern +half of it, the part in which the sea captain and his wife had lived. +This half of the house was not so pleasant as the other, had less sun, and +had no door upon the street; but it was smaller and better suited to their +needs, and moreover, Stephen said to his mother,-- + +"We must live in the half we should find it hardest to rent to a desirable +tenant." + +For the first six months after they moved in, the "wing," as Mrs. White +persisted in calling it, though it was larger by two rooms than the part +she occupied herself, stood empty. There would have been plenty of +applicants for it, but it had been noised in the town that the Whites had +given out that none but people as good as they were themselves would be +allowed to rent the house. This made a mighty stir among the mill +operatives and the trades-people, and Stephen got many a sour look and +short answer, whose real source he never suspected. + +"Ahem! there he goes with his head in the clouds, damn him!" muttered +Barker the grocer, one day, as Stephen in a more than ordinarily +absent-minded fit had passed Mr. Barker's door without observing that Mr. +Barker stood in it, ready to bow and smile to the whole world. Mr. +Barker's sister had just married an overseer in the mill; and they had +been very anxious to set up housekeeping in the Jacobs house, but had been +prevented from applying for it by hearing of Mrs. White's determination to +have no mill people under the same roof with herself. + +"Mill people, indeed!" exclaimed Jane Barker, when her lover told her, in +no very guarded terms, the reason they could not have the house on which +she had set her heart. + +"Mill people, indeed! I'd like to know if they're not every whit's good's +an old shark of a lawyer like Hugh White was! I'll be bound, if poor old +granny Jacobs hadn't lost what little wit she ever had, it 'ud be very +soon seen whether Madam White's got the right to say who's to come and +who's to go in that house. It's a nasty old yaller shell anyhow, not to +say nothin' o' it's bein' haunted, 's like 's not. But there ain't no +other place so handy to the mill for us, an' I guess our money's good ez +any lawyer's money, o' the hull on 'em any day. Mill people, indeed! I'll +jest give Steve White a piece o' my mind, the first time I see him on the +street." + +Jane and her lover were sitting on the tops of two barrels just outside +the grocery door, when this conversation took place. Just as the last +words had left her lips, she looked up and saw Stephen approaching at a +very rapid pace. The unusual sight of two people perched on barrels on the +sidewalk roused Stephen from the deep reverie in which he habitually +walked. Lifting his hat as courteously as if he were addressing the most +distinguished of women, he bowed, and said smiling, "How do you do, Miss +Jane?" and "Good-morning, Mr. Lovejoy," and passed on; but not before Jane +Barker had had time to say in her gentlest tones, "Very well, thank you, +Mr. Stephen," while an ugly sneer spread over the face of Reuben Lovejoy. + +"Woman all over!" he muttered. "Never saw one on ye yet thet wasn't +caught by a bow from a palaverin' fool." + +Jane laughed nervously. She herself felt ashamed of having so soon given +the lie to her own words of bravado; but she was woman enough not to admit +her mortification. + +"I know he's a palaverin' fool's well's you do; but I reckon I've got some +manners o' my own, 's well's he. When a man bids me a pleasant +good-mornin', I ain't a-goin' to take that time to fly out at him, however +much I've got agin him." + +And Reuben was silenced. The under-current of ill-feeling against Stephen +and his mother went steadily on increasing. There is a wonderful force in +these slow under-currents of feeling, in small communities, for or against +individuals. After they have once become a steady tide, nothing can check +their force or turn their direction. Sometimes they can be traced back to +their spring, as a stream can: one lucky or unlucky word or deed, years +ago, made a friend or an enemy of one person, and that person's influence +has divided itself again and again, as brooks part off and divide into +countless rivulets, and water whole districts. But generally one finds it +impossible to trace the like or dislike to its beginning. A stranger, +asking the reason of it, is answered in an off-hand way,--"Oh, +everybody'll tell you the same thing. There isn't a soul in the town but +hates him;" or, "Well, he's just the most popular man in the town. You'll +never hear a word said against him,--never; not if you were to settle +right down here, and live." + +It was months before Stephen realized that there was slowly forming in the +town a dislike to him. He was slow in discovering it, because he had +always lived alone; had no intimate friends, not even when he was a boy. +His love of books and his passionate love of beauty combined with his +poverty to hedge him about more effectually than miles of desert could +have done. His father and mother had lived upon fairly good terms with all +their neighbors, but had formed no very close bonds with any. In the +ordinary New England town, neighborhood never means much: there is a +dismal lack of cohesion to the relations between people. The community is +loosely held together by a few accidental points of contact or common +interest. The individuality of individuals is, by a strange sort of +paradox, at once respected and ignored. This is indifference rather than +consideration, selfishness rather than generosity; it is an unsuspected +root of much of our national failure, is responsible for much of our +national disgrace. Some day there will come a time when it will have +crystallized into a national apathy, which will perhaps cure itself, or +have to be cured, as indurations in the body are, by sharp crises or by +surgical operations. In the mean time, our people are living, on the +whole, the dullest lives that are lived in the world, by the so-called +civilized; and the climax of this dulness of life is to be found in just +such a small New England town as Penfield, the one of which we are now +speaking. + +When it gradually became clear to Stephen that he and his mother were +unpopular people, his first feeling was one of resentment, his second of +calm acquiescence: acquiescence, first, because he recognized in a measure +the justice of it,--they really did not care for their neighbors; why +should their neighbors care for them? secondly, a diminished familiarity +of intercourse would have to him great compensations. There were few +people in the town, whose clothes, whose speech, whose behavior, did not +jar upon his nerves. On the whole, he would be better content alone; and +if his mother could only have a little more independence of nature, more +resource within herself, "The less we see of them, the better," said +Stephen, proudly. + +He had yet to learn the lesson which, sooner or later, the proudest, most +scornful, most self-centred of human souls must learn, or must die of +loneliness for the want of learning, that humanity is one and indivisible; +and the man who shuts himself apart from his fellows, above all, the man +who thus shuts himself apart because he thinks of his fellows with pitying +condescension as his inferiors, is a fool and a blasphemer,--a fool, +because he robs himself of that good-fellowship which is the leaven of +life; a blasphemer, because he virtually implies that God made men unfit +for him to associate with. Stephen White had this lesson yet to learn. + +The practical inconvenience of being unpopular, however, he began to feel +keenly, as month after month passed by, and nobody would rent the other +half of the house in which he and his mother lived. Small as the rent +was, it was a matter of great moment to them; for his earnings as clerk +and copyist were barely enough to give them food. He was still retained by +his father's partner in the same position which he had held during his +father's life. But old Mr. Williams was not wholly free from the general +prejudice against Stephen, as an aristocratic fellow, given to dreams and +fancies; and Stephen knew very well that he held the position only as it +were on a sort of sufferance, because Mr. Williams had loved his father. +Moreover, law business in Penfield was growing duller and duller. A +younger firm in the county town, only twelve miles away, was robbing them +of clients continually; and there were many long days during which Stephen +sat idle at his desk, looking out in a vague, dreamy way on the street +below, and wondering if the time were really coming when Mr. Williams +would need a clerk no longer; and, if it did come, what he could possibly +find to do in that town, by which he could earn money enough to support +his mother. At such times, he thought uneasily of the possibility of +foreclosing the mortgage on the old Jacobs house, selling the house, and +reinvesting the money in a more advantageous way. He always tried to put +the thought away from him as a dishonorable one; but it had a fatal +persistency. He could not banish it. + +"Poor, half-witted old woman! she might a great deal better be in the +poor-house." + +"There is no reason why we should lose our interest, for the sake of +keeping her along." + +"The mortgage was for too large a sum. I doubt if the old house could +sell to-day for enough to clear it, anyhow." These were some of the +suggestions which the devil kept whispering into Stephen's ear, in these +long hours of perplexity and misgiving. It was a question of casuistry +which might, perhaps, have puzzled a finer moral sense than Stephen's. Why +should he treat old Mrs. Jacobs with any more consideration than he would +show to a man under the same circumstances? To be sure, she was a helpless +old woman; but so was his own mother, and surely his first duty was to +make her as comfortable as possible. + +Luckily for old Mrs. Jacobs, a tenant appeared for the "south wing." A +friend of Stephen's, a young clergyman living in a seaport town on Cape +Cod, had written to him, asking about the house, which he knew Stephen was +anxious to rent. He made these inquiries on behalf of two women, +parishioners of his, who were obliged to move to some inland town on +account of the elder woman's failing health. They were mother and +daughter, but both widows. The younger woman's marriage had been a +tragically sad one, her husband having died suddenly, only a few days +after their marriage. She had returned at once to her mother's house, +widowed at eighteen; "heart-broken," the young clergyman wrote, "but the +most cheerful person in this town,--the most cheerful person I ever knew; +her smile is the sunniest and most pathetic thing I ever saw." + +Stephen welcomed most gladly the prospect of such tenants as these. The +negotiations were soon concluded; and at the time of the beginning of our +story the two women were daily expected. + +A strange feverishness of desire to have them arrive possessed Stephen's +mind. He longed for it, and yet he dreaded it. He liked the stillness of +the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these +satisfactions were to be interfered with now. But he had a singular +consciousness that some new element was coming into his life. He did not +define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a +bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his +reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, +"Stephen, man, what is this? What are these two women to you, that your +imagination is taking these wild and superfluous leaps into their +history?" + +There was hardly a possible speculation as to their past history, as to +their looks, as to their future life under his roof, that Stephen did not +indulge in, as he stood leaning with his folded arms on the gate, in the +gray November twilight, where we first found him. His thoughts, as was +natural, centred most around the younger woman. + +"Poor thing! That was a mighty hard fate. Only nineteen years old +now,--six years younger than I am; and how much more she must know of life +than I do. I suppose she can't be a lady, exactly,--being a sea captain's +wife. I wonder if she's pretty? I think Harley might have told me more +about her. He might know I'd be very curious. + +"I wonder if mother'll take to them? If she does, it will be a great +comfort to her. She 's so alone." And Stephen's face clouded, as he +reflected how very seldom the monotony of the invalid's life was broken +now by a friendly visit from a neighbor. + +"If they should turn out really social, neighborly people that we liked, +we might move away the old side-board from before the hall door, and go in +and out that way, as the Jacobses used to. It would be unlucky though, I +reckon, to use that door. I guess I'll plaster it up some day." Like all +people of deep sentiment, Stephen had in his nature a vein of something +which bordered on superstition. + +The twilight deepened into darkness, and a cold mist began to fall in +slow, drizzling drops. Still Stephen stood, absorbed in his reverie, and +unmindful of the chill. + +The hall door opened, and an old woman peered out. She held a lamp in one +hand; the blast of cold air made the flame flicker and flare, and, as she +put up one hand to shade it, the light was thrown sharply across her +features, making them stand out like the distorted features of a hideous +mask. + +"Steve! Steve!" she called, in a shrill voice. "Supper's been waitin' more +'n half an hour. Lor's sake, what's the boy thinkin' on now, I wonder?" +she muttered in an impatient lower tone, as Stephen turned his head +slowly. + +"Yes, yes, Marty. Tell my mother I will be there in a moment," replied +Stephen, as he walked slowly toward the house; even then noting, with the +keen and relentless glance of a beauty-worshipper, how grotesquely ugly +the old woman's wrinkled face became, lighted up by the intense +cross-light. Old Marty's face had never looked other than lovingly into +Stephen's since he first lay in her arms, twenty-five years ago, when she +came, a smooth-cheeked, rosy country-woman of twenty-five, to nurse his +mother at the time of his birth. She had never left the home since. With a +faithfulness and devotion only to be accounted for by the existence of +rare springs of each in her own nature, surely not by any uncommon +lovableness in either Mr. or Mrs. White, or by any especial comforts in +her situation, she had stayed on a quarter of a century, in the hard +position of woman of all work in a poor family. She worshipped Stephen, +and, as I said, her face had never once looked other than lovingly into +his; but he could not remember the time when he had not thought her +hideous. She had a big brown mole on her chin, out of which grew a few +bristling hairs. It was an unsightly thing, no doubt, on a woman's chin; +and sometimes, when Marty was very angry, the hairs did actually seem to +bristle, as a cat's whiskers do. When Stephen could not speak plain, he +used to point his little dimpled finger at this mole and say, "Do doe +away,--doe away;" and to this day it was a torment to him. His eyes seemed +morbidly drawn toward it at times.. When he was ill, and poor Marty bent +over his bed, ministering to him as no one but a loving old nurse can, he +saw only the mole, and had to make an effort not to shrink from her. +To-night, as she lingered on the threshold, affectionately waiting to +light his path, he was thinking only of her ugliness. But when she +exclaimed, with the privileged irritability of an old servant,-- + +"Jest look at your feet, Steve! they're wet through, an' your coat too, a +standin' out in that drizzle. Anybody 'ud think you hadn't common sense," +he replied with perfect good nature, and as heartily loving a tone as if +he had been feasting on her beauty, instead of writhing inwardly at her +ugliness,-- + +"All right, Marty,--all right. I'm not so wet as I look. I'll change my +coat, and come in to supper in one minute. Don't you fidget about me so, +good Marty." Never was Stephen heard to speak discourteously or even +ungently to a human being. It would have offended his taste. It was not a +matter of principle with him,--not at all: he hardly ever thought of +things in that light. A rude or harsh word, a loud, angry tone, jarred on +his every sense like a discord in music, or an inharmonious color; so he +never used them. But as he ran upstairs, three steps at a time, after his +kind, off-hand words to Marty, he said to himself, "Good heavens! I do +believe Marty gets uglier every day. What a picture Rembrandt would have +made of her old face peering out into the darkness there to-night! She +would have done for the witch of Endor, watching to see if Samuel were +coming up." And as he went down more slowly, revolving in his mind what +plausible excuse he could give to his mother for his tardiness, he +thought, "Well, I do hope she'll be at least tolerably good-looking." + +Already the younger of the two women who were coming to live under his +roof was "she," in his thoughts. + + + + +Chapter II. + + + +In the mean time, the young widow, Mercy Philbrick, and her old and almost +childish mother, Mercy Carr, were coming by slow and tiring stage journeys +up the dreary length of Cape Cod. For thirty years the elder woman had +never gone out of sight of the village graveyard in which her husband and +four children were buried. To transplant her was like transplanting an old +weather-beaten tree, already dead at the top. Yet the physicians had said +that the only chance of prolonging her life was to take her away from the +fierce winds of the sea. She herself, while she loved them, shrank from +them. They seemed to pierce her lungs like arrows of ice-cold steel, at +once wounding and benumbing. Yet the habit and love of the seashore life +were so strong upon her that she would never have been able to tear +herself away from her old home, had it not been for her daughter's +determined will. Mercy Philbrick was a woman of slight frame, gentle, +laughing, brown eyes, a pale skin, pale ash-brown hair, a small nose; a +sweet and changeful mouth, the upper lip too short, the lower lip much too +full; little hands, little feet, little wrists. Not one indication of +great physical or great mental strength could you point out in Mercy +Philbrick; but she was rarely ill; and she had never been known to give +up a point, small or great, on which her will had been fully set. Even the +cheerfulness of which her minister, Harley Allen, had written to Stephen, +was very largely a matter of will with Mercy. She confronted grief as she +would confront an antagonist force of any sort: it was something to be +battled with, to be conquered. Fate should not worst her: come what might, +she would be the stronger of the two. When the doctor said to her,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, I fear that your mother cannot live through another +winter in this climate," Mercy looked at him for a moment with an +expression of terror. In an instant more, the expression had given place +to one of resolute and searching inquiry. + +"You think, then, that she might be well in a different climate?" + +"Perhaps not well, but she might live for years in a dryer, milder air. +There is as yet no actual disease in her lungs," the doctor replied. + +Mercy interrupted him. + +"You think she might live in comparative comfort? It would not be merely +prolonging her life as a suffering invalid?" she said; adding in an +undertone, as if to herself, "I would not subject her to that." + +"Oh, yes, undoubtedly," said the doctor. "She need never die of +consumption at all, if she could breathe only inland air. She will never +be strong again, but she may live years without any especial liability to +suffering." + +"Then I will take her away immediately," replied Mercy, in as confident +and simple a manner as if she had been proposing only to move her from one +room into another. It would not seem so easy a matter for two lonely +women, in a little Cape Cod village, without a male relative to help them, +and with only a few thousand dollars in the world, to sell their house, +break up all their life-long associations, and go out into the world to +find a new home. Associations crystallize around people in lonely and out +of the way spots, where the days are all alike, and years follow years in +an undeviating monotony. Perhaps the process might be more aptly called +one of petrifaction. There are pieces of exquisite agate which were once +soft wood. Ages ago, the bit of wood fell into a stream, where the water +was largely impregnated with some chemical matter which had the power to +eat out the fibre of the wood, and in each spot thus left empty to deposit +itself in an exact image of the wood it had eaten away. Molecule by +molecule, in a mystery too small for human eye to detect, even had a +watchful human eye been lying in wait to observe, the marvellous process +went on; until, after the lapse of nobody knows how many centuries, the +wood was gone, and in its place lay its exact image in stone,--rings of +growth, individual peculiarities of structure, knots, broken slivers and +chips; color, shape, all perfect. Men call it agatized wood, by a feeble +effort to translate the mystery of its existence; but it is not wood, +except to the eye. To the touch, and in fact, it is stone,--hard, cold, +unalterable, eternal stone. The slow wear of monotonous life in a set +groove does very much such a thing as this to human beings. To the eye +they retain the semblance of other beings; but try them by touch, that is +by contact with people, with events outside their groove, and they are +stone,--agatized men and women. Carry them where you please, after they +have reached middle or old age, and they will not change. There is no +magic water, a drop of which will restore to them the vitality and +pliability of their youth. They last well, such people,--as well, almost, +as agatized wood on museum shelves; and the most you can do for them is to +keep them well dusted. + +Old Mrs. Carr belonged, in a degree, to this order of persons. Only the +coming of Mercy's young life into the feeble current of her own had saved +it from entire stagnation. But she was already past middle age when Mercy +was born; and the child with her wonderful joyousness, and the maiden with +her wondrous cheer, came too late to undo what the years had done. The +most they could do was to interrupt the process, to stay it at that point. +The consequence was that Mrs. Carr at sixty-five was a placid sort of +middle-aged old lady, very pleasant to talk with as you would talk with a +child, very easy to take care of as you would take care of a child, but, +for all purposes of practical management or efficient force, as helpless +as a baby. + +When Mercy told her what the doctor had said of her health, and that they +must sell the house and move away before the winter set in, she literally +opened her mouth too wide to speak for a minute, and then gasped out like +a frightened child,-- + +"O Mercy, don't let's do it!" + +As Mercy went on explaining to her the necessity of the change, and the +arrangements she proposed to make, the poor old woman's face grew longer +and longer; but, some time before Mercy had come to the end of her +explanation, the childish soul had accepted the whole thing as fixed, had +begun already to project itself in childish imaginations of detail; and to +Mercy's infinite relief and half-sad amusement, when she ceased speaking, +her mother's first words were, eagerly,-- + +"Well, Mercy, if we go 'n the stage, 'n' I s'pose we shall hev to, don't +ye think my old brown merino'll do to wear?" + +Fortune favored Mercy's desire to sell the house. Stephen's friend, the +young minister, had said to himself many times, as he walked up to its +door between the quaint, trim beds of old-fashioned pinks and ladies' +delights and sweet-williams which bordered the little path, "This is the +only house in this town I want to live in." As soon as he heard that it +was for sale, he put on his hat, and fairly ran to buy it. Out of breath, +he took Mercy's hands in his, and exclaimed,-- + +"O Mercy, do you really want to sell this house?" + +Very unworldly were this young man and this young woman, in the matter of +sale and purchase. Adepts in traffic would have laughed, had they +overheard the conversation. + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Allen, I do. I must sell it; and I am afraid I shall +have to sell it for a great deal less than it is worth," replied Mercy. + +"No, you sha'n't, Mercy! I'll buy it myself. I've always wanted it. But +why in the world do you want to sell it? Where will you live yourself? +There isn't another house in the village you'd like half so well. Is it +too large for you?" continued Mr. Allen, hurriedly. Then Mercy told him +all her plans, and the sad necessity for her making the change. The young +minister did not speak for some moments. He seemed lost in thought. Then +he exclaimed,-- + +"I do believe it's a kind of Providence!" and drew a letter from his +pocket, which he had only two days before received from Stephen White. +"Mercy," he went on, "I believe I've got the very thing you want right +here;" and he read her the concluding paragraph of the letter, in which +Stephen had said: "Meantime, I am waiting as patiently as I can for a +tenant for the other half of this house. It seems to be very hard to find +just the right sort of person. I cannot take in any of the mill +operatives. They are noisy and untidy; and the bare thought of their being +just the other side of the partition would drive my mother frantic. I wish +so much I could get some people in that would be real friends for her. She +is very lonely. She never leaves her bed; and I have to be away all day." + +Mercy's face lighted up. She liked the sound of each word that this +unknown man wrote. Very eagerly she questioned Mr. Allen about the town, +its situation, its healthfulness, and so forth. As he gave her detail +after detail, she nodded her head with increasing emphasis, and finally +exclaimed: "That is precisely such a spot as Dr. Wheeler said we ought to +go to. I think you're right, Mr. Allen. It's a Providence. And I'd be so +glad to be good to that poor old woman, too. What a companion she'd be for +mother! that is, if I could keep them from comparing notes for ever about +their diseases. That's the worst of putting invalid old women together," +laughed Mercy with a kindly, merry little laugh. + +Mr. Allen had visited Penfield only once. When he and Stephen were boys at +school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's +house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of +their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to +boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced +intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten +the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the +western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it +commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a +most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent +any danger from its moisture. To the south and south-west rose a fine +range of mountains, bold and sharp-cut, though they were not very high, +and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this +range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way +through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the +geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and +well-regulated planet. + +The town, although, as I said, it lay on the western slope of a great +river terrace, held in its site three distinctly marked plateaus. From the +two highest of these, the views were grand. It was like living on a +mountain, and yet there was the rich beauty of coloring of the river +interval. Nowhere in all New England was there a fairer country than this +to look upon, nor a goodlier one in which to live. + +Mr. Allen's enthusiasm in describing the beauties of the place, and +Mercy's enthusiasm in listening, were fast driving out of their minds the +thought of the sale, which had been mentioned in the beginning of their +conversation. Mercy was the first to recall it. She blushed and hesitated, +as she said,-- + +"But, Mr. Allen, we can't go, you know, until I have sold this house. Did +you really want to buy it? And how much do you think I ought to ask for +it?" + +"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed the young minister. "Dear me, what +children we are! Mercy, I don't honestly know what you ought to ask for +the house. I'll find out." + +"Deacon Jones said he thought, taking in the cranberry meadow, it was +worth three thousand dollars," said Mercy; "but that seems a great deal to +me: though not in a good cranberry year, perhaps," added she, ingenuously, +"for last year the cranberries brought us in seventy-five dollars, besides +paying for the picking." + +"And the meadow ought to go with the house, by all means," said Mr. Allen. +"I want it for color in the background, when I look at the house as I +come down from the meeting-house hill. I wouldn't like to have anybody +else own the canvas on which the picture of my home will be oftenest +painted for my eyes. I'll give you three thousand dollars for the house, +Mercy. I can only pay two thousand down, and pay you interest on the other +thousand for a year or two. I'll soon clear it off. Will that do?" + +"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Allen. It will more than do," said poor +Mercy, who could not believe in such sudden good fortune; "but do you +think you ought to buy it so quick? Perhaps it wouldn't bring so much +money as that. I had not asked anybody except Deacon Jones." + +Mr. Allen laughed. "If you don't look out for yourself sharper than this, +Mercy," he said, "in the new place 'where you're going to live, you'll +fare badly. Perhaps it may be true, as you say, that nobody else would +give you three thousand dollars for the house, because nobody might happen +to want to live in it. But Deacon Jones knows better than anybody else the +value of property here, and I am perfectly willing to give you the price +he set on the place. I had laid by this two thousand dollars towards my +house; and I could not build such a house as this, to-day, for three +thousand dollars. But really, Mercy, you must look 'out for yourself +better than this." + +"I don't know," replied Mercy, looking out of the window, with an earnest +gaze, as if she were reading a writing a great way off,--"I don't know +about that. I doubt very much if looking out for one's self, as you call +it, is the best way to provide for one's self." + +That very night Mr. Allen wrote to Stephen; in two weeks, the whole matter +was settled, and Mercy and her mother had set out on their journey. They +carried with them but one small valise. The rest of their simple wardrobe +had gone in boxes, with the furniture, by sailing vessel, to a city which +was within three hours by rail of their new home. This was the feature of +the situation which poor Mrs. Carr could not accept. In the bottom of her +heart, she fully believed that they would never again see one of those +boxes. The contents of some which she had herself packed were of a most +motley description. In the beginning of the breaking up, while Mercy was +at her wits' end, with the unwonted perplexities of packing the whole +belongings of a house, her mother had tormented her incessantly by +bringing to her every few minutes some utterly incongruous and frequently +worthless article, and begging her to put it in at once, whatever she +might be packing. Any one who has ever packed for a long journey, with an +eager and excited child running up every minute with more and more +cumbrous toys, dogs, cats, Noah's arks, and so on, to be put in among +books and under-clothing, can imagine Mercy's despair at her mother's +restless activity. + +"Oh, mother, not in this box! Not in with the china!" would groan poor +Mercy, as her mother appeared with armfuls of ancient relics from the +garret, such as old umbrellas, bonnets, bundles of old newspapers, broken +spinning-wheels, andirons, and rolls of remains of old wall-paper, the +last of which had disappeared from the walls of the house, long before +Mercy was born. No old magpie was ever a more indiscriminate hoarder than +Mrs. Carr had been; and, among all her hoardings, there was none more +amusing than her hoarding of old wall-papers. A scrap a foot square seemed +to her too precious to throw away. "It might be jest the right size to +cover suthin' with," she would say; and, to do her justice, she did use in +the course of a year a most unexampled amount of such fragments. She had a +mania for papering and repapering and papering again every shelf, every +box, every corner she could get hold of. The paste and brush were like +toys to her; and she delighted in gay combinations, sticking on old bits +of borders in fantastic ways, in most inappropriate situations. + +"I do believe you'll paper the pigsty next, mother," said Mercy one day: +"there's nothing left you can paper except that." Mrs. Carr took the +suggestion in perfect good faith, and convulsed Mercy a few days later by +entering the kitchen with the following extraordinary remark,-- + +"I don't believe it's worth while to paper the pigsty. I've been looking +at it, and the boards they're so rough, the paper wouldn't lay smooth, +anyhow; and I couldn't well get at the inside o' the roof, while the pig's +in. It would look real neat, though. I'd like to do it." + +Mercy endured her mother's help in packing for one day. Then the +desperateness of the trouble suggested a remedy. Selecting a large, strong +box, she had it carried into the garret. + +"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old +lumber of all sorts which you want to carry. And, if this box isn't large +enough, you shall have two more. Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty +of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can +help you." + +Then Mercy went downstairs feeling half-guilty, as one does when one has +practised a subterfuge on a child. + +How many times that poor old woman packed and unpacked that box, nobody +could dream. All day long she trotted up and down, up and down; ransacking +closets, chests, barrels; sorting and resorting, and forgetting as fast as +she sorted. Now and then she would come across something which would rouse +an electric chain of memories in the dim chambers of her old, worn-out +brain, and she would sit motionless for a long time on the garret floor, +in a sort of trance. Once Mercy found her leaning back against a beam, +with her knees covered by a piece of faded blue Canton crape, on which her +eyes were fastened. She did not speak till Mercy touched her shoulder. + +"Oh, my! how you scared me, child!" she exclaimed. "D'ye see this ere blue +stuff? I hed a gown o' thet once: it was drefful kind o' clingy stuff. I +never felt exzackly decent in it, somehow: it hung a good deal like a +night-gownd; but your father he bought it for the color. He traded off +some shells for it in some o' them furrin places. You wouldn't think it +now, but it used to be jest the color o' a robin's egg or a light-blue +'bachelor's button;' and your father he used to stick one o' them in my +belt whenever they was in blossom, when I hed the gownd on. He hed a heap +o' notions about things matchin'. He brought me that gownd the v'yage he +made jest afore Caleb was born; and I never hed a chance to wear it much, +the children come so fast. It warn't re'ly worn at all, 'n' I hed it dyed +black for veils arterwards." + +It was from this father who used to "stick" pale-blue flowers in his +wife's belt, and whose love of delicate fabrics and tints made him +courageous enough to lead her draped in Canton crape into the unpainted +Cape Cod meeting-house, where her fellow-women bristled in homespun, that +Mercy inherited all the artistic side of her nature. She knew this +instinctively, and all her tenderest sentiment centred around the vague +memory she retained of a tall, dark-bearded man, who, when she was only +three years old, lifted her in his arms, called her his "little Mercy," +and kissed her over and over again. She was most loyally affectionate to +her mother, but the sentiment was not a wholly filial one. There was too +much reversal of the natural order of the protector and the protected in +it; and her life was on too different a plane of thought, feeling, and +interest from the life of the uncultured, undeveloped, childish, old +woman. Yet no one who saw them together would have detected any trace of +this shortcoming in Mercy's feeling towards her mother. She had in her +nature a fine and lofty fibre of loyalty which could never condescend even +to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all +consciousness of the possibility of any other course. This is a sort of +organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower +of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death +itself. It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men +and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be +of a loving nature. The cheaper and less lasting types of love are so much +louder of voice and readier of phrase, as in cloths cheap fabrics, poor to +wear, are often found printed in gay colors and big patterns. + +The day before they left home, Mercy, becoming alarmed by a longer +interval than usual without any sound from the garret, where her mother +was still at work over her fantastic collections of old odds and ends, ran +up to see what it meant. + +Mrs. Carr was on her knees before a barrel, which had held rags and +papers. The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor. She had +leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly. + +"Mother! mother! what is the matter?" exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for +she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry. Without speaking, +Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory. It was of a creamy +yellow, and shone like satin: a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from +it. As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window, +and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left. + +"What a lovely bit of carving! What is it, mother? Why does it make you +cry?" asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory. + +"It's Caley's whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience +Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, +an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought +that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I +was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum +in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every +mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the +next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n +yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed +that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--" + +"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle +all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink +rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one +o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer +ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus +used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth +an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old. But by the time he +was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could. And his father he'd +just lay back 'n his chair, and laugh 'n' laugh, 'n' call out, 'Blow away, +my hearty!' Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago'n yesterday. I wish I'd +ha' known. I wa'n't never friends with Patience any more arter that. I +never misgave me but what she'd got the whistle. It was such a curious +cut thing, and cost a heap o' money. Your father wouldn't never tell what +he gin for 't. Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday," and the +old woman wiped her eyes on her apron, and struggling up on her feet took +the whistle again from Mercy's hands. + +"How old would my brother Caley be now, if he had lived, mother?" said +Mercy, anxious to bring her mother gently back to the present. + +"Well, let me see, child. Why, Caley--Caley, he'd be--How old am I, Mercy? +Dear me! hain't I lost my memory, sure enough, except about these ere old +things? They seem's clear's daylight." + +"Sixty-five last July, mother," said Mercy. "Don't you know I gave you +your new specs then?" + +"Oh, yes, child,--yes. Well, I'm sixty-five, be I? Then Caley,--Caley, +he'd be, let me see--you reckon it, Mercy. I wuz goin' on nineteen when +Caley was born." + +"Why, mother," exclaimed Mercy, "is it really so long ago? Then my brother +Caleb would be forty-six years old now!" and mercy took again in her hand +the yellow ivory whistle, and ran her fingers over the faded and frayed +pink ribbon, and looked at it with an indefinable sense of its being a +strange link between her and a distant past, which, though she had never +shared it, belonged to her by right. Hardly thinking what she did, she +raised the whistle to her lips, and blew a loud, shrill whistle on it. Her +mother started. "O Mercy, don't, don't!" she cried. "I can't bear to hear +it." + +"Now, mother, don't you be foolish," said Mercy, cheerily. "A whistle's a +whistle, old or young, and made to be whistled with. We'll keep this to +amuse children with: you carry it in your pocket. Perhaps we shall meet +some children on the journey; and it'll be so nice for you to pop this out +of your pocket, and give it to them to blow." + +"So it will, Mercy, I declare. That 'ud be real nice. You're a +master-piece for thinkin' o' things." And, easily diverted as a child, the +old woman dropped the whistle into her deep pocket, and, forgetting all +her tears, returned to her packing. + +Not so Mercy. Having attained her end of cheering her mother, her own +thoughts reverted again and again all day long, and many times in after +years, whenever she saw the ivory whistle, to the strange picture of the +lonely old woman in the garret coming upon her first-born child's first +toy, lost for forty years; the picture, too, of the history of the quaint +piece of carving itself; the day it was slowly cut and chiselled by a +patient and ill-paid toiler in some city of China; its voyage in the +keeping of the ardent young husband hastening home to welcome his first +child; its forty years of silence and darkness in the old garret; and then +its return to life and light and sound, in the hands and lips of new +generations of children. + +The journey which Mercy had so much dreaded was unexpectedly pleasant. +Mrs. Carr proved an admirable traveller with the exception of her +incessant and garrulous anxiety about the boxes which had been left behind +on the deck of the schooner "Maria Jane," and could not by any +possibility overtake them for three weeks to come. She was, in fact, so +much of a child that she was in a state of eager delight at every new +scene and person. Her childishness proved the best of claims upon every +one's courtesy. Everybody was ready to help "that poor sweet old woman;" +and she was so simply and touchingly grateful for the smallest kindness +that everybody who had helped her once wanted to help her again. More than +one of their fellow-travellers remembered for a long time the bright-faced +young woman with her childish mother, and wondered where they could have +been going, and what was to be their life. + +On the fourth day, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, they +entered the beautiful river interval, through which the road to their new +home lay. Mercy sat with her face almost pressed against the panes of the +car-windows, eagerly scanning every feature of the landscape, to her so +new and wonderful. To the dweller by the sea, the first sight of mountains +is like the sight of a new heavens and a new earth. It is a revelation of +a new life. Mercy felt strangely stirred and overawed. She looked around +in astonishment at her fellow-passengers, not one of whom apparently +observed that on either hand were stretching away to the east and the west +fields that were, even in this late autumn, like carpets of gold and +green. Through these fertile meadows ran a majestic river, curving and +doubling as if loath to leave such fair shores. The wooded mountains +changed fast from green to purple, from purple to dark gray; and almost +before Mercy had comprehended the beauty of the region, it was lost from +her sight, veiled in the twilight's pale, indistinguishable tints. Her +mother was fast asleep in her seat. The train stopped every few moments at +some insignificant station, of which Mercy could see nothing but a narrow +platform, a dim lantern, and a sleepy-looking station-master. Slowly, one +or two at a time, the passengers disappeared, until she and her mother +were left alone in the car. The conductor and the brakeman, as they passed +through, looked at them with renewed interest: it was evident now that +they were going through to the terminus of the road. + +"Goin' through, be ye?" said the conductor. "It'll be dark when we get in; +an' it's beginnin' to rain. 'S anybody comin' to meet ye?" + +"No," said Mercy, uneasily. "Will there not be carriages at the depot? We +are going to the hotel. I believe there is but one." + +"Well, there may be a kerridge down to-night, an' there may not: there's +no knowin'. Ef it don't rain too hard, I reckon Seth'll be down." + +Mercy's sense of humor never failed her. She laughed heartily, as she +said,-- + +"Then Seth stays away, does he, on the nights when he would be sure of +passengers?" + +The conductor laughed too, as he replied,--- + +"Well, 'tisn't quite so bad's that. Ye see this here road's only a piece +of a road. It's goin' up through to connect with the northern roads; but +they 've come to a stand-still for want o' funds, an' more 'n half the +time I don't carry nobody over this last ten miles. Most o' the people +from our town go the other way, on the river road. It's shorter, an' some +cheaper. There isn't much travellin' done by our folks, anyhow. We're a +mighty dead an' alive set up here. Goin' to stay a spell?" he continued, +with increasing interest, as he looked longer into Mercy's face. + +"Probably," said Mercy, in a grave tone, suddenly recollecting that she +ought not to talk with this man as if he were one of her own village +people. The conductor, sensitive as are most New England people, spite of +their apparent familiarity of address, to the least rebuff, felt the +change in Mercy's tone, and walked away, thinking half surlily, "She +needn't put on airs. A schoolma'am, I reckon. Wonder if it can be her +that's going to teach the Academy?" + +When they reached the station, it was, as the conductor had said, very +dark; and it was raining hard. For the first time, a sense of her +unprotected loneliness fell upon Mercy's heart. Her mother, but +half-awake, clung nervously to her, asking purposeless and incoherent +questions. The conductor, still surly from his fancied rebuff at Mercy's +hands, walked away, and took no notice of them. The station-master was +nowhere to be seen. The two women stood huddling together under one +umbrella, gazing blankly about them. + +"Is this Mrs. Philbrick?" came in clear, firm tones, out of the darkness +behind them; and, in a second more, Mercy had turned and looked up into +Stephen White's face. + +"Oh, how good you were to come and meet us!" exclaimed Mercy. "You are Mr. +Allen's friend, I suppose." + +"Yes," said Stephen, curtly. "But I did not come to meet you. You must not +thank me. I had business here. However, I made the one carriage which the +town boasts, wait, in case you should be here. Here it is!" And, before +Mercy had time to analyze or even to realize the vague sense of +disappointment she felt at his words, she found herself and her mother +placed in the carriage, and the door shut. + +"Your trunks cannot go up until morning," he said, speaking through the +carriage window; "but, if you will give me your checks, I will see that +they are sent." + +"We have only one small valise," said Mercy: "that was under our seat. The +brakeman said he would take it out for us; but he forgot it, and so did +I." + +The train was already backing out of the station. Stephen smothered some +very unchivalrous words on his lips, as he ran out into the rain, overtook +the train, and swung himself on the last car, in search of the "one small +valise" belonging to his tenants. It was a very shabby valise: it had made +many a voyage with its first owner, Captain Carr. It was a very little +valise: it could not have held one gown of any of the modern fashions. + +"Dear me," thought Stephen, as he put it into the carriage at Mercy's +feet, "what sort of women are these I've taken under my roof! I expect +they'll be very unpleasing sights to my eyes. I did hope she'd be +good-looking." How many times in after years did Stephen recall with +laughter his first impressions of Mercy Philbrick, and wonder how he could +have argued so unhesitatingly that a woman who travelled with only one +small valise could not be good-looking. + +"Will you come to the house to-morrow?" he asked. + +"Oh, no," replied Mercy, "not for three or four weeks yet. Our furniture +will not be here under that time." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, "I had not thought of that. I will call on you at the +hotel, then, in a day or two." + +His adieus were civil, but only civil: that most depressing of all things +to a sensitive nature, a kindly indifference, was manifest in every word +he said, and in every tone of his voice. + +Mercy felt it to the quick; but she was ashamed of herself for the +feeling. "What business had I to expect that he was going to be our +friend?" she said in her heart. "We are only tenants to him." + +"What a kind-spoken young man he is, to be sure, Mercy!" said Mrs. Carr. + +So all-sufficient is bare kindliness of tone and speech to the unsensitive +nature. + +"Yes, mother, he was very kind," said Mercy; "but I don't think we shall +ever know him very well." + +"Why, Mercy, why not?" exclaimed her mother. "I should say he was most +uncommon friendly for a stranger, running back after our valise in the +rain, and a goin' to call on you to oncet." + +Mercy made no reply. The carriage rolled along over the rough and muddy +road. It was too dark to see any thing except the shadowy black shapes of +houses, outlined on a still deeper blackness by the light streaming from +their windows. There is no sight in the world so hard for lonely, homeless +people to see, as the sight of the lighted windows of houses after +nightfall. Why houses should look so much more homelike, so much more +suggestive of shelter and cheer and companionship and love, when the +curtains are snug-drawn and the doors shut, and nobody can look in, though +the lights of fires and lamps shine out, than they do in broad daylight, +with open windows and people coming and going through open doors, and a +general air of comradeship and busy living, it is hard to see. But there +is not a lonely vagabond in the world who does not know that they do. One +may see on a dark night many a wistful face of lonely man or lonely woman, +hurrying resolutely past, and looking away from, the illumined houses +which mean nothing to them except the keen reminder of what they are +without. Oh, the homeless people there are in this world! Did anybody ever +think to count up the thousands there are in every great city, who live in +lodgings and not in homes; from the luxurious lodger who lodges in the +costliest rooms of the costliest hotel, down to the most poverty-stricken +lodger who lodges in a corner of the poorest tenement-house? Homeless all +of them; their common vagabondage is only a matter of degrees of decency. +All honor to the bravery of those who are homeless because they must be, +and who make the best of it. But only scorn and pity for those who are +homeless because they choose to be, and are foolish enough to like it. + +Mercy had never before felt the sensation of being a homeless wanderer. +She was utterly unprepared for it. All through the breaking up of their +home and the preparations for their journey, she had been buoyed up by +excitement and anticipation. Much as she had grieved to part from some of +the friends of her early life, and to leave the old home in which she was +born, there was still a certain sense of elation in the prospect of new +scenes and new people. She had felt, without realizing it, a most +unreasonable confidence that it was to be at once a change from one home +to another home. In her native town, she had had a position of importance. +Their house was the best house in the town; judged by the simple standards +of a Cape Cod village, they were well-to-do. Everybody knew, and everybody +spoke with respect and consideration, of "Old Mis' Carr," or, as she was +perhaps more often called, "Widder Carr." Mercy had not thought--in her +utter inexperience of change, it could not have occurred to her--what a +very different thing it was to be simply unknown and poor people in a +strange place. The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly, +as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night. +Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the +thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the +home-lights deepened her sense of desolation. Every gust of rain that beat +on the carriage roof and windows made her feel more and more like an +outcast. She never forgot these moments. She used to say that in them she +had lived the whole life of the loneliest outcast that was ever born. Long +years afterward, she wrote a poem, called "The Outcast," which was so +intense in its feeling one could have easily believed that it was written +by Ishmael. When she was asked once how and when she wrote this poem, she +replied, "I did not write it: I lived it one night in entering a strange +town." In vain she struggled against the strange and unexpected emotion. A +nervous terror of arriving at the hotel oppressed her more and more; +although, thanks to Harley Allen's thoughtfulness, she knew that their +rooms were already engaged for them. She felt as if she would rather drive +on and on, in all the darkness and rain, no matter where, all night long, +rather than enter the door of the strange and public house, in which she +must give her name and her mother's name on the threshold. + +When the carriage stopped, she moved so slowly to alight that her mother +exclaimed petulantly,-- + +"Dear me, child, what's the matter with you? Ain't you goin' to git out? +Ain't this the tavern?" + +"Yes, mother, this is our place," said Mercy, in a low voice, unlike her +usual cheery, ringing tones, as she assisted her mother down the clumsy +steps from the old-fashioned, high vehicle. "They're expecting us: it is +all right." But her voice and face belied her words. She moved all +through the rest of the evening like one in a dream. She said little, but +busied herself in making her mother as comfortable as it was possible to +be in the dingy and unattractive little rooms; and, as soon as the tired +old woman had fallen asleep, Mercy sat down on the floor by the window, +and leaning her head on the sill cried hard. + + + + +Chapter III. + + + +The next morning the sun shone, and Mercy was herself again. Her +depression of the evening before seemed to her so causeless, so +inexplicable, that she recalled it almost with terror, as one might a +temporary insanity. She blushed to think of her unreasonable sensitiveness +to the words and tones of Stephen White. "As if it made any sort of +difference to mother and to me whether he were our friend or not. He can +do as he likes. I hope I'll be out when he calls," thought Mercy, as she +stood on the hotel piazza, after breakfast, scanning with a keen and eager +glance every feature of the scene. To her eyes, accustomed to the broad, +open, leisurely streets of the Cape Cod hamlet, its isolated little houses +with their trim flower-beds in front and their punctiliously kept fences +and gates, this somewhat untidy and huddled town looked unattractive. The +hotel stood on the top of one of the plateaus of which I spoke in the last +chapter. The ground fell away slowly to the east and to the south. A +poorly kept, oblong-shaped "common," some few acres in extent, lay just in +front of the hotel: it had once been fenced in; but the fences were sadly +out of repair, and two cows were grazing there this morning, as +composedly as if there were no town ordinance forbidding all running of +cattle in the streets. A few shabby old farm-wagons stood here and there +by these fences; the sleepy horses which had drawn them thither having +been taken out of the shafts, and tethered in some mysterious way to the +hinder part of the wagons. A court was in session; and these were the +wagons of lawyers and clients, alike humble in their style of equipage. On +the left-hand side of the hotel, down the eastern slope of the hill ran an +irregular block of brick buildings, no two of a height or size, The block +had burned down in spots several times, and each owner had rebuilt as much +or as little as he chose, which had resulted in as incoherent a bit of +architecture as is often seen. The general effect, however, was of a +tendency to a certain parallelism with the ground line: so that the block +itself seemed to be sliding down hill; the roof of the building farthest +east being not much above the level of the first story windows in the +building farthest west. To add to the queerness of this "Brick Row," as it +was called, the ingenuity of all the sign-painters of the region had been +called into requisition. Signs alphabetical, allegorical, and symbolic; +signs in black on white, in red on black, in rainbow colors on tin; signs +high up, and signs low down; signs swung, and signs posted,--made the +whole front of the Row look at a little distance like a wall of +advertisements of some travelling menagerie. There was a painted yellow +horse with a fiery red mane, which was the pride of the heart of Seth +Nims, the livery-stable keeper; and a big black dog's head with a gay +collar of scarlet and white morocco, which was supposed to draw the custom +of all owners of dogs to "John Locker, harness-maker." There was a +barber's pole, and an apothecary's shop with the conventional globes of +mysterious crimson and blue liquids in the window; and, to complete the +list of the decorations of this fantastic front, there had been painted +many years ago, high up on the wall, in large and irregular letters, the +sign stretching out over two-thirds of the row, "Miss Orra White's +Seminary for Young Ladies." Miss Orra White had been dead for several +years; and the hall in which she had taught her school, having passed +through many successive stages of degradation in its uses, had come at +last to be a lumber-room, from which had arisen many a waggish saying as +to the similarity between its first estate and its last. + +On the other side of the common, opposite the hotel, was a row of +dwelling-houses, which owing to the steep descent had a sunken look, as if +they were slipping into their own cellars. The grass was too green in +their yards, and the thick, matted plantain-leaves grew on both edges of +the sodden sidewalk. + +"Oh, dear," thought Mercy to herself, "I am sure I hope our house is not +there." Then she stepped down from the high piazza, and stood for a moment +on the open space, looking up toward the north. She could only see for a +short distance up the winding road. A high, wood-crowned summit rose +beyond the houses, which seemed to be built higher and higher on the +slope, and to be much surrounded by trees. A street led off to the west +also: this was more thickly built up. To the south, there was again a +slight depression; and the houses, although of a better order than those +on the eastern side of the common, had somewhat of the same sunken air. +Mercy's heart turned to the north with a sudden and instinctive +recognition. "I am sure that is the right part of the town for mother," +she said. "If Mr. White's house is down in that hollow, we'll not live in +it long." She was so absorbed in her study of the place, and in her +conjectures as to their home, that she did not realize that she herself +was no ordinary sight in that street: a slight, almost girlish figure, in +a plain, straight, black gown like a nun's, with one narrow fold of +transparent white at her throat, tied carelessly by long floating ends of +black ribbon; her wavy brown hair blown about her eyes by the wind, her +cheeks flushed with the keen air, and her eyes bright with excitement. +Mercy could not be called even a pretty woman; but she had times and +seasons of looking beautiful, and this was one of them. The hostler, who +was rubbing down his horses in the door of the barn, came out +wide-mouthed, and exclaimed under his breath,-- + +"Gosh! who's she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun +which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that +neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. +The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on +hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the +unconscious Mercy, and each, in their own way, paying tribute to her +appearance. + +"That's the gal thet comed last night with her mother. Darned sight +better-lookin' by daylight than she wuz then!" said the stable-boy. + +"Hm! boys an' men, ye 're all alike,--all for looks," said the cook, who +was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal +isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got +mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a lookin' for somebody +they're expectin'." + +"Steve White he was with 'em down to the depot," replied the stable-boy. +"Seth sed he handed on 'em into the kerridge, 's if they were regular +topknots, sure enough." + +"Hm! Seth Quin 's a fool, 'n' always wuz," replied the cook, with a +seemingly uncalled-for acerbity of tone. "I've allus observed that them +that hez the most to say about topknots hez the least idea of what +topknots really is. There ain't a touch o' topknot about that ere girl: +she's come o' real humbly people. Anybody with half an eye can see that. +Good gracious! I believe she's goin' to stand still, and let old man +Wheeler run over her. Look out there, look out, gal!" screamed the cook, +and pounded vigorously with her rolling-pin on the side of the door to +rouse Mercy's attention. Mercy turned just in time to confront a stout, +red-faced, old gentleman with a big cane, who was literally on the point +of walking over her. He was so near that, as she turned, he started back +as if she had hit him in the breast. + +"God bless my soul, God bless my soul, miss!" he exclaimed, in his +excitement, striking his cane rapidly against the ground. "I beg your +pardon, beg pardon, miss. Bad habit of mine, very bad habit,--walk along +without looking. Walked on a dog the other day; hurt dog; tumbled down +myself, nearly broke my leg. Bad habit, miss,--bad habit; too old to +change, too old to change. Beg pardon, miss." + +The old gentleman mumbled these curt phrases in a series of inarticulate +jerks, as if his vocal apparatus were wound up and worked with a crank, +but had grown so rusty that every now and then a wheel would catch on a +cog. He did not stand still for a moment, but kept continually stepping, +stepping, without advancing or retreating, striking his heavy cane on the +ground at each step, as if beating time to his jerky syllables. He had +twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows, +and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and +white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable +Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied +that he was an ancient elf from the Hartz Mountains. + +Mercy could not refrain from laughing in his face, as she retreated a few +steps towards the piazza, and said,-- + +"It is I who ought to beg your pardon. I had no business to be standing +stock-still in the middle of the highway like a post." + +"Sensible young woman! sensible young woman! God bless my soul! don't know +your face, don't know your face," said the old gentleman, peering out +from under the eaves of his eyebrows, and scrutinizing Mercy as a child +might scrutinize a new-comer into his father's house. One could not resent +it, any more than one could resent the gaze of a child. Mercy laughed +again. + +"No, sir, you don't know my face. I only came last night," she said. + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Fine young woman! fine young woman! +glad to see you,--glad, glad. Girls good for nothing, nothing, nothing at +all, nowadays," jerked on the queer old gentleman, still shifting rapidly +from one foot to the other, and beating time continuously with his cane, +but looking into Mercy's face with so kindly a smile that she felt her +heart warm with affection towards him. + +"Your father come with you? Come to stay? I'd like to know ye, child. Like +your face,--good face, good face, very good face," continued the +inexplicable old man. "Don't like many people. People are wolves, wolves, +wolves. 'D like to know you, child. Good face, good face." + +"Can he be crazy?" thought Mercy. But the smile and the honest twinkle of +the clear blue eye were enough to counterbalance the incoherent talk: the +old man was not crazy, only eccentric to a rare degree. Mercy felt +instinctively that she had found a friend, and one whom she could trust +and lean on. + +"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'm very glad you like my face. I like yours, +too,--you look so merry. I think I and my mother will be very glad to know +you. We have come to live here in half of Mr. Stephen White's house." + +"Merry, merry? Nobody calls me merry. That's a mistake, child,--mistake, +mistake. Mistake about the house, too,--mistake. Stephen White hasn't any +house,--no, no, hasn't any house. My name's Wheeler, Wheeler. Good enough +name. 'Old Man Wheeler' some think's better. I hear 'em: my cane don't +make so much noise but I hear 'em. Ha! ha! wolves, wolves, wolves! People +are all wolves, all alike, all alike. Got any money, child?" With this +last question, the whole expression of his face changed; the very features +seemed to shrink; his eyes grew dark and gleaming as they fastened on +Mercy's face. + +Even this did not rouse Mercy's distrust. There was something inexplicable +in the affectionate confidence she felt in this strange, old man. + +"Only a little, sir," she said. "We are not rich; we have only a little." + +"A little's a good deal, good deal, good deal. Take care of it, child. +People'll git it away from you. They're nothing but wolves, wolves, +wolves;" and, saying these words, the old man set off at a rapid pace down +the street, without bidding Mercy good-morning. + +As she stood watching him with an expression of ever-increasing +astonishment, he turned suddenly, planted his stick in the ground, and +called,-- + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Bad habit, bad habit. Never do say +good-morning,--bad habit. Too old to change, too old to change. Bad habit, +bad habit." And with a nod to Mercy, but still not saying good-morning, +he walked away. + +Mercy ran into the house, breathless with amusement and wonder, and gave +her mother a most graphic account of this strange interview. + +"But, for all his queerness, I like him, and I believe he'll be a great +friend of ours," she said, as she finished her story. + +Mrs. Carr was knitting a woollen stocking. She had been knitting woollen +stockings ever since Mercy could remember. She always kept several on hand +in different stages of incompletion: some that she could knit on in the +dark, without any counting of stitches; others that were in the process of +heeling or toeing, and required the closest attention. She had been +setting a heel while Mercy was speaking, and did not reply for a moment. +Then, pushing the stitches all into a compact bunch in the middle of one +needle, she let her work fall into her lap, and, rolling the disengaged +knitting-needle back and forth on her knee to brighten it, looked at Mercy +reflectively. + +"Mercy," said she, "queer people allers do take to each other. I don't +believe he's a bit queerer 'n you are, child." And Mrs. Carr laughed a +little laugh, half pride and half dissatisfaction. "You're jest like your +father: he'd make friends with a stranger, any day, on the street, in two +jiffeys, if he took a likin' to him; and there might be neighbors a livin' +right long 'side on us, for years an' years, thet he'd never any more 'n +jest pass the time o' day with, 'n' he wa'n't a bit stuck up, either. I +used ter ask him, often 'n' often, what made him so offish to sum folks, +when I knew he hadn't the least thing agin 'em; and he allers said, sez +he, 'Well, I can't tell ye nothin' about it, only jest this is the way 't +is: I can't talk to 'em; they sort o' shet me up, like. I don't feel +nateral, somehow, when they're round!'" + +"O mother!" exclaimed Mercy, "I think I must be just like father. That is +exactly the way I feel so often. When I get with some people, I feel just +as if I had been changed into somebody else. I can't bear to open my +mouth. It is like a bad dream, when you dream you can't move hand nor +foot, all the time they're in the room with me." + +"Well, I thank the Lord, I don't never take such notions about people," +said Mrs. Carr, settling herself back in her chair, and beginning to make +her needles fly. "Nobody don't never trouble me much, one way or the +other. For my part, I think folks is alike as peas. We shouldn't hardly +know 'em apart, if 't wa'n't for their faces." + +Mercy was about to reply, "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; +and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But +she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well +as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the +childish intellect to grasp. + +Mercy was impatient to go at once to see their new home; but she could not +induce her mother to leave the house. + +"O Mercy!" she exclaimed pathetically, "ef yer knew what a comfort 't was +to me jest to set still in a chair once more. It seems like heaven, arter +them pesky joltin' cars. I ain't in no hurry to see the house. It can't +run away, I reckon; and we're sure of it, ain't we? There ain't any thing +that's got to be done, is there?" she asked nervously. + +"Oh, no, mother. It is all sure. We have leased the house for one year; +and we can't move in until our furniture comes, of course. But I do long +to see what the place is like, don't you?" replied Mercy, pleadingly. + +"No, no, child. Time enough when we move in. 'T ain't going to make any +odds what it's like. We're goin' to live in it, anyhow. You jest go by +yourself, ef you want to so much, an' let me set right here. It don't seem +to me 's I'll ever want to git out o' this chair." At last, very +unwillingly, late in the afternoon, Mercy went, leaving her mother alone +in the hotel. + +Without asking a question of anybody, she turned resolutely to the north. + +"Even if our house is not on this street," she said to herself, "I am +going to see those lovely woods;" and she walked swiftly up the hill, with +her eyes fixed on the glowing dome of scarlet and yellow leaves which +crowned it. The trees were in their full autumnal splendor: maples, +crimson, scarlet, and yellow; chestnuts, pale green and yellow; beeches, +shining golden brown; and sumacs in fiery spikes, brighter than all the +rest. There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their +green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors. Mercy had +often read of the glories of autumn in New England's thickly wooded +regions; but she had never dreamed that it could be so beautiful as this. +Rows of young maples lined the street which led up to this wooded hill. +Each tree seemed a full sheaf of glittering color; and yet the path below +was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright. Mercy walked +lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed +brighter than all the rest. In a very short time, her hands were too full; +and in despair, like an over-laden child, she began to scatter them along +the way. She was so absorbed in her delight in the leaves that she hardly +looked at the houses on either hand, except to note with an unconscious +satisfaction that they were growing fewer and farther apart, and that +every thing looked more like country and less like town than it had done +in the neighborhood of the hotel. + +Presently she came to a stretch of stone wall, partly broken down, in +front of an old orchard whose trees were gnarled and moss-grown. +Blackberry-vines had flung themselves over this wall, in and out among the +stones. The leaves of these vines were almost as brilliant as the leaves +of the maple-trees. They were of all shades of red, up to the deepest +claret; they were of light green, shading into yellow, and curiously +mottled with tiny points of red; all these shades and colors sometimes +being seen upon one long runner. The effect of these wreaths and tangles +of color upon the old, gray stones was so fine that Mercy stood still and +involuntarily exclaimed aloud. Then she picked a few of the most +beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them +with the maple-leaves she had already gathered. She made a most +picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint +little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and +leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them, +her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them. She +looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and +coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange +fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them, +unaware that she was on a highway. + +This was the picture that Stephen White saw, as he came slowly up the road +on his way home after an unusually wearying day. He slackened his pace, +and, perceiving how entirely unconscious Mercy was of his approach, +deliberately studied her, feature, dress, attitude,--all, as +scrutinizingly as if she had been painted on canvas and hanging on a wall. + +"Upon my word," he said to himself, "she isn't bad-looking, after all. I'm +not sure that she isn't pretty. If she hadn't that inconceivable bonnet on +her head,--yes, she is very pretty. Her mouth is bewitching. I declare, I +believe she is beautiful," were Stephen's successive verdicts, as he drew +nearer and nearer to Mercy. Mercy was thinking of him at that very +moment,--was thinking of him with a return of the annoyance and +mortification which had stung her at intervals all day, whenever she +recalled their interview of the previous evening. Mercy combined, in a +very singular manner, some of the traits of an impulsive nature with those +of an unimpulsive one. She did things, said things, and felt things with +the instantaneous intensity of the poetic temperament; but she was quite +capable of looking at them afterward, and weighing them with the cool and +unbiassed judgment of the most phlegmatic realist. Hence she often had +most uncomfortable seasons, in which one side of her nature took the other +side to task, scorned it and berated it severely; holding up its actions +to its remorseful view, as an elder sister might chide a younger one, who +was incorrigibly perverse and wayward. + +"It was about as silly a thing as you ever did in your life. He must have +thought you a perfect fool to have supposed he had come down to meet you," +she was saying to herself at the very moment when the sound of Stephen's +footsteps first reached her ear, and caused her to look up. The sight of +his face at that particular moment was so startling and so unpleasant to +her that it deprived her of all self-possession. She gave a low cry, her +face was flooded with crimson, and she sprang from the wall so hastily +that her leaves and vines flew in every direction. + +"I am very sorry I frightened you so, Mrs. Philbrick," said Stephen, quite +unconscious of the true source of her confusion. "I was just on the point +of speaking, when you heard me. I ought to have spoken before, but you +made so charming a picture sitting there among the leaves and vines that I +could not resist looking at you a little longer." + +Mercy Philbrick hated a compliment. This was partly the result of the +secluded life she had led; partly an instinctive antagonism in her +straightforward nature to any thing which could be even suspected of not +being true. The few direct compliments she had received had been from men +whom she neither respected nor trusted. These words, coming from Stephen +White, just at this moment, were most offensive to her. + +Her face flushed still deeper red, and saying curtly,--"You frightened me +very much, Mr. White; but it is not of the least consequence," she turned +to walk back to the village. Stephen unconsciously stretched out his hand +to detain her. + +"But, Mrs. Philbrick," he said eagerly, "pray tell me what you think of +the house. Do you think you can be contented in it?" + +"I have not seen it," replied Mercy, in the same curt tone, still moving +on. + +"Not seen it!" exclaimed Stephen, in a tone which was of such intense +astonishment that it effectually roused Mercy's attention. "Not seen it! +Why, did you not know you were on your own stone wall? There is the +house;" and Mercy, following the gesture of his hand, saw, not more than +twenty rods beyond the spot where she had been sitting, a shabby, faded, +yellow wooden house, standing in a yard which looked almost as neglected +as the orchard, from which it was only in part separated by a tumbling +stone wall. + +Mercy did not speak. Stephen watched her face in silence for a moment; +then he laughed constrainedly, and said,-- + +"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Philbrick, to say outright that it is the +dismallest old barn you ever saw. That's just what I had said about it +hundreds of times, and wondered how anybody could possibly live in it. But +necessity drove us into it, and I suppose necessity has brought you to it, +too," added Stephen, sadly. + +Mercy did not speak. Very deliberately her eyes scanned the building. An +expression of scorn slowly gathered on her face. + +"It is not so forlorn inside as it is out," said Stephen. "Some of the +rooms are quite pleasant. The south rooms in your part of the house are +very cheerful." + +Mercy did not speak. Stephen went on, beginning to be half-angry with this +little, unknown woman from Cape Cod, who looked with the contemptuous +glance of a princess upon the house in which he and his mother dwelt,-- + +"You are quite at liberty to throw up your lease, Mrs. Philbrick, if you +choose. It was, perhaps, hardly fair to have let you hire the house +without seeing it." + +Mercy started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. White. I should not think of such a +thing as giving up the lease. I am very sorry you saw how ugly I think the +house. I do think it is the very ugliest house I ever saw," she continued, +speaking with emphatic deliberation; "but, then, I have not seen many +houses. In our village at home, all the houses are low and broad and +comfortable-looking. They look as if they had sat down and leaned back +to take their ease; and they are all neat and clean-looking, and have rows +of flower-beds from the gate to the front door. I never saw a house built +with such a steep angle to its roof as this has," said Mercy, looking up +with the instinctive dislike of a natural artist's eye at the ridgepole of +the old house. + +"We have to have our roofs at a sharp pitch, to let the snow slide off in +winter," said Stephen, apologetically, "we have such heavy snows here; but +that doesn't make the angle any less ugly to look at." + +"No," said Mercy; and her eyes still roved up and down and over the house, +with not a shadow of relenting in their expression. It was Stephen's turn +to be silent now. He watched her, but did not speak. + +Mercy's face was not merely a record of her thoughts: it was a photograph +of them. As plainly as on a written page held in his hand, Stephen White +read the successive phases of thought and struggle which passed through +Mercy's mind for the next five minutes; and he was not in the least +surprised when, turning suddenly towards him with a very sweet smile, she +said in a resolute tone,-- + +"There! that's done with. I hope you will forgive my rudeness, Mr. White; +but the truth is I was awfully shocked at the first sight of the house. It +isn't your house, you know, so it isn't quite so bad for me to say so; and +I'm so glad you hate it as much as I do. Now I am never going to think +about it again,--never." + +"Why, can you help it, Mrs. Philbrick?" asked Stephen, in a wondering +tone. "I can't. I hate it more and more, I verily believe, each time I +come home; and I think that, if my mother weren't in it, I should burn it +down some night." + +Mercy looked at him with a certain shade of the same contempt with which +she had looked at the house; and Stephen winced, as she said coolly,-- + +"Why, of course I can help it. I should be very much ashamed of myself if +I couldn't. I never allow myself to be distressed by things which I can't +help,--at least, that sort of thing," added Mercy, her face clouding with +the sudden recollection of a grief that she had not been able to rise +above. "Of course, I don't mean real troubles, like grief about any one +you love. One can't wholly conquer such troubles as that; but one can do a +great deal more even with these than people usually suppose. I am not sure +that it is right to let ourselves be unhappy about any thing, even the +worst of troubles. But I must hurry home now. It is growing late." + +"Mrs. Philbrick," exclaimed Stephen, earnestly: "please come into the +house, and speak to my mother a moment. You don't know how she has been +looking forward to your coming." + +"Oh, no, I cannot possibly do that," replied Mercy. "There is no reason +why I should call on your mother, merely because we are going to live in +the same house." + +"But I assure you," persisted Stephen, "that it will give her the greatest +pleasure. She is a helpless cripple, and never leaves her bed. She has +probably been watching us from the window. She always watches for me. She +will wonder if I do not bring you in to see her. Please come," he said +with a tone which it was impossible to resist; and Mercy went. + +Mrs. White had indeed been watching them from the window; but Stephen had +reckoned without his host, or rather without his hostess, when he assured +Mercy that his mother would be so glad to see her. The wisest and the +tenderest of men are continually making blunders in their relations with +women; especially if they are so unfortunate as to occupy in any sense a +position involving a relation to two women at once. The relation may be +ever so rightful and honest to each woman; the women may be good women, +and in their right places; but the man will find himself perpetually +getting into most unexpected hot water, as many a man could testify +pathetically, if he were called upon. + +Mrs. White had been watching her son through the whole of his conversation +with Mercy. She could see only dimly at such a distance; but she had +discerned that it was a woman with whom he stood talking so long. It was +nearly half an hour past supper-time, and supper was Mrs. White's one +festivity in the course of the day. Their breakfast and their mid-day +dinner were too hurried meals for enjoyment, because Stephen was obliged +to make haste to the office; but with supper there was nothing to +interfere. Stephen's work for the day was done: he took great pains to +tell her at this time every thing which he had seen or heard which could +give her the least amusement. She looked forward all through her long +lonely days to the evenings, as a child looks forward to Saturday +afternoons. Like all invalids whose life has been forced into grooves, she +was impatient and unreasonable when anybody or any thing interfered with +her routine. A five minutes' delay was to her a serious annoyance, and +demanded an accurate explanation. Stephen so thoroughly understood this +exactingness on her part that he adjusted his life to it, as a +conscientious school-boy adjusts his to bells and signals, and never +trespassed knowingly. If he had dreamed that it was past tea-time, on this +unlucky night, he would never have thought of asking Mercy to go in and +see his mother. But he did not; and it was with a bright and eager face +that he threw open the door, and said in the most cordial tone,-- + +"Mother, I have brought Mrs. Philbrick to see you." + +"How do you do, Mrs. Philbrick?" was the rejoinder, in a tone and with a +look so chilling that poor Mercy's heart sank within her. She had all +along had an ideal in her own mind of the invalid old lady, Mr. White's +mother, to whom she was to be very good, and who was to be her mother's +companion. She pictured her as her own mother would be, a good deal older +and feebler, in a gentle, receptive, patient old age. Of so repellent, +aggressive, unlovely an old woman as this she had had no conception. It +would be hard to do justice in words to Mrs. White's capacity to be +disagreeable when she chose. She had gray eyes, which, though they had a +very deceptive trick of suffusing with tears as of great sensibility on +occasion, were capable of resting upon a person with a positively unhuman +coldness; her voice also had at these times a distinctly unhuman quality +in its tones. She had apparently no conception of any necessity of +controlling her feelings, or the expression of them. If she were pleased, +if all things went precisely as she liked, if all persons ministered to +her pleasure, well and good,--she would be graciously pleased to smile, +and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not +consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person +who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who was +responsible for her annoyance. + +As soon as Stephen's eyes fell on her face, on this occasion, he felt with +a sense of almost terror that he had made a fatal mistake, and he knew +instantly that it must be much later than he had supposed; but he plunged +bravely in, like a man taking a header into a pool he fears he may drown +in, and began to give a voluble account of how he had found Mrs. Philbrick +sitting on their stone wall, so absorbed in looking at the bright leaves +that she had not even seen the house. He ran on in this strain for some +minutes, hoping that his mother's mood might soften, but in vain. She +listened with the same stony, unresponsive look on her face, never taking +the stony, unresponsive eyes from his face; and, as soon as he stopped +speaking, she said in an equally stony voice,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, will you be so good as to take off your bonnet and take +tea with us? It is already long past our tea-hour!" + +Mercy sprang to her feet, and said impulsively, "Oh, no, I thank you. I +did not dream that it was so late. My mother will be anxious about me. I +must go. I am very sorry I came in. Good-evening." + +"Good-evening, Mrs. Philbrick," in the same slow and stony syllables, came +from Mrs. White's lips, and she turned her head away immediately. + +Stephen, with his face crimson with mortification, followed Mercy to the +door. In a low voice, he said, "I hope you will be able to make allowances +for my mother's manner. It is all my fault. I know that she can never bear +to have me late at meals, and I ought never to allow myself to forget the +hour. It is all my fault" + +Mercy's indignation at her reception was too great for her sense of +courtesy. + +"I don't think it was your fault at all, Mr. White," she exclaimed. +"Good-night," and she was out of sight before Stephen could think of a +word to say. + +Very slowly he walked back into the sitting-room. He had seldom been so +angry with his mother; but his countenance betrayed no sign of it, and he +took his seat opposite her in silence. Silence, absolute, unconquerable +silence, was the armor which Stephen White wore. It was like those +invisible networks of fine chains worn next the skin, in which many men in +the olden time passed unscathed through years of battles, and won the +reputation of having charmed lives. No one suspected the secret. To the +ordinary beholder, the man seemed accoutred in the ordinary fashion of +soldiers; but, whenever a bullet struck him, it glanced off harmlessly as +if turned back by a spell. It was so with Stephen White's silence: in +ordinary intercourse, he was social genial; he talked more than average +men talk; he took or seemed to take, more interest than men usually take +in the common small talk of average people; but the instant there was a +manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched +himself in silence. This was especially the case when he was reproached or +aroused by his mother. It was often more provoking to her than any amount +of retort or recrimination could have been. She had in her nature a +certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small +offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its +details; all the while making it out a matter of personal unkindness or +indifference to her that it should have happened. When she was in these +moods, Stephen's silence sometimes provoked her past endurance. + +"Can't you speak, Stephen?" she would exclaim. + +"What would be the use, mother?" he would say sadly. "If you do not know +that the great aim of my life is to make you happy, it is of no use for me +to keep on saying it. If it would make you any happier to keep on +discussing and discussing this question indefinitely, I would endure even +that; but it would not." + +To do Mrs. White justice, she was generally ashamed of these ebullitions +of unreasonable ill-temper, and endeavored to atone for them afterward by +being more than ordinarily affectionate and loving in her manner towards +Stephen. But her shame was short-lived, and never made her any the less +unreasonable or exacting when the next occasion occurred; so that, +although Stephen received her affectionate epithets and caresses with +filial responsiveness, he was never in the slightest degree deluded by +them. He took them for what they were worth, and held himself no whit +freer from constraint, no whit less ready for the next storm. By the very +fact of the greater fineness of his organization, this tyrannical woman +held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it +had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which +compelled respect. He had accepted this burden as the one great duty of +his life; and, whatever became of him, whatever became of his life, the +burden should be carried. This helpless woman, who stood to him in the +relation of mother, should be made happy. From the moment of his father's +death, he had assumed this obligation as a sacrament; and, if it lasted +his life out, he would never dream of evading or lessening it. In this +fine fibre of loyalty, Stephen White and Mercy Philbrick were alike: +though it was in him more an exalted sentiment; in her, simply an organic +necessity. In him, it would always have been in danger of taking morbid +shapes and phases; of being over-ridden and distorted at any time by +selfishness or wickedness in its object, as it had been by his selfish +mother. In Mercy, it was on a higher and healthier plane. Without being a +shade less loyal, she would be far clearer-sighted; would render, but not +surrender; would give a lifetime of service, but not a moment of +subjection. There was a shade of something feminine in Stephen's loyalty, +of something perhaps masculine in Mercy's; but Mercy's was the best, the +truest. + +"I wouldn't allow my mother to treat a stranger like that," she thought +indignantly, as she walked away after Mrs. White's inhospitable invitation +to tea. "I wouldn't allow her. I would make her see the shamefulness of +it. What a weak man Mr. White must be!" + +Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have +seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression +of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of +ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had +strength, however much she might have undervalued its type. + +"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen, +than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward +to, all day long. You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did +you not know how late it was?" + +"No, mother. If I had, I should have come in." + +"I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you?" + +"Yes, mother." + +"Well, I'd like to know what excuse there is for a man's not knowing what +time it is, when he has a watch in his pocket? And then you must needs +bring her in here, of all things,--when you know I hate to see people +near my meal-times, and you must have known it was near supper-time. At +any rate, watch or no watch, I suppose you didn't think you'd started to +come home in the middle of the afternoon, did you? And what did you want +her to come in for, anyhow? I'd like to know that. Answer me, will you?" + +"Simply because I thought that it would give you pleasure to see some one, +mother. You often complain of being so lonely, of no one's coming in," +replied Stephen, in a tone which was pathetic, almost shrill, from its +effort to be patient and calm. + +"I wish, if you can't speak in your own voice, you wouldn't speak at all," +said the angry woman. "What makes you change your voice so?" + +Stephen made no reply. He knew very well this strange tone which sometimes +came into his voice, when his patience was tried almost beyond endurance. +He would have liked to avoid it; he was instinctively conscious that it +often betrayed to other people what he suffered. But it was beyond his +control: it seemed as if all the organs of speech involuntarily clenched +themselves, as the hand unconsciously clenches itself when a man is +enraged. + +Mrs. White persisted. "Your voice, when you're angry, 's enough to drive +anybody wild. I never heard any thing like it. And I'm sure I don't see +what you have to be angry at now. I should think I was the one to be +angry. You're all I've got in the world, Stephen; and you know what a life +I lead. It isn't as if I could go about, like other women; then I +shouldn't care where you spent your time, if you didn't want to spend it +with me." And tears, partly of ill-temper, partly of real grief, rolled +down the hard, unlovely, old face. + +This was only one evening. There are three hundred and sixty-five in a +year. Was not the burden too heavy for mortal man to carry? + + + + +Chapter IV. + + + +Mercy said nothing to her mother of Mrs. White's rudeness. She merely +mentioned the fact of her having met Mr. White near the house, and having +gone with him, at his request, to speak to his mother. + +"What's she like, Mercy?" asked Mrs. Carr, eagerly. "Is she goin' to be +company for me?" + +"I could not tell, mother," replied Mercy, indifferently; "for it was just +their tea-hour, and I did not stay a minute,--only just to say, How d'ye +do, and Good-evening. But Mr. White says she is very lonely; people don't +go to see her much: so I should think she would be very glad of somebody +her own age in the house, to come and sit with her. She looks very ill, +poor soul. She hasn't been out of her bed, except when she was lifted, for +eight years." + +"Dear me! dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I hope I'll never be that +way. What'u'd you ever do child, if I'd get to be like that?" + +"No danger, mother dear, of your ever being like Mrs. White," said Mercy, +with an incautious emphasis, which, however, escaped Mrs. Carr's +recognition. + +"Why, how can you be so sure I mightn't ever get into jest so bad a way, +child? There's none of us can say what diseases we're likely to hev or +not to hev. Now there's never been a case o' lung trouble in our family +afore mine, not 's fur back 's anybody kin trace it out; 'n' there's been +two cancers to my own knowledge; 'n' I allus hed a most awful dread o' +gettin' a cancer. There ain't no death like thet. There wuz my mother's +half-sister, Keziah,--she that married Elder Swift for her second husband. +She died o' cancer; an' her oldest boy by her first husband he hed it in +his face awful. But he held on ter life 's ef he couldn't say die, nohow; +and I tell yer, Mercy, it wuz a sight nobody'd ever forget, to see him +goin' round the street with one side o' his face all bound up, and his +well eye a rolling round, a-doin' the work o' two. He got so he couldn't +see at all out o' either eye afore he died, 'n' you could hear his +screeches way to our house. There wouldn't no laudalum stop the pain a +mite." + +"Oh, mother! don't! don't!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is too dreadful to talk +about. I can't bear to think that any human being has ever suffered so. +Please don't ever speak of cancers again." + +Mrs. Carr looked puzzled and a little vexed, as she answered, "Well, I +reckon they've got to be talked about a good deal, fust and last, 's long +'s there's so many dies on 'em. But I don't know 's you 'n' I've got any +call to dwell on 'em much. You've got dreadful quick feelin's, Mercy, +ain't you? You allus was orful feelin' for everybody when you wuz little, +'n' I don't see 's you've outgrowed it a bit. But I expect it's thet makes +you sech friends with folks, an' makes you such a good gal to your poor +old mother. Kiss me, child," and Mrs. Carr lifted up her face to be +kissed, as a child lifts up its face to its mother. She did this many +times a day; and, whenever Mercy bent down to kiss her, she put her hands +on the old woman's shoulders, and said, "Dear little mother!" in a tone +which made her mother's heart warm with happiness. + +It is a very beautiful thing to see just this sort of relation between an +aged parent and a child, the exact reversal of the bond, and the bond so +absolutely fulfilled. It seems to give a new and deeper sense to the word +"filial," and a new and deeper significance to the joy of motherhood or +fatherhood. Alas, that so few sons and daughters are capable of it! so few +helpless old people know the blessedness of it! No little child six years +old ever rested more entirely and confidingly in the love and kindness and +shelter and direction of its mother than did Mrs. Carr in the love and +kindness and shelter and direction of her daughter Mercy. It had begun to +be so, while Mercy was yet a little girl. Before she was fifteen years +old, she felt a responsibility for her mother's happiness, a watchfulness +over her mother's health, and even a care of her mother's clothes. With +each year, the sense of these responsibilities grew deeper; and after her +marriage, as she was denied the blessing of children, all the deep +maternal instincts of her strong nature flowed back and centred anew +around this comparatively helpless, aged child whom she called mother, and +treated with never-failing respect. + +When Mrs. Carr first saw the house they were to live in, she exclaimed,-- + +"O Lor', Mercy! Is thet the house?" Then, stepping back a few steps, +shoving her spectacles high on her nose, and with her head well thrown +back, she took a survey of the building in silence. Then she turned slowly +around, and, facing Mercy, said in a droll, dry way, not uncommon with +her,-- + +"'Bijah Jenkins's barn!" + +Mercy laughed outright. + +"So it is, mother. I hadn't thought of it. It looks just like that old +barn of Deacon Jenkins's." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Carr. "That's it, exzackly. Well, I never thought o' +offerin' to hire a barn to live in afore, but I s'pose 't'll do till we +can look about. Mebbe we can do better." + +"But we've taken it for a year, mother," said Mercy, a little dismayed. + +"Oh, hev we? Well, well, I daresay it's comfortable enough; so the sun +shines in mornin's, thet's the most I care for. You'll make any kind o' +house pooty to look at inside, an' I reckon we needn't roost on the fences +outside, a-lookin' at it, any more'n we choose to. It does look, for all +the world though, like 'Bijah Jenkins's old yaller barn; 'n' thet there +jog's jest the way he jined on his cow-shed. I declare it's too +redicklus." And the old lady laughed till she had to wipe her spectacles. + +"It could be made very pretty, I think," said Mercy, "for all it is so +hideous now. I know just what I'd do to it, if it were mine. I'd throw +out a big bay window in that corner where the jog is, and another on the +middle of the north side, and then run a piazza across the west side, and +carry the platform round both the bay windows. I saw a picture of a house +in a book Mr. Allen had, which looked very much as this would look then. +Oh, but I'd like to do it!" Mercy's imagination was so fired with the +picture she had made to herself of the house thus altered and improved, +that she could not easily relinquish it. + +"But, Mercy, you don't know the lay o' the rooms, child. You don' 'no' +where that ere jog comes. Your bay window mightn't come so's't would be of +any use. Yer wouldn't build one jest to look at, would you?" said her +mother. + +"I'm not so sure I wouldn't, if I had plenty of money," replied Mercy, +laughing. "But I have no idea of building bay windows on other people's +houses. I was only amusing myself by planning it. I'd rather have that +house, old and horrid as it is, than any house in the town. I like the +situation so much, and the woods are so beautiful. Perhaps I'll earn a lot +of money some day, and buy the place, and make it just as we like it." + +"You earn money, child!" said Mrs. Carr, in a tone of unqualified wonder. +"How could you earn money, I'd like to know?" + +"Oh, make bonnets or gowns, dear little mother, or teach school," said +Mercy, coloring. "Mr. Allen said I was quite well enough fitted to teach +our school at home, if I liked." + +"But, Mercy, child, you'd never go to do any such thing's thet, would yer +now?" said her mother, piteously. "Don't ye hev all ye want, Mercy? Ain't +there money enough for our clothes? I'm sure I don't need much; an' I +could do with a good deal less, if there was any thing you wanted, dear. +Your father he 'd never rest in his grave, ef he thought his little Mercy +was a havin' to arn money for her livin'. You didn't mean it, child, did +yer? Say yer didn't mean it, Mercy," and tears stood in the poor old +woman's eyes. + +It is strange what a tenacious pride there was in the hearts of our old +sea-faring men of a half century ago. They had the same feeling that kings +and emperors might have in regard to their wives and daughters, that it +was a disgrace for them to be obliged to earn money. It would be an +interesting thing to analyze this sentiment, to trace it to its roots: it +was so universal among successful sea-faring men that it must have had its +origin in some trait distinctively peculiar to their profession. All the +other women in the town or the village might eke out the family incomes by +whatever devices they pleased; but the captains' wives were to be ladies. +They were to wear silk gowns brought from many a land; they were to have +ornaments of quaint fashion, picked up here and there; they were to have +money enough in the bank to live on in quiet comfort during the intervals +when the husbands sailed away to make more. So strong was this feeling +that it crystallized into a traditionary custom of life, which even +poverty finds it hard to overcome. You shall find to-day, in any one of +the seaport cities or towns of New England, widows and daughters of +sea-captains, living, or rather seeming to live, upon the most beggarly +incomes, but still keeping up a certain pathetic sham of appearance of +being at ease. If they are really face to face with probable starvation, +they may go to some charitable institution where fine needlework is given +out, and earn a few dollars in that way. But they will fetch and carry +their work by night, and no neighbor will ever by any chance surprise them +with it in their hands. Most beautifully is this surreptitious sewing +done; there is no work in this country like it. The tiny stitches bear the +very aroma of sad and lonely leisure in them; a certain fine pride, too, +as if the poverty-constrained lady would in no wise condescend to depart +from her own standard in the matter of a single loop or stitch, no matter +to what plebeian uses the garment might come after it should leave her +hands. + +Mercy's deep blush when she replied to her mother's astonished inquiry, +how she could possibly earn any money, sprung from her consciousness of a +secret,--a secret so harmless in itself, that she was ashamed of having +any feeling of guilt in keeping it a secret; and yet, her fine and +fastidious honesty so hated even the semblance of concealment, that the +mere withholding of a fact, simply because she disliked to mention it, +seemed to her akin to a denial of it. If there is such a thing in a human +being as organic honesty,--an honesty which makes a lie not difficult, but +impossible, just as it is impossible for men to walk on ceilings like +flies, or to breathe in water like fishes,--Mercy Philbrick had it. The +least approach to an equivocation was abhorrent to her: not that she +reasoned about it, and submitting it to her conscience found it wicked, +and therefore hateful; but that she disliked it instinctively,--as +instinctively as she disliked pain. Her moral nerves shrank from it, just +as nerves of the body shrink from suffering; and she recoiled from the +suggestion of such a thing with the same involuntary quickness with which +we put up the hand to ward off a falling blow, or drop the eyelid to +protect an endangered eye. Physicians tell us that there are in men and +women such enormous differences in this matter of sensitiveness to +physical pain that one person may die of a pain which would be +comparatively slight to another; and this is a fact which has to be taken +very carefully into account, in all dealing with disease in people of the +greatest capacity for suffering. May there not be equally great +differences in souls, in the matter of sensitiveness to moral +hurt?--differences for which the soul is not responsible, any more than +the body is responsible for its skin's having been made thin or thick. +Will-power has nothing whatever to do with determining the latter +conditions. Let us be careful how far we take it to task for failing to +control the others. Perhaps we shall learn, in some other stage of +existence, that there is in this world a great deal of moral color +blindness, congenital, incurable; and that God has much more pity than we +suppose for poor things who have stumbled a good many times while they +were groping in darkness. + +People who see clearly themselves are almost always intolerant of those +who do not. We often see this ludicrously exemplified, even in the trivial +matter of near-sightedness. We are almost always a little vexed, when we +point out a distant object to a friend, and hear him reply,-- + +"No, I do not see it at all. I am near-sighted." + +"What! can't you see that far?" is the frequent retort, and in the pity is +a dash of impatience. + +There is a great deal of intolerance in the world, which is closely akin +to this; and not a whit more reasonable or righteous, though it makes +great pretensions to being both. Mercy Philbrick was full of such +intolerance, on this one point of honesty. She was intolerant not only to +others, she was intolerant to herself. She had seasons of fierce and +hopeless debating with herself, on the most trivial matters, or what would +seem so to nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand. During +such seasons as these, her treatment of her friends and acquaintances had +odd alternations of frank friendliness and reticent coolness. A sudden +misgiving whether she might not be appearing to like her friend more than +she really did would seize her at most inopportune moments, and make her +absent-minded and irresponsive. She would leave sentences abruptly +unfinished,--invitations, perhaps, or the acceptances of invitations, the +mere words of which spring readily to one's lips, and are thoughtlessly +spoken. But, in Mercy's times of conflict with herself, even these were +exaggerated in her view to monstrous deceits. She had again and again +held long conversations with Mr. Allen on this subject, but he failed to +help her. He was a good man, of average conscientiousness and average +perception: he literally could not see many of the points which Mercy's +keener analysis ferreted out, and sharpened into weapons for her own pain. +He thought her simply morbid. + +"Now, child," he would say,--for, although he was only a few years Mercy's +senior, he had taught her like a child for three years,--"now, child, +leave off worrying yourself by these fancies. There is not the least +danger of your ever being any thing but truthful. Nature and grace are +both too strong in you. There is no lie in saying to a person who has come +to see you in your own house, 'I am glad to see you,' for you are glad; +and, if not, you can make yourself glad, when you think how much pleasure +you can give the person by talking with him. You are glad, always, to give +pleasure to any human being, are you not?" + +"Yes," Mercy would reply unhesitatingly. + +"Very well. To the person who comes to see you, you give pleasure: +therefore, you are glad to see him." + +"But, Mr. Allen," would persist poor Mercy, "that is not what the person +thinks I mean. Very often some one comes to see me, who bores me so that I +can hardly keep awake. He would not be pleased if he knew that all my +cordial welcome really meant was,--'I'm glad to see you, because I'm a +benevolent person, and am willing to make my fellow-creatures happy at any +sacrifice, even at the frightful one of entertaining such a bore as you +are!' He would never come near me again, if he knew I thought that; and +yet, if I do think so, and make him think I do not, is not that the +biggest sort of a lie? Why, Mr. Allen, many a time when I have seen +tiresome or disagreeable people coming to our house, I have run away and +hid myself, so as not to be found; not in the least because I could not +bear the being bored by them, but because I could not bear the thought of +the lies I should speak, or at least act, if I saw them." + +"The interpretation a visitor chooses to put upon our kind cordiality of +manner to him is his own affair, not ours, Mercy. It is a Christian duty +to be cordial and kindly of manner to every human being: any thing less +gives pain, repels people from us, and hinders our being able to do them +good. There is no more doubt of this than of any other first principle of +Christian conduct; and I am very sorry that these morbid notions have +taken such hold of you. If you yield to them, you will make yourself soon +disliked and feared, and give a great deal of needless pain to your +neighbors." + +It was hard for Mr. Allen to be severe with Mercy, for he loved her as if +she were his younger sister; but he honestly thought her to be in great +danger of falling into a chronic morbidness on this subject, and he +believed that stern words were most likely to convince her of her mistake. +It was a sort of battle, however,--this battle which Mercy was forced to +fight,--in which no human being can help another, unless he has first been +through the same battle himself. All that Mr. Allen said seemed to Mercy +specious and, to a certain extent, trivial: it failed to influence her, +simply because it did not so much as recognize the point where her +difficulty lay. + +"If Mr. Allen tries till he dies, he will never convinc me that it is not +deceiving people to make them think you're glad to see them when you're +not," Mercy said to herself often, as, with flushed cheeks and tears in +her eyes, she walked home after these conversations. "He may make me think +that it is right to deceive them rather than to make them unhappy. It +almost seems as if it must be; yet, if we once admitted that, where +should we ever stop? It seems to me that would be a very dangerous +doctrine. A lie's a lie, let whoever will call it fine names, and pass it +off as a Christian duty The Bible does not say, 'Thou shalt not lie, +except when it is necessary to lie, to avoid hurting thy neighbor's +feelings,' It says, 'Thou shalt not lie.' Oh, what a horrible word 'lie' +is! It stings like a short, sharp stroke with a lash." And Mercy would +turn away from the thought with a shudder, and resolutely force hersef to +think of something else. Sometimes she would escape from the perplexity +for weeks: chance would so favor her, that no opportunity for what she +felt to be deceit would occur; but, in these intervals of relief, her +tortured conscience seemed only to renew its voices, and spring upon her +all the more fiercely on the next occasion. The effect, of all these +indecisive conflicts upon Mercy's character had not been good. They had +left her morally bruised, and therefore abnormally sensitive to the least +touch. She was in danger of becoming either a fanatic for truth, or +indifferent to it. Paradoxcal as it may seem, she was in almost as much +danger of the one as of the other. But always, when our hurts are fast +healing without help, the help comes. It is probable that there is to-day +on the earth a cure, either in herb or stone or spring, for every ill +which men's bodies can know. Ignorance and accident may hinder us long +from them, but sooner or later the race shall come to possess them all. So +with souls. There is the ready truth, the living voice, the warm hand, or +the final experience, waiting for each soul's need. We do not die till we +have found them. There were yet to enter into Mercy Philbrick's life a new +light and a new force, by the help of which she would see clearly and +stand firm. + +The secret which she had now for nearly a year kept from her mother was a +very harmless one. To people of the world, it would appear so trivial a +thing, that the conscience which could feel itself wounded by reticence on +such a point would seem hardly worth a sneer. Mr. Allen, who had been +Mercy's teacher for three years, had early seen in her a strong poetic +impulse, and had fostered and stimulated it by every means in his power. +He believed that in the exercise of this talent she would find the best +possible help for her loneliness and comfort for her sorrow. He recognized +clearly that, to so exceptional a nature as Mercy's, a certain amount of +isolation was inevitable, all through her life, however fortunate she +might be in entering into new and wider relations. The loneliness of +intense individuality is the loneliest loneliness in the world,--a +loneliness which crowds only aggravate, and which even the closest and +happiest companionship can only in part cure. The creative faculty is the +most inalienable and uncontrollable of individualities. It is at once its +own reward and its own penalty: until it has conquered the freedom of its +own city, in which it must for ever dwell, more or less apart, it is only +a prisoner in the cities of others. All this Mr. Allen felt for Mercy, +recognized in Mercy. He felt and recognized it by the instinct of love, +rather than by any intellectual perception. Intellectually, he was, in +spite of his superior culture, far Mercy's inferior. He had been brave +enough and manly enough to recognize this, and also to recognize what it +took still more manliness to recognize,--that she could never love a man +of his temperament. It would have been very easy for him to love Mercy. He +was not a man of a passionate nature; but he felt himself strangely +stirred whenever he looked into her sensitive, orchid-like face. He felt +in every fibre of him that to have the whole love of such a woman would be +bewildering joy; yet never for one moment did he allow himself to think of +seeking it. "I might make her think she loved me, perhaps," he said to +himself. "She is so lonely and sad, and has seen so few men; but it would +be base. She needs a nature totally different from mine, a life unlike the +life I shall lead. I will never try to make her love me. And he never did. +He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly, +and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to +her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife. No +doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged +bond. It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence +and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month +by month. Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely +together a year or two longer. The change could have been in but one +direction. They loved each other too much to ever love less: they might +have loved more; and Mercy's life had been more peaceful, her heart had +known a truer content, if she had never felt any stronger emotion than +that which Harley Allen's love would have roused in her bosom. But his +resolution was inexorable. His instinct was too keen, his will too strong: +he compelled all his home-seeking, wife-loving thoughts to turn away from +Mercy; and, six months after her departure, he had loyally and lovingly +promised to be the husband of another. In Mercy's future he felt an +intense interest; he would never cease to watch over her, if she would let +him; he would guide, mould, and direct her, until the time came--he knew +it would come--when she had outgrown his help, and ascended to a plane +where he could no longer guide her. His greatest fear was lest, from her +overflowing vitality and keen sensuous delight in all the surface +activities and pleasures of life, the intellectual side of her nature +should be kept in the background and not properly nourished. He had +compelled her to study, to think, to write. Who would do this for her in +the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he, +while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one. +He was too dreamy and pleasure-loving himself to be a spur to others. A +vague wonder, almost like a presentiment, haunted his thoughts continually +as to the nature of the relation which would exist between Stephen and +Mercy. One day he wrote a long letter to Stephen, telling him all about +Mercy,--her history; her peculiarities, mental and moral; her great need +of mental training; her wonderful natural gifts. He closed his letter in +these words:-- + +"There is the making of a glorious woman and, I think, a true poet in this +girl; but whether she ever makes either will depend entirely upon the +hands she falls into. She has a capacity for involuntary adaptation of +herself to any surroundings, and for an unconscious and indomitable +loyalty to the every-day needs of every-day life, which rarely go with the +poetic temperament. She would contentedly make bread and do nothing else, +till the day of her death, if that seemed to be the nearest and most +demanded duty. She would be heartily faithful and joyous every day, in +intercourse with only common and uncultivated people, if fate sets her +among them. She seems to me sometimes to be more literally a child of God, +in the true and complete sense of the word 'child,' than any one I ever +knew. She takes every thing which comes to her just as a happy and good +little child takes every thing that is given to him, and is pleased with +all; yet she is not at all a religious person. I am often distressed by +her lack of impulse to worship. I think she has no strong sense of a +personal God; yet her conscience is in many ways morbidly sensitive. She +is a most interesting and absorbing person,--one entirely unique in my +experience. Living with her, as you will, it will be impossible for you +not to influence her strongly, one way or the other; and I want to enlist +your help to carry on the work I have begun. She owes it to herself and to +the world not to let her mind be inactive. I am very much mistaken if she +has not within her the power to write poems, which shall take place among +the work that lasts." + +Mr. Allen read this letter over several times, and then, with a gesture of +impatience, tore the sheets down the middle, and threw them into the fire, +exclaiming,-- + +"Pshaw! as if there were any use in sending a man a portrait of a woman he +is to see every day. If Stephen is the person to amount to any thing in +her life, he will recognize her. If he is not, all my descriptions of her +will be thrown away. It is best to let things take their own course." + +After some deliberation, he decided to take a step, which he would never +have taken, had Mercy not been going away from his influence,--a step +which he had again and again said to himself he would hot risk, lest the +effect might be to hinder her intellectual growth. He sent two of her +poems to a friend of his, who was the editor of one of the leading +magazines in the country. The welcome they met exceeded even his +anticipations. By the very next mail, he received a note from his friend, +enclosing a check, which to Harley Allen's inexperience of such matters +seemed disproportionately large. "Your little Cape Cod girl is a wonder, +indeed," wrote the editor. "If she can keep on writing such verse as this, +she will make a name for herself. Send us some more: we'll pay her well +for it." + +Mr. Allen was perplexed. He had not once thought of the verses being paid +for. He had thought that to see her poems in print might give Mercy a new +incentive to work, might rouse in her an ambition, which would in part +take the place of the stimulus which his teachings had given her. He very +much disliked to tell her what he had done, and to give to her the money +she had unwittingly earned. He feared that she would resent it; he feared +that she would be too elated by it; he feared a dozen different things in +as many minutes, as he sat turning the check over and over in his hands. +But his fears were all unfounded. Mercy had too genuine an artistic nature +to be elated, too much simplicity to be offended. Her first emotion was +one of incredulity; her second, of unaffected and humble wonder that any +verses of hers should have been so well spoken of; and her next, of +childlike glee at the possibility of her earning any money. She had not a +trace of the false pride which had crystallized in her mother's nature +into such a barrier against the idea of a paid industry. + +"O Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed, "is it really possible? Do you think the +verses were really worth it? Are you quite sure the editor did not send +the money because the verses were written by a friend of yours?" + +Harley Allen laughed. + +"Editors are not at all likely, Mercy," he said, "to pay any more for +things than the things are worth. I think you will some day laugh +heartily, as you look back upon the misgivings with which you received the +first money earned by your pen. If you will only work faithfully and +painstakingly, you can do work which will be much better paid than this." + +Mercy's eyes flashed. + +"Oh! oh! Then I can have books and pictures, and take journeys," she said +in a tone of such ecstasy that Mr. Allen was surprised. + +"Why, Mercy," he replied, "I did not know you were such a discontented +girl. Have you always longed for all these things?" + +"I'm not discontented, Mr. Allen," answered Mercy, a little proudly. "I +never had a discontented moment in my life. I'm not so silly. I have never +yet seen the day which did not seem to me brimful and running over with +joys and delights; that is, except when I was for a little while bowed +down by a grief nobody could bear up under," she added, with a sudden +drooping of every feature in her expressive face, as she recalled the one +sharp grief of her life. "I don't see why a distinct longing for all sorts +of beautiful things need be in the least inconsistent with absolute +content. In fact, I know it isn't; for I have both." + +Mr. Allen was not enough of an idealist to understand this. He looked +puzzled, and Mercy went on,-- + +"Why, Mr. Allen, I should like to have our home perfectly beautiful, just +like the most beautiful houses I have read about in books. I should like +to have the walls hung full of pictures, and the rooms filled full of +books; and I should like to have great greenhouses full of all the rare +and exquisite flowers of the whole world. I'd like one house like the +house you told me of, full of all the orchids, and another full of only +palms and ferns. I should like to wear always the costliest of silks, very +plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and +laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should +like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people +around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care +just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures, +and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure +that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr. +Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became +suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look +she had never seen on his face before. + +"Of your future life, Mercy,--of your future life. I am wondering what it +will be, and if the dear Lord will carry you safe through all the +temptations which the world must offer to one so sensitive as you are to +all its beauties," replied Mr. Allen, sadly. Mercy was displeased. She was +always intolerant of this class of references to the Lord. Her sense of +honesty took alarm at them. In a curt and half-petulant tone, she +answered,-- + +"I suppose ministers have to say such things, Mr. Allen; but I wish you +wouldn't say them to me. I do not think that the Lord made the beautiful +things in this world for temptations; and I believe he expects us to keep +ourselves out of mischief, and not throw the responsibility on to him!" + +"Oh, Mercy, Mercy! don't say such things! They sound irreverent: they +shock me!" exclaimed Mr. Allen, deeply pained by Mercy's tone and words. + +"I am very sorry to shock you, Mr. Allen," replied Mercy, in a gentler +tone. "Pray forgive me. I do not think, however, there is half as much +real irreverence in saying that the Lord expects us to look out for +ourselves and keep out of mischief as there is in teaching that he made a +whole world full of people so weak and miserable that they couldn't look +after themselves, and had to be lifted along all the time." + +Mr. Allen shook his head, and sighed. When Mercy was in this frame of +mind, it was of no use to argue with her. He returned to the subject of +her poetry. + +"If you will keep on reading and studying, Mercy, and will compel yourself +to write and rewrite carefully, there is no reason why you should not have +a genuine success as a writer, and put yourself in a position to earn +money enough to buy a great many comforts and pleasures for yourself, and +your mother also," he said. + +At the mention of her mother, Mercy started, and exclaimed irrelevantly,-- + +"Dear me! I never once thought of mother." + +Mr. Allen looked, as well he might, mystified. "Never once thought of her! +What do you mean, Mercy?" + +"Why, I mean I never once thought about telling her about the money. She +wouldn't like it." + +"Why not? I should think she would not only like the money, but be very +proud of your being able to earn it in such a way." + +"Perhaps that might make a difference," said Mercy, reflectively: "it +would seem quite different to her from taking in sewing, I suppose." + +"Well, I should think so," laughed Mr. Allen. "Very different, indeed." + +"But it's earning money, working for money, all the same," continued +Mercy; "and you haven't the least idea how mother feels about that. Father +must have been full of queer notions. She got it all from him. But I can't +see that there is any difference between a woman's taking money for what +she can do, and a man's taking money for what he can do. I can do sewing, +and you can preach; and of the two, if people must go without one or the +other, they could do without sermons better than without clothes,--eh, Mr. +Allen?" and Mercy laughed mischievously. "But once when I told mother I +believed I would turn dressmaker for the town, I knew I could earn ever so +much money, besides doing a philanthropy in getting some decent gowns into +the community, she was so horrified and unhappy at the bare idea that I +never have forgotten it. It is just so with ever so many women here. They +would rather half-starve than do any thing to earn money. For my part, I +think it is nonsense." + +"Certainly, Mercy,--certainly it is," replied Mr. Allen, anxious lest this +new barrier should come between Mercy and her work. "It is only a +prejudice. And you need never let your mother know any thing about it. +She is so old and feeble it would not be worth while to worry her." + +Mercy's eyes grew dark and stern as she fixed them on Mr. Allen. "I wonder +I believe any thing you say, Mr. Allen. How many things do you keep back +from me, or state differently from what they are, to save my feelings? or +to adapt the truth to my feebleness, which is not like the feebleness of +old age, to be sure, but is feebleness in comparison with your knowledge +and strength? I hate, hate, hate, your theories about deceiving people. I +shall certainly tell my mother, if I keep on writing, and am paid for it," +she said impetuously. + +"Very well. Of course, if you think it wrong to leave her in ignorance +about it, you must tell her. I myself see no reason for your mentioning +the fact, unless you choose to. You are a mature and independent woman: +she is old and childish. The relation between you is really reversed. You +are the mother, and she the child. Suppose she had become a writer when +you were a little girl: would it have been her duty to tell you of it?" +replied Mr. Allen. + +"I don't care! I shall tell her! I never have kept the least thing from +her yet, and I don't believe I ever will," said Mercy. "You'll never make +me think it's right, Mr. Allen. What a good Jesuit you'd have made, +wouldn't you?" + +Mr. Allen colored. "Oh, child, how unjust you are!" he exclaimed. "But it +must be all my stupid way of putting things. One of these days, you'll see +it all differently." + +And she did. Firm as were her resolutions to tell her mother every thing, +she could not find courage to tell her about the verses and the price paid +for them. Again and again she had approached the subject, and had been +frightened back,--sometimes by her own unconquerable dislike to speaking +of her poetry; sometimes, as in the instance above, by an outbreak on her +mother's part of indignation at the bare suggestion of her earning money. +After that conversation, Mercy resolved within herself to postpone the day +of the revelation, until there should be more to tell and more to show. + +"If ever I have a hundred dollars, I'll tell her then," she thought. "So +much money as that would make it seem better to her. And I will have a +good many verses by that time to read to her." And so the secret grew +bigger and heavier, and yet Mercy grew more used to carrying it, until she +herself began to doubt whether Mr. Allen were not right, after all; and if +it would not be a pity to trouble the feeble old heart with a needless +perplexity and pain. + + + + +Chapter V. + + + +When Stephen White saw his new tenants' first preparations for moving into +his house, he was conscious of a strangely mingled feeling, half +irritation, and half delight. Four weeks had passed since the unlucky +evening on which he had taken Mercy to his mother's room, and he had not +seen her face again. He had called at the hotel twice, but had found only +Mrs. Carr at home. Mercy had sent a messenger with only a verbal message, +when she wished the key of the house. + +She had an undefined feeling that she would not come into any relation +with Stephen White, if it could be avoided. She was heartily glad that she +had not been in the house when he called. And yet, had she been in the +habit of watching her own mental states, she would have discovered that +Stephen White was very much in her thoughts; that she had come to +wondering why she never met him in her walks; and, what was still more +significant, to mistaking other men for him, at a distance. This is one of +the oddest tricks of a brain preoccupied with the image of one human +being. One would think that it would make the eye clearer-sighted, +well-nigh infallible, in the recognition of the loved form. Not at all. +Waiting for her lover to appear, a woman will stand wearily watching at a +window, and think fifty times in sixty minutes that she sees him coming. +Tall men, short men, dark men, light men; men with Spanish cloaks, and men +in surtouts,--all wear, at a little distance, a tantalizing likeness to +the one whom they in no wise resemble. + +After such a watching as this, the very eye becomes disordered, as after +looking at a bright color it sees a spectrum of a totally different tint; +and, when the long looked-for person appears, he himself looks unnatural +at first, and strange. How well many women know this curious fact in +love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly +enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon. +Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks +quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never +doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes +were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he +and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an +important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of +unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a +myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are +constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have +the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings. +Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the +ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected. + +When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at +his mother's window. It was just at dusk. + +"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them." + +Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowly towards her son, and spoke in the +measured syllables and unvibrating tone which always marked her utterance +when she was displeased. + +"Do you think you are under any obligation to do that? Suppose they had +hired a house of you in some other part of the town: would you have felt +called upon to pay them that attention? I do not know what the usual +duties of a landlord are. You know best." + +Stephen colored. This was the worst of his mother's many bad traits,--an +instinctive, unreasoning, and unreasonable jealousy of any mark of +attention or consideration shown to any other person than herself, even if +it did not in the smallest way interfere with her comfort; and this cold, +sarcastic manner of speaking was, of all the forms of her ill-nature, the +one he found most unbearable. He made no reply, but stood still at the +window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she +helped her mother out of, and down from, the antiquated old carriage, and +carried parcel after parcel and laid them on the doorstep. + +Mrs. White continued in the same sarcastic tone,-- + +"Pray go and help move all their baggage in, Stephen, if it would give you +any pleasure. It is nothing to me, I am sure, if you choose to be all the +time doing all sorts of things for everybody. I don't see the least +occasion for it, that's all." + +"It seems to me only common neighborliness and friendly courtesy, mother," +replied Stephen, gently. "But you know you and I never agree upon such +points. Our views are radically different, and it is best not to discuss +them." + +"Views!" ejaculated Mrs. White, in a voice more like the low growl of some +animal than like any sound possible to human organs. "I don't want to hear +any thing about 'views' about such a trifle. Why don't you go, if you want +to, and be done with it?" + +"It is too late now," answered Stephen, in the same unruffled tone. "They +have gone in, and the carriage is driving off." + +"Well, perhaps they would like to have you put down their carpets for +them, or open their boxes," sneered Mrs. White, still with the same +intolerable sarcastic manner. "I don't doubt they could find some use for +your services." + +"O mother, don't!" pleaded Stephen, "please don't. I do not wish to go +near them or ever see them, if it will make you any less happy. Do let us +talk of something else." + +"Who ever said a word about your not going near them, I'd like to know? +Have I ever tried to shut you up, or keep you from going anywhere you +wanted to? Answer me that, will you?" + +"No, mother," answered Stephen, "you never have. But I wish I could make +you happier." + +"You do make me very happy, Steve," said Mrs. White, mollified by the +gentle answer. "You're a good boy, and always was; but it does vex me to +see you always so ready to be at everybody's beck and call; and, where +it's a woman, it naturally vexes me more. You wouldn't want to run any +risk of being misunderstood, or making a woman care about you more than +she ought." + +Stephen stared. This was a new field. Had his mother gone already thus far +in her thoughts about Mercy Philbrick? And was her only thought of the +possibility of the young woman's caring for him, and not in the least of +his caring for her? + +And what would ever become of the peace of their daily life, if this kind +of jealousy--the most exacting, most insatiable jealousy in the +world--were to grow up in her heart? Stephen was dumb with despair. The +apparent confidential friendliness and assumption of a tacit understanding +and agreement between him and her on the matter, with which his mother had +said, "You wouldn't want to be misunderstood, or make a woman care more +for you than she ought," struck terror to his very soul. The apparent +amicableness of her remark at the present moment did not in the least +blind him to the enormous possibilities of future misery involved in such +a train of feeling and thought on her part. He foresaw himself involved in +a perfect network of espionage and cross-questioning and suspicion, in +comparison with which all he had hitherto borne at his mother's hands +would seem trivial. All this flashed through his mind in the brief +instant that he hesitated before he replied in an off-hand tone, which for +once really blinded his mother,-- + +"Goodness, mother! whatever put such ideas into your head? Of course I +should never run any such risk as that." + +"A man can't possibly be too careful," remarked Mrs. White, sententiously. +"The world's full of gossiping people, and women are very impressionable, +especially such high-strung women as that young widow. A man can't +possibly be too careful. Read me the paper now, Stephen." + +Stephen was only too thankful to take refuge in and behind the newspaper. +A newspaper had so often been to him a shelter from his mother's eyes, a +protection from his mother's tongue, that, whenever he saw a storm or a +siege of embarrassing questioning about to begin, he looked around for a +newspaper as involuntarily as a soldier feels in his belt for his pistol. +He had more than once smiled bitterly to himself at the consciousness of +the flimsy bulwark; but he found it invaluable. Sometimes, it is true, her +impatient instinct made a keen thrust at the truth, and she would say +angrily,-- + +"Put down that paper! I want to see your face when I speak to you;" but +his reply, "Why, mother, I am reading. I was just going to read something +aloud to you," would usually disarm and divert her. It was one of her +great pleasures to have him read aloud to her. It mattered little what he +read: she was equally interested in the paragraphs of small local news, +and in the telegraphic summaries of foreign affairs. A revolt in a +distant European province, of which she had never heard even the name, was +neither more nor less exciting to her than the running away of a heifer +from the premises of an unknown townsman. + +All through the evening, the sounds of moving of furniture, and brisk +going up and down stairs, came through the partition, and interrupted +Stephen's thoughts as much as they did his mother's. They had lived so +long alone in the house in absolute quiet, save for the semi-occasional +stir of Marty's desultory house-cleaning, that these sounds were +disturbing, and not pleasant to hear. Stephen did not like them much +better than his mother did; and he gave her great pleasure by remarking, +as he bade her good-night,-- + +"I suppose those people next door will get settled in a day or two, and +then we can have a quiet evening again." + +"I should hope so," replied his mother. "I should think that a caravan of +camels needn't have made so much noise. It's astonishing to me that folks +can't do things without making a racket; but I think some people feel +themselves of more consequence when they're making a great noise." + +The next morning, as Stephen was bidding his mother good-morning, he +accidentally glanced out of the window, and saw Mercy walking slowly away +from the house with a little basket on her arm. + +"She'll go to market every morning," he thought to himself. "I shall see +her then." + +Not the slightest glance of Stephen's eye ever escaped his mother's +notice. + +"Ah! there goes the lady," she said. "I wonder if she is always going down +town at this hour? You will have to manage to go either earlier or later, +or else people will begin to talk about you." + +Stephen White had one rule of conduct: when he was uncertain what to do, +not to do any thing. He broke it in this instance, and had reason to +regret it long. He spoke impulsively on the instant, and revealed to +mother his dawning interest in Mercy, and planted then and there an +ineffaceable germ of distrust in her mind. + +"Now, mother," he said, "what's the use of you beginning to set up this +new worry? Mrs. Philbrick is a widow, and very sad and lonely. She is the +friend of my friend, Harley Allen; and I am in duty bound to show her some +attention, and help her if I can. She is also a bright, interesting +person; and I do not know so many such that I should turn my back on one +under my own roof. I have not so many social pleasures that I should give +up this one, just on account of a possible gossip about it." + +Silence would have been wiser. Mrs. White did not speak for a moment or +two; then she said, in a slow and deliberate manner, as if reflecting on a +problem,--"You enjoy Mrs. Philbrick's society, then, do you, Stephen? How +much have you seen of her?" + +Still injudicious and unlike himself, Stephen answered, "Yes, I think I +shall enjoy it very much, and I think you will enjoy it more than I shall; +for you may see great deal of her. I have only seen her once, you know." + +"I don't suppose she will care any thing about me," replied Mrs. White, +with an emphasis on the last personal pronoun which spoke volumes. "Very +few people do." + +Stephen made no reply. It had just dawned on his consciousness that he had +been blundering frightfully, and his mind stood still for a moment, as a +man halts suddenly, when he finds himself in a totally wrong road. To turn +short about is not always the best way of getting off a wrong road, though +it may be the quickest way. Stephen turned short about, and exclaimed with +a forced laugh, "Well, mother, I don't suppose it will make any great +difference to you, if she doesn't. It is not a matter of any moment, +anyhow, whether we see any thing of either of them or not. I thought she +seemed a bright, cheery sort of body, that's all. Good-by," and he ran out +of the house. + +Mrs. White lay for a long time with her eyes fixed on the wall. The +expression of her face was of mingled perplexity and displeasure. After a +time, these gave place to a more composed and defiant look. She had taken +her resolve, had marked out her line of conduct. + +"I won't say another word to Stephen about her," she thought. "I'll just +watch and see how things go. Nothing can happen in this house without my +knowing it." + +The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last +clause of her soliloquy. + +Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own +little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of +Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma. +Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail +a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a +complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high, +old-fashioned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their +sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her +father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him. + +"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, +as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It +looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such +clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a +jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized +the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all +were,--cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the +doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch +outline. + +"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp, +jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk. +She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who +was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot +to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're +ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you, +if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People +are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your +face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin' +at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash, +trash! People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly. + +"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the +muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on +the way." + +"Broken? Clock broken? Mend it, mend it, child. I'll show you a good man, +not this feller in here,--he's only good for outsides. Holler sham, holler +sham! What kind o' clock was it?" + +"Oh, that's the worst of it. It was an old clock my grandfather brought +from Holland. It reached up to the ceiling, and had beautiful carved work +on it. But it's in five hundred pieces, I do believe. A heavy box crushed +it. Even the brass work inside is all jammed and twisted. Our things came +by sea," replied Mercy. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Come on, come on! I'll show you," exclaimed +the eccentric old man, starting off at a quick pace. Mercy did not stir. +Presently, he looked back, wheeled, and came again so near that he nearly +trod on her gown. + +"Bless my soul! Didn't tell her,--bad habit, bad habit. Never do make +people understand. Come on, child,--come on! I've got a clock like yours. +Don't want it. Never use it. Run down twenty years ago. Guess we can find +it. Come on, come on!" he exclaimed. + +"But, Mr. Wheeler," said Mercy, half-frightened at his manner, yet +trusting him in spite of herself, "do you really want to sell the clock? +If you have no use for it, I'd be very glad to buy it of you, if it looks +even a little like our old one. I will bring my mother to look at it." + +"Fine young woman! fine young woman! Good face. Never mistaken in a face +yet. Don't sell clocks: never sold a clock yet. I'll give yer the clock, +if yer like it. Come on, child,--come on!" and he laid his hand on Mercy's +arm and drew her along. + +Mercy held back. "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "You're very kind. +But I think my mother would not like to have you give us a clock. I will +buy it of you; but I really cannot go with you now. Tell me where the +clock is, and I will come with my mother to see it." + +The old man stamped his foot and his cane both with impatience. "Pshaw! +pshaw!" he said: "women all alike, all alike." Then with an evident effort +to control his vexation, and speak more slowly, he said, "Can't you see +I'm an old man, child? Don't pester me now. Come, on, come on! I tell you +I want to show yer that clock. Give it to you 's well 's not. Stood in the +lumber-room twenty years. Come on, come on! It's right up here, ten +steps." And again he took Mercy by the arm. Reluctantly she followed him, +thinking to herself, "Oh, what a rash thing this is to do! How do I know +but he really is crazy?" + +He led the way up an outside staircase at the end of the Brick Row, and, +after fumbling a long time in several deep pockets, produced a huge rusty +iron key, and unlocked the door at the head of the stairs. A very strange +life that key had led in pockets. For many years it had slept under Miss +Orra White's maidenly black alpacas, and had been the token of confinement +and of release to scores of Miss Orra's unruly pupils; then it had had an +interval of dignified leisure, lifted to the level of the Odd Fellows +regalia, and only used by them on rare occasions. For the last ten years, +however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's +lumber-room. If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and +speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in +keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might +have indulged in fine conjectures, and have passed its lifetime in a state +of chronic bewilderment. Each time that the door of this old storehouse +opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing +no relation to any thing that had preceded it. "Old Man Wheeler" added to +all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts. +He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody. He drove hard +bargains, and was inexorable as to dates. When a debtor came, pleading for +a short delay on a payment, the old man had but one reply,-- + +"No, no, no! What yer got? what yer got? Gie me somethin', gie me +somethin'. Settle, settle, settle! Gie me any thin' yer got. Settle, +settle, settle!" The consequences of twenty years' such traffic as this +can more easily be imagined than described. The room was piled from floor +to roof with its miscellaneous collections: junk-shops, pawnbrokers' +cellars, and old women's garrets seemed all to have disgorged themselves +here. A huge stack of calico comforters, their tufts gray with dust and +cobwebs, lay on top of two old ploughs, in one corner: kegs of nails, +boxes of soap, rolls of leather, harnesses stiff and cracking with age, +piles of books, chairs, bedsteads, andirons, tubs, stone ware, crockery +ware, carpets, files of old newspapers, casks, feather-beds, jars of +druggists' medicines, old signboards, rakes, spades, school-desks,--in +short, all things that mortal man ever bought or sold,--were here, packed +in piles and layers, and covered with dust as with a gray coverlid. At +each foot-fall on the loose boards of the floor, clouds of stifling dust +arose, and strange sounds were heard in and behind the piles of rubbish, +as if all sorts of small animals might be skurrying about, and giving +alarms to each other. + +Mercy stood still on the threshold, her face full of astonishment. The +dust made her cough; and at first she could hardly see which way to step. +The old man threw down his cane, and ran swiftly from corner to corner, +and pile to pile, peering around, pulling out first one thing and then +another. He darted from spot to spot, bending lower and lower, as he grew +more impatient in his search, till he looked like a sort of human weasel +gliding about in quest of prey. + +"Trash, trash, nothin' but trash!" he muttered to himself as he ran. "Burn +it up some day. Trash, trash!" + +"How did you get all these queer things together, Mr. Wheeler?" Mercy +ventured to say at last "Did you keep a store?" + +The old man did not reply. He was tugging away at a high stack of rolls of +undressed leather, which reached to the ceiling in one corner. He pulled +them too hastily, and the whole stack tumbled forward, and rolled heavily +in all directions, raising a suffocating dust, through which the old man's +figure seemed to loom up as through a fog, as he skipped to the right and +left to escape the rolling bales. + +"O Mr. Wheeler!" cried Mercy, "are you hurt?" + +He laughed a choked laugh, more like a chuckle than like a laugh. + +"He! he! child. Dust don't hurt me. Goin' to return to 't presently. Made +on 't! made on 't! Don't see why folks need be so 'fraid on 't! He! he! 'T +is pretty choky, though." And he sat down on one of the leather rolls, and +held his sides through a hard coughing fit. As the dust slowly subsided, +Mercy saw standing far back in the corner, where the bales of leather had +hidden it, an old-fashioned clock, so like her own that she gave a low cry +of surprise. + +"Oh, is that the clock you meant, Mr. Wheeler?" she exclaimed. + +"Yes, yes, that's it. Nice old clock. Took it for debt. Cost me more'n +'t's wuth. As fur that matter, 'tain't wuth nothin' to me. Wouldn't hev it +in the house 'n' more than I'd git the town 'us tower in for a clock. D'ye +like it, child? Ye can hev it's well's not. I'd like to give it to ye." + +"I should like it very much, very much indeed," replied Mercy. "But I +really cannot think of taking it, unless you let us pay for it." + +The old man sprung to his feet with such impatience that the leather bale +rolled away from him, and he nearly lost his balance. Mercy sprang forward +and caught him. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Don't pester me, child! Don't you see I'm +an old man? I tell ye I'll give ye the clock, an' I won't sell it ter +ye,--won't, won't, won't," and he picked up his cane, and stood leaning +upon it with both his hands clasped on it, and his head bent forward, +eagerly scanning Mercy's face. She hesitated still, and began to speak +again. + +"But, Mr. Wheeler,"-- + +"Don't 'but' me. There ain't any buts about it. There's the clock. Take +it, child,--take it, take it, take it, or else leave it, just's you like. +I ain't a-goin' to saddle ye with it; but I think ye'd be very silly not +to take it,--silly, silly." + +Mercy began to think so too. The clock was its own advocate, almost as +strong as the old man's pleading. + +"Very well, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "I will take the clock, though I don't +know what my mother will say. It is a most valuable present. I hope we +can do something for you some day." + +"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the old man. "Just like all the rest o' the +world. Got no faith,--can't believe in gettin' somethin' for nothin'. +You're right, child,--right, right. 'S a general thing, people are cheats, +cheats, cheats. Get all your money away,--wolves, wolves, wolves! Stay +here, child, a minute. I'll get two men to carry it." And, before Mercy +realized his intention, he had shut the door, locked it, and left her +alone in the warehouse. Her first sensation was of sharp terror; but she +ran to the one window which was accessible, and, seeing that it looked out +on the busiest thoroughfare of the town, she sat down by it to await the +old man's return. In a very few moments, she heard the sounds of steps on +the stairs, the door was thrown open, and the old man, still talking to +himself in muttered tones, pushed into the room two ragged vagabonds whom +he had picked up on the street. + +They looked as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With +gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted on the threshold. + +"Come in, come in! What 're ye 'bout? Earn yer money, earn yer money!" +exclaimed the old man, pointing to the clock, and bidding them take it up +and carry it out. + +"Now mind! Quarter a piece, quarter a piece,--not a cent more. Do ye +understand? Hark 'e! do ye understand? Not a cent more," he said, +following them out of the door. Then turning to Mercy, he exclaimed,-- + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Forgot you, child. Come on, come on! I'll +go with you, else those rascals will cheat you. Men are wolves, wolves, +wolves. They're to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece. +But I'll come on with you. Got half a dollar?" + +"Oh, yes," laughed Mercy, much pleased that the old man was willing she +should pay the porters. "Oh, yes, I have my portemonnaie here," holding it +up. "This is the cheapest clock ever sold, I think; and you are very good +to let me pay the men." + +The old man looked at her with a keen, suspicious glance. + +"Good? eh! good? Why, ye didn't think I was goin' to give ye money, did +ye? Oh, no, no, no! Not money. Never give money." + +This was very true. It would probably have cost him a severer pang to give +away fifty cents than to have parted with the entire contents of the +storehouse. Mercy laughed aloud. + +"Why, Mr. Wheeler," she said, "you have given me just the same as money. +Such a clock as this must have cost a good deal, I am sure." + +"No, no, child! It's very different, different. Clock wasn't any use to +me, wasn't wuth any thin'. Money's of use, use, use. Can't have enough +on't. People get it all away from you. They're wolves, wolves, wolves," +replied the old man, running along in advance of Mercy, and rapping one of +the men who were carrying the clock, sharply on his shoulder. + +"Keep your end up there! keep it up! I won't pay you, if you don't carry +your half," he exclaimed. + +It was a droll procession, and everybody turned to look at it: the two +ragged men carrying the quaint-fashioned old clock, from which the dust +shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it: +following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and +excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in +an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or +chastise the bearers of the clock. The eccentric old fellow used his cane +as freely as if it had been a hand. There were few boys in town who had +not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances knew the touch of +it far better than they knew the grip of his fingers. It "saved steps," he +used to say; though of steps the old man seemed any thing but chary, as he +was in the habit of taking them perpetually, without advancing or +retreating, changing from one foot to the other, as uneasily as a goose +does. + +Stephen White happened to be looking out of the window, when this unique +procession of the clock passed his office. He could not believe what he +saw. He threw up the window and leaned out, to assure himself that he was +not mistaken. Mercy heard the sound, looked up, and met Stephen's eye. She +colored violently, bowed, and involuntarily quickened her pace. Her +companion halted, and looked up to see what had arrested her attention. +When he saw Stephen's face, he said,-- + +"Pshaw!" and turned again to look at Mercy. The bright color had not yet +left her cheek. The old man gazed at her angrily for a moment, then +stopped short, planted his cane on the ground, and said in a loud tone, +all the while peering into her face as if he would read her very +thoughts,-- + +"Don't you know that Steve White isn't good for any thin'? Poor stock, +poor stock! Father before him poor stock, too. Don't you go to lettin' him +handle your money, child. Mind now! I'll be a good friend to you, if +you'll do 's I say; but, if Steve White gets hold on you, I'll have +nothin' to do with you. Mind that, eh? eh?" + +Mercy had a swift sense of angry resentment at these words; but she +repelled it, as she would have resisted the impulse to be angry with a +little child. + +"Mr. Wheeler," she said with a gentle dignity of tone, which was not +thrown away on the old man, "I do not know why you should speak so to me +about Mr. White. He is almost an entire stranger to me as yet. We live in +his house; but we do not know him or his mother yet, except in the most +formal way. He seems to be a very agreeable man," she added with a little +tinge of perversity. + +"Hm! hm!" was all the old man's reply; and he did not speak again till +they reached Mercy's gate. Here the clock-carriers were about to set their +burden down. Mr. Wheeler ran towards them with his cane outstretched. + +"Here! here! you lazy rascals! Into the house! into the house, else you +don't get any quarter! + +"Well I came along, child,--well I came along. They'd ha' left it right +out doors here. Cheats! People are all cheats, cheats, cheats," he +exclaimed. + +Into the house, without a pause, without a knock, into poor bewildered +Mrs. Carr's presence he strode, the men following fast on his steps, and +Mercy unable to pass them. + +"Where'll you have it? Where'll you have it, child? Bless my soul! where's +that girl!" he exclaimed, looking back at Mercy, who stood on the front +doorstep, vainly trying to hurry in to explain the strange scene to her +mother. Mrs. Carr was, as usual, knitting. She rose up suddenly, confused +at the strange apparitions before her, and let her knitting fall on the +floor. The ball rolled swiftly towards Mr. Wheeler, and tangled the yarn +around his feet. He jumped up and down, all the while brandishing his +cane, and muttering, "Pshaw! pshaw! Damn knitting! Always did hate the +sight on't." But, kicking out to the right and the left vigorously, he +soon snapped the yarn, and stood free. + +"Mother! mother!" called Mercy from behind, "this is the gentleman I told +you of,--Mr. Wheeler. He has very kindly given us this beautiful clock, +almost exactly like ours." + +The sound of Mercy's voice reassured the poor bewildered old woman, and, +dropping her old-fashioned courtesy, she said timidly,-- + +"Pleased to see you, sir. Pray take a chair." + +"Chair? chair? No, no! Never do sit down in houses,--never, never. +Where'll you have it, mum? Where'll you have it? + +"Don't you dare put that down! Wait till you are told to, you lazy +rascals!" he exclaimed, lifting his cane, and threatening the men who were +on the point of setting the clock down, very naturally thinking they might +be permitted at last to rest a moment. + +"Oh, Mr. Wheeler!" said Mercy, "let them put it down anywhere, please, for +the present. I never can tell at first where I want a thing to stand. I +shall have to try it in different corners before I am sure," and Mercy +took out her portemonnaie, and came forward to pay the bearers. As she +opened it, the old man stepped nearer to her, and peered curiously into +her hand. The money in the portemonnaie was neatly folded and assorted, +each kind by itself, in a separate compartment. The old man nodded, and +muttered to himself, "Fine young woman! fine young woman! Business, +business!--Who taught you, child, to sort your money that way?" he +suddenly asked. + +"Why, no one taught me," replied Mercy. "I found that it saved time not to +have to fumble all through a portemonnaie for a ten-cent piece. It looks +neater, too, than to have it all in a crumpled mass," she added, smiling +and looking up in the old man's face. "I don't like disorder. Such a place +as your store-room would drive me crazy." + +The old man was not listening. He was looking about the room with a +dissatisfied expression of countenance. In a few moments, he said +abruptly,-- + +"'S this all the furniture you've got?" + +Mrs. Carr colored, and looked appealingly at Mercy; but Mercy laughed, +and replied as she would have answered her own grandfather,-- + +"Oh, no, not all we have! We have five more rooms furnished. It is all we +have for this room, however. These rooms are all larger than our rooms +were at home, and so the things look scanty. But I shall get more by +degrees." + +"Hm! hm! Want any thing out o' my lumber-room? Have it's well's not. +Things no good to anybody." + +"Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Wheeler. We have all we need. I could not think of +taking any thing more from you. We are under great obligation to you now +for the clock," said Mercy; and Mrs. Carr bewilderedly ejaculated, "Oh, +no, sir,--no, sir! There isn't any call for you to give us any thin'." + +While they were speaking, the old man was rapidly going out of the house; +with quick, short steps like a child, and tapping his cane on the floor at +every step. In the doorway he halted a moment, and, without looking back, +said, "Well, well, let me know, if you do want any thing. Have it's well's +not," and he was gone. + +"Oh, Mercy! he's crazy, sure's you're alive. You'll get took up for hevin' +this clock. Whatever made you take it, child?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, +walking round and round the clock, and dusting it here and there with a +corner of her apron. + +"Well, mother, I am sure I don't know. I couldn't seem to help it: he was +so determined, and the clock was such a beauty. I don't think he is crazy. +I think he is simply very queer; and he is ever, ever so rich. The clock +isn't really of any value to him; that is, he'd never do any thing with +it. He has a huge room half as big as this house, just crammed with +things, all sorts of things, that he took for debts; and this clock was +among them. I think it gave the old man a real pleasure to have me take +it; so that is one more reason for doing it." + +"Well, you know best, Mercy," said Mrs. Carr, a little sadly; "but I can't +quite see it's you do. It seems to me amazin' like a charity. I wish he +hadn't never found you out." + +"I don't, mother. I believe he is going to be my best crony here," said +Mercy, laughing; "and I'm sure nobody can say any thing ill-natured about +such a crony as he would be. He must be seventy years old, at least." + +When Stephen came home that night, he received from his mother a most +graphic account of the arrival of the clock. She had watched the +procession from her window, and had heard the confused sounds of talking +and moving of furniture in the house afterward. Marty also had supplied +some details, she having been surreptitiously overlooking the whole +affair. + +"I must say," remarked Mrs. White, "that it looks very queer. Where did +she pick up Old Man Wheeler? Who ever heard of his being seen walking with +a woman before? Even as a young man, he never would have any thing to do +with them; and it was always a marvel how he got married. I used to know +him very well." + +"But, mother," urged Stephen, "for all we know, they may be relations or +old friends of his. You forget that we know literally nothing about these +people. So far from being queer, it may be the most natural thing in the +world that he should be helping her fit up her house." + +But in his heart Stephen thought, as his mother did, that it was very +queer. + + + + +Chapter VI. + + + +The beautiful white New England winter had set in. As far as the eye could +reach, nothing but white could be seen. The boundary, lines of stone walls +and fences were gone, or were indicated only by raised and rounded lines +of the same soft white. On one side of these were faintly pencilled dark +shadows in the morning and in the afternoon; but at high noon the fields +were as unbroken a white as ever Arctic explorer saw, and the roads shone +in the sun like white satin ribbons flung out in all directions. The +groves of maple and hickory and beech were bare. Their delicate gray tints +spread in masses over the hillsides like a transparent, gray veil, through +which every outline of the hills was clear, but softened. The massive +pines and spruces looked almost black against the white of the snow, and +the whole landscape was at once shining and sombre; an effect which is +peculiar to the New England winter in the hill country, and is always +either very depressing or very stimulating to the soul. Dreamy and inert +and phlegmatic people shiver and huddle, see only the sombreness, and find +the winter one long imprisonment in the dark. But to a joyous, brisk, +sanguine soul, the clear, crisp, cold air is like wine; and the whiteness +and sparkle and shine of the snow are like martial music, a constant +excitement and spell. + +Mercy's soul thrilled within her with new delight and impulse each day. +The winter had always oppressed her before. On the seashore, winter means +raw cold, a pale, gray, angry ocean, fierce winds, and scanty wet snows. +This brilliant, frosty air, so still and dry that it never seemed cold, +this luxuriance of snow piled soft and high as if it meant shelter and +warmth,--as indeed it does,--were very wonderful to Mercy. She would have +liked to be out of doors all day long: it seemed to her a fairer than +summer-time. She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters +far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in +sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of +the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns +and shining clumps of the hepatica. It was a startling sight on a December +day, when the snow was lying many inches deep, to come suddenly on Mercy +walking in the middle of the road, her hands filled with green ferns and +mosses and vines. There were three different species of ground-pine in +these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of +laurel. What wealth for a lover of wild, out-door things! Each day Mercy +bore home new treasures, until the house was almost as green and fragrant +as a summer wood. Day after day, Mrs. White, from her point of observation +at her window, watched the lithe young figure coming down the road, +bearing her sheaves of boughs and vines, sometimes on her shoulder, as +lightly and gracefully as a peasant girl of Italy might bear her poised +basket of grapes. Gradually a deep wonder took possession of the lonely +old woman's soul. + +"Whatever can she do with all that green stuff?" she thought. "She's +carried in enough to trim the 'Piscopal church twice over." + +At last she shared her perplexity with Marty. + +"Marty," said she one day, "have you ever seen Mrs. Philbrick come into +the house without somethin' green in her hands? What do you suppose she's +goin' to do with it all?" + +"Lord knows," answered Marty. "I've been a speckkerlatin' about that very +thing myself. They can't be a brewin' beer this time o' year; but I see +her yesterday with her hands full o' pyroly." + +"I wish you would make an errand in there, Marty," said Mrs. White, "and +see if you can any way find out what it's all for. She's carried in pretty +near a grove of pine-trees, I should say." + +The willing Marty went, and returned with a most surprising tale. Every +room was wreathed with green vines. There were evergreen trees in boxes; +the window-seats were filled with pots of green things growing; waving +masses of ferns hung down from brackets on the walls. + +"I jest stood like a dumb critter the minnit I got in," said Marty. "I +didn't know whether I wuz in the house or out in the woods, the whole +place smelled o' hemlock so, an' looked so kind o' sunny and shady all ter +oncet.--I jest wished Steve could see it. He'd go wild," added the +unconsciously injudicious Marty. + +Mrs. White's face darkened instantly. + +"It must be very unwholesome to have rooms made so dark and damp," she +said. "I should think people might have more sense." + +"Oh, it wa'n't dark a mite!" interrupted Marty, eagerly. "There wuz a +blazin' fire on the hearth in the settin'-room, an' the sun a-streamin' +into both the south winders. It made shadders on the floor, jest as it +does in the woods. I'd jest ha' liked to set down there a spell, and not +do nothin' but watch 'em." + +At this moment, a low knock at the door interrupted the conversation. +Marty opened the door, and there stood Mercy herself, holding in her hands +some wreaths of laurel and pine, and a large earthen dish with ferns +growing in it. It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy +all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung +cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, +lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and +wondered if she would have any Christmas evergreens to brighten her room. + +"I don't suppose a man would ever think of such things," thought Mercy. +"I've a great mind to carry her in some. I'll never muster courage to go +in there, unless I go to carry her something; and I may as well do it +first as last. Perhaps she doesn't care any thing about things from the +woods; but I think they may do her good without her knowing it. Besides, I +promised to go." It was now ten days since Stephen, meeting Mercy in the +town one day, had stopped, and said to her, in a half-sad tone which had +touched her,-- + +"Do you really never mean to come again to see my mother? I do assure you +it would be a great kindness." + +His tone conveyed a great deal,--his tone and his eyes. They said as +plainly as words could have said,-- + +"I know that my mother treated you abominably, I know she is very +disagreeable; but, after all, she is helpless and alone, and if you could +only once get her to like you, and would come and see her now and then, it +would be a kindness to her, and a great help to me; and I do yearn to know +you better; and I never can, unless you will begin the acquaintance by +being on good terms with my mother." + +All this Stephen's voice and eyes had said to Mercy's eyes and heart, +while his lips, pronounced the few commonplace words which were addressed +to her ear. All this Mercy was revolving in her thoughts, as she deftly +and with almost a magic touch laid the soft mosses in the earthen dish, +and planted them thick with ferns and hepatica and partridge-berry vines +and wintergreen. But all she was conscious of saying to herself was, "Mr. +White asked me to go; and it really is not civil not to do it, and I may +as well have it over with." + +When Mrs. White's eyes first fell on Mercy in the doorway, they rested on +her with the same cold gaze which had so repelled her on their first +interview. But no sooner did she see the dish of mosses than her face +lighted up, and exclaiming, "Oh, where did you get those partridge-berry +vines?" she involuntarily stretched out her hands. The ice was broken. +Mercy felt at home at once, and at once conceived a true sentiment of +pity for Mrs. White, which never wholly died out of her heart. Kneeling on +the floor by her bed, she said eagerly,-- + +"I am so glad you like them, Mrs. White. Let me hold them down low, where +you can look at them." + +Some subtle spell must have linked itself in Mrs. White's brain with the +dainty red partridge berries. Her eyes filled with tears, as she lifted +the vines gently in her fingers, and looked at them. Mercy watched her +with great surprise; but with the quick instinct of a poet's temperament +she thought, "She hasn't seen them very likely since she was a little +girl." + +"Did you use to like them when you were a child, Mrs. White?" she asked. + +"I used to pick them when I was young," replied Mrs. White, +dreamily,--"when I was young: not when I was a child, though. May I have +one of them to keep?" she asked presently, still holding an end of one of +the vines in her fingers. + +"Oh, I brought them in for you, for Christmas," exclaimed Mercy. "They are +all for you." + +Mrs. White was genuinely astonished. No one had ever done this kind of +thing for her before. Stephen always gave her on her birthday and on +Christmas a dutiful and somewhat appropriate gift, though very sorely he +was often puzzled to select a thing which should not jar either on his own +taste or his mother's sense of utility. But a gift of this kind, a simple +little tribute to her supposed womanly love of the beautiful, a thoughtful +arrangement to give her something pleasant to look upon for a time, no +one had ever before made. It gave her an emotion of real gratitude, such +as she had seldom felt. + +"You are very kind, indeed,--very," she said with emphasis, and in a +gentler tone than Mercy had before heard from her lips. "I shall have a +great deal of comfort out of it." + +Then Mercy set the dish on a small table, and hung up the wreaths in the +windows. As she moved about the room lightly, now and then speaking in her +gay, light-hearted voice, Mrs. White thought to herself,-- + +"Steve was right. She is a wonderful cheery body." And, long after Mercy +had gone, she continued to think happily of the pleasant incident of the +fresh bright face and the sweet voice. For the time being, her jealous +distrust of the possible effect of these upon her son slumbered. + +When Stephen entered his mother's room that night, his heart gave a sudden +bound at the sight of the green wreaths and the dish of ferns. He saw them +on fhe first instant after opening the door; he knew in the same instant +that the hands of Mercy Philbrick must have placed them there; but, also, +in that same brief instant came to him an involuntary impulse to pretend +that he did not observe them; to wait till his mother should have spoken +of them first, that he might know whether she were pleased or not by the +gift. So infinitely small are the first beginnings of the course of deceit +into which tyranny always drives its victim. It could not be called a +deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed +in a room. No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit: for when +Mrs. White said, "Why, Stephen, you haven't noticed the greens! Look in +the windows!" his exclamation of apparent surprise, "Why, how lovely! +Where did they come from?" was a lie. It did not seem so, however, to +Stephen. It seemed to him simply a politic suppression of a truth, to save +his mother's feelings, to avoid a possibility of a war of words. Mercy +Philbrick, under the same circumstances, would have replied,-- + +"Oh, yes, I saw them as soon as I came in. I was waiting for you to tell +me about them," and even then would have been tortured by her conscience, +because she did not say why she was waiting. + +While his mother was telling him of Mercy's call, and of the report Marty +had brought back of the decorations of the rooms, Stephen stood with his +face bent over the ferns, apparently absorbed in studying each leaf +minutely; then he walked to the windows and examined the wreaths. He felt +himself so suddenly gladdened by these tokens of Mercy's presence, and by +his mother's evident change of feeling towards her, that he feared his +face would betray too much pleasure; he feared to speak, lest his voice +should do the same thing. He was forced to make a great effort to speak in +a judiciously indifferent tone, as he said,-- + +"Indeed, they are very pretty. I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; +and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas +Eve. I wish we had something to send in to them, don't you?" + +"Well, I've been thinking," said his mother, "that we might ask them to +come in and take dinner with us to-morrow. Marty's made some capital +mince-pies, and is going to roast a turkey. I don't believe they'll be +goin' to have any thing better, do you, Stephen?" + +Stephen walked very suddenly to the fire, and made a feint of rearranging +it, that he might turn his face entirely away from his mother's sight. He +was almost dumb with astonishment. A certain fear mingled with it. What +meant this sudden change? Did it portend good or evil? It seemed too +sudden, too inexplicable, to be genuine. Stephen had yet to learn the +magic power which Mercy Philbrick had to compel the liking even of people +who did not choose to like her. + +"Why, yes, mother," he said, "that would be very nice. It is a long time +since we had anybody to Christmas dinner." + +"Well, suppose you run in after tea and ask them," replied Mrs. White, in +the friendliest of tones. + +"Yes, I'll go," answered Stephen, feeling as if he were a man talking in a +dream. "I have been meaning to go in ever since they came." + +After tea, Stephen sat counting the minutes till he should go. To all +appearances, he was buried in his newspaper, occasionally reading a +paragraph aloud to his mother. He thought it better that she should remind +him of his intention to go; that the call should be purely at her +suggestion. The patience and silence with which he sat waiting for her to +remember and speak of it were the very essence of deceit again,--twice in +this one hour an acted lie, of which his dulled conscience took no note +or heed. Fine and impalpable as the meshes of the spider's-web are the +bands and bonds of a habit of concealment; swift-growing, too, and in +ever-widening circles, like the same glittering net woven for death. + +At last Mrs. White said, "Steve, I think it's getting near nine o'clock. +You'd better go in next door before it's any later." + +Stephen pulled out his watch. By his own sensations, he would have said +that it must be midnight. + +"Yes, it is half-past eight. I suppose I had better go now," he said, and +bade his mother good-night. + +He went out into the night with a sense of ecstasy of relief and joy. He +was bewildered at himself. How this strong sentiment towards Mercy +Philbrick had taken possession of him he could not tell. He walked up and +down in the snowy path in front of the house for some minutes, questioning +himself, sounding with a delicious dread the depths of this strange sea in +which he suddenly found himself drifting. He went back to the day when +Harley Allen's letter first told him of the two women who might become his +tenants. He felt then a presentiment that a new element was to be +introduced into his life; a vague, prophetic sense of some change at hand. +Then came the first interview, and his sudden disappointment, which he now +blushed to recollect. It seemed to him as if some magician must have laid +a spell upon his eyes, that he did not see even in that darkness how +lovely a face Mercy had, did not feel even through all the embarrassment +and strangeness the fascination of her personal presence. Then he dwelt +lingeringly on the picture, which had never faded from his brain, of his +next sight of her, as she sat on the old stone wall, with the gay +maple-leaves and blackberry-vines in her lap. From that day to the +present, he had seen her only a half dozen times, and only for a chance +greeting as they had passed each other in the street; but it seemed to him +that she had never been really absent from him, so conscious was he of her +all the time. So absorbed was he in these thoughts that a half-hour was +gone before he realized it, and the village bells were ringing for nine o' +clock when he knocked on the door of the wing. + +Mrs. Carr had rolled up her knitting, and was just on the point of going +upstairs. Their little maid of all work had already gone to bed, when +Stephen's loud knock startled them all. + +"Gracious alive! Mercy, what's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, all sorts of +formless terrors springing upon her at once. Mercy herself was astonished, +and ran hastily to open the door. When she saw Stephen standing there, her +astonishment was increased, and she looked it so undisguisedly that he +said,-- + +"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Philbrick. I know it is late, but my mother sent +me in with a message." ... + +"Pray come in, Mr. White," interrupted Mercy. "It is not really late, only +we keep such absurdly early hours, and are so quiet, as we know nobody +here, that a knock at the door in the evening makes us all jump. Pray +come in," and she threw open the door into the sitting-room, where the +lamps had already been put out, and the light of a blazing hickory log +made long flickering shadows on the crimson carpet. In this dancing light, +the room looked still more like a grove than it had to Marty at high noon. +Stephen's eyes fastened hungrily on the sight. + +"Your room is almost too much to resist," he said; "but I will not come in +now. I did not know it was so late. My mother wishes to know if you and +your mother will not come in and eat a Christmas dinner with us to-morrow. +We live in the plainest way, and cannot entertain in the ordinary +acceptation of the term. We only ask you to our ordinary home-dinner," he +added, with a sudden sense of the incongruity between the atmosphere of +refined elegance which pervaded Mercy's simple, little room, and the +expression which all his efforts had never been able to banish from his +mother's parlor. + +"Oh thank you, Mr. White. You are very good. I think we should like to +come very much. Mother and I were just saying that it would be the first +Christmas dinner we ever ate alone. But you must come in, Mr. White,--I +insist upon it," replied Mercy, stretching out one hand towards him, as if +to draw him in. + +Stephen went. On the threshold of the sitting-room he paused and stood +silent for some minutes. Mercy was relighting the lamps. + +"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick!" he exclaimed, "won't you please not light the lamps. +This firelight on these evergreens is the loveliest thing I ever saw." + +Too unconventional to think of any reasons why she should not sit with +Stephen White alone by firelight in her own house, Mercy blew out the lamp +she had lighted, and drawing a chair close up to the hearth sat down, and +clasping her hands in her lap looked eagerly into Stephen's face, and said +as simply as a child,-- + +"I like firelight, too, a great deal better than any other light. Some +evenings we do not light the lamps at all. Mother can knit just as well +without much light, and I can think better." + +Mercy was sitting in a chair so low that, to look at Stephen, she had to +lift her face. It was the position in which her face was sweetest. Some +lines, which were a shade too strong and positive when her face fully +confronted you, disappeared entirely when it was thrown back and her eyes +were lifted. It was then as ingenuous and tender and trustful a face as if +she had been but eight instead of eighteen. + +Stephen forgot himself, forgot the fact that Mercy was comparatively a +stranger, forgot every thing, except the one intense consciousness of this +sweet woman-face looking up into his. Bending towards her, he said +suddenly,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, your face is the very loveliest face I have ever seen in +my life. Do not be angry with me. Oh, do not!" he continued, seeing the +color deepen in Mercy's cheeks, and a stern expression gathering in her +eyes, as she looked steadily at him with unutterable surprise. "Do not be +angry with me. I could not help saying it; but I do not say it as men +generally say such things. I am not like other men: I have lived alone +all my life with my mother. You need not mind my saying your face is +lovely, any more than my saying that the ferns on the walls are lovely." + +If Stephen had known Mercy from her childhood, he could not have framed +his words more wisely. Every fibre of her artistic nature recognized the +possibility of a subtle truth in what he said, and his calm, dreamy tone +and look heightened this impression. Moreover, as Stephen's soul had been +during all the past four weeks slowly growing into the feeling which made +it inevitable that he should say these words on first looking closely and +intimately into Mercy's face, so had her soul been slowly growing into the +feeling which made it seem not really foreign or unnatural to her that he +should say them. + +She answered him with hesitating syllables, quite unlike her usual fluent +speech. + +"I think you must mean what you say, Mr. White; and you do not say it as +other men have said it. But will you please to remember not to say it +again? We cannot be friends, if you do." + +"Never again, Mrs. Philbrick?" he said,--he could almost have said +"Mercy,"--and looked at her with a gaze of whose intentness he was hardly +aware. + +Mercy felt a strange terror of this man; a few minutes ago a stranger, now +already asking at her hands she hardly knew what, and compelling her in +spite of herself. But she replied very quietly, with a slight smile,-- + +"Never, Mr. White. Now talk of something else, please. Your mother seemed +very much pleased with the ferns I carried her to-day. Did she love the +woods, when she was well?" + +"I do not know. I never heard her say," answered Stephen, absently, still +gazing into Mercy's face. + +"But you would have known, surely, if she had cared for them," said Mercy, +laughing; for she perceived that Stephen had spoken at random. + +"Oh, yes, certainly,--certainly. I should have known," said Stephen, still +with a preoccupied air, and rising to go. "I thank you for letting me come +into this beautiful room with you. I shall always think of your face +framed in evergreens, and with flickering firelight on it." + +"You are not going away, are you, Mr. White?" asked Mercy, mischievously. + +"Oh, no, certainly not. I never go away. How could I go away? Why did you +ask?" + +"Oh," laughed Mercy, "because you spoke as if you never expected to see my +face after to-night. That's all." + +Stephen smiled. "I am afraid I seem a very absent-minded person," he said. +"I did not mean that at all. I hope to see you very often, if I may. +Good-night." + +"Good-night, Mr. White. We shall be very glad to see you as often as you +like to come. You may be sure of that; but you must come earlier, or you +will find us all asleep. Good-night." + +Stephen spent another half-hour pacing up and down in the snowy path in +front of the house. He did not wish to go in until his mother was asleep. +Very well he knew that it would be better that she did not see his face +that night. When he went in, the house was dark and still. As he passed +his mother's door, she called, "Steve!" + +"All right, mother. They'll come," he replied, and ran swiftly up to his +own room. + +During this half-hour, Mercy had been sitting in her low chair by the +fire, looking steadily into the leaping blaze, and communing very sternly +with her own heart on the subject of Stephen White. Her pitiless honesty +of nature was just as inexorable in its dealing with her own soul as with +others; she never paltered with, nor evaded an accusation of, her +consciousness. At this moment, she was indignantly admitting to herself +that her conduct and her feeling towards Stephen were both deserving of +condemnation. But, when she asked herself for their reason, no answer came +framed in words, no explanation suggested itself, only Stephen's face rose +up before her, vivid, pleading, as he had looked when he said, "Never +again, Mrs. Philbrick?" and as she looked again into the dark blue eyes, +and heard the low tones over again, she sank into a deeper and deeper +reverie, from which gradually all self-accusation, all perplexity, faded +away, leaving behind them only a vague happiness, a dreamy sense of joy. +If lovers could look back on the first quickening of love in their souls, +how precious would be the memories; but the unawakened heart never knows +the precise instant of the quickening. It is wrapped in a half-conscious +wonder and anticipation; and, by the time the full revelation comes, the +impress of the first moments has been wiped out by intenser experiences. +How many lovers have longed to trace the sweet stream back to its very +source, to the hidden spring which no man saw, but have lost themselves +presently in the broad greenness, undisturbed and fertile, through which, +like a hidden stream through an emerald meadow, the love had been flowing +undiscovered. + +Months after, when Mercy's thoughts reverted to this evening, all she +could recollect was that on the night of Stephen's first call she had been +much puzzled by his manner and his words, had thought it very strange that +he should seem to care-so much for her, and perhaps still more strange +that she herself found it not unpleasing that he did so. Stephen's +reminiscences were at once more distinct and more indistinct,--more +distinct of his emotions, more indistinct of the incidents. He could not +recollect one word which had been said: only his own vivid consciousness +of Mercy's beauty; her face "framed in evergreens, with the firelight +flickering on it," as he had told her he should always think of it. + +Christmas morning came, clear, cold, shining bright. A slight thaw the day +before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a +moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, +which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun. The beauty of the scene +was almost solemn. The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did +not melt these ice-sheaths; and, under the flood of the full mid-day +light, the whole landscape seemed one blaze of jewels. When Mercy and her +mother entered Mrs. White's room, half an hour before the dinner-hour, +they found her sitting with the curtains drawn, because the light had hurt +her eyes. + +"Oh, Mrs. White!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is cruel you should not see this +glorious spectacle! If you had the window open, the light would not hurt +your eyes. It is the glare of it coming through the glass. Let us wrap you +up, and draw you close to the window, and open it wide, so that you can +see the colors for a few minutes. It is just like fairy-land." + +Mrs. White looked bewildered. Such a plan as this of getting out-door air +she had never thought of. + +"Won't it make the room too cold?" she said. + +"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy; "and no matter if it does. We can soon warm it +up again. Please let me ask Marty to come?" And, hardly waiting for +permission, she ran to call Marty. Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was +then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look +of almost perplexed delight on her face. When Stephen came in, Mercy stood +behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out +eagerly every point of beauty in the view. A high bush of sweet-brier, +with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window. +Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs: they were all +finely encrusted with frost. As the wind faintly stirred the branches, +every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays +looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and +diamonds. Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her +fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight. + +"Oh, look at it against the blue sky!" she cried. "Isn't it enough to make +one cry just to see it?" + +"Oh, how can mother help loving her?" thought Stephen. "She is the +sweetest woman that ever drew breath." + +Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and +antagonism. She followed Mercy's movements with eyes not much less eager +and pleased than Stephen's. It was like a great burst of sunlight into a +dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the +old woman's narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life. She +had never seen a person of Mercy's temperament. The clear, decided, +incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her +liking. Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love of the +beautiful; but his love of the beautiful was an indolent, and one might +almost say a-haughty, demand in his nature. Mercy's was a bounding and +delighted acceptance. She was cheery: he was only placid. She was full of +delight; he, only of satisfaction. In her, joy was of the spirit, +spiritual. Keen as were her senses, it was her soul which marshalled them +all. In him, though the soul's forces were not feeble, the senses foreran +them,--compelled them, sometimes conquered them. It would have been +impossible to put Mercy in any circumstances, in any situation, out of +which, or in spite of which, she would not find joy. But in Stephen +circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness. His +enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness +as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring. The waters of each may +leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has +fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the +spring is full, free, and glad as ever. + +Mrs. White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived. Long before +the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding +manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have +been. The reason was manifest. She read in every glance of Stephen's eyes, +in every tone of his voice, the depth and the warmth of his feeling +towards Mercy. The jealous distrust which she had felt at first, and which +had slept for a brief time under the spell of Mercy's kindliness towards +herself, sprang into fiercer life than ever. Stephen and Mercy, in utter +unconsciousness of the change which was gradually taking place, talked and +laughed together in an evident gay delight, which made matters worse every +moment. A short and surly reply from Mrs. White to an innocent question of +Mrs. Carr's fell suddenly on Mercy's ear. Keenly alive to the smallest +slight to her mother, she turned quickly towards Mrs. White, and, to her +consternation, met the same steady, pitiless, aggressive look which she +had seen on her face in their first interview. Mercy's first emotion was +one of great indignation: her second was a quick flash of comprehension of +the whole thing. A great wave of rosy color swept over her face; and, +without knowing what she was doing, she looked appealingly at Stephen. +Already there was between them so subtle a bond that each understood the +other without words. Stephen knew all that Mercy thought in that instant, +and an answering flush mounted to his forehead. Mrs. White saw both these +flushes, and compressed her lips still more closely in a grimmer silence +than before. Poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Carr kept on and on with her +meaningless and childish remarks and inquiries; and Mercy and Stephen were +both very grateful for them. The dinner came to an untimely end; and +almost immediately Mercy, with a nervous and embarrassed air, totally +foreign to her, said to her mother,-- + +"We must go home now. I have letters to write." + +Mrs. Carr was disappointed. She had anticipated a long afternoon of chatty +gossip with her neighbor; but she saw that Mercy had some strong reason +for hurrying home, and she acquiesced unhesitatingly. + +Mrs. White did not urge them to remain. To all Mrs. White's faults it must +be confessed that she added the virtue of absolute sincerity. + +"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Carr," and "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Philbrick," fell +from her lips in the same measured syllables and the same cold, unhuman +voice which had so startled Mercy once before. + +"What a perfectly horrid old woman!" exclaimed Mercy, as soon as they had +crossed the threshold of their own door. "I'll never go near her again as +long as I live!" + +"Why, Mercy Carr!" exclaimed her mother, "what do you mean? I don't think +so. She got very tired before dinner was over. I could see that, poor +thing! She's drefful weak, an' it stan's to reason she'd be kind o' +snappish sometimes." + +Mercy opened her lips to reply, but changed her mind and said nothing. + +"It's just as well for mother to keep on good terms with her, if she can," +she thought. "Maybe it'll help divert a little of Mrs. White's temper from +him, poor fellow!" + +Stephen had followed them to the door, saying little; but at the last +moment, when Mercy said "good-by," he had suddenly held out his hand, and, +clasping hers tightly, had looked at her sadly, with a world of regret and +appeal and affection and almost despair in the look. + +"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go +wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he +shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more +and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his +talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he +doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she _is_ his mother. If ever I +know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her +tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never +saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look +are enough to freeze your blood." + +While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his +mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were +having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy +than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,-- + +"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing +with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way." + +The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew +deeper still. He made no reply. Mrs. White continued,-- + +"I wish you could see your face. It is almost purple now." + +"It is enough to make the blood mount to any man's face, mother, to be +accused so," replied Stephen, with a spirit unusual for him. + +"I don't accuse you of any thing," she retorted. "I am only speaking of +what I observe. You needn't think you can deceive me about the least +thing, ever. Your face is a perfect tell-tale of your thoughts, always." + +Poor Stephen groaned inwardly. Too well he knew his inability to control +his unfortunate face. + +"Mother!" he exclaimed with almost vehemence of tone, "mother! do not +carry this thing too far. I do not in the least understand what you are +driving at about Mrs. Philbrick, nor why you show these capricious changes +of feeling towards her. I think you have treated her so to-day that she +will never darken your doors again. I never should, if I were in her +place." + +"Very well, I hope she never will, if her presence is to produce such an +effect on you. It is enough to turn her head to see that she has such +power over a man like you. She is a very vain woman, anyway,--vain of her +power over people, I think." + +Stephen could bear no more. With a half-smothered ejaculation of "O +mother!" he left the room. + +And thus the old year went out and the new year came in for Mercy +Philbrick and Stephen White,--the old year in which they had been nothing, +and the new year in which they were to be every thing to each other. + + + + +Chapter VII. + + + +The next morning, while Stephen was dressing, he slowly reviewed the +events of the previous day, and took several resolutions. If Mrs. White +could have had the faintest conception of what was passing in her son's +mind, while he sat opposite to her at breakfast, so unusually cheerful and +talkative, she would have been very unhappy. But she, too, had had a +season of reflection this morning, and was much absorbed in her own plans. +She heartily regretted having shown so much ill-feeling in regard to +Mercy; and she had resolved to atone for it in some way, if she could. +Above all, she had resolved, if possible, to banish from Stephen's mind +the idea that she was jealous of Mercy or hostile towards her. She had +common sense enough to see that to allow him to recognize this feeling on +her part was to drive him at once into a course of manoeuvring and +concealment. She flattered herself that it was with a wholly natural and +easy air that she began her plan of operations by remarking,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick seems to be very fond of her mother, does she not, +Stephen?" + +"Yes, very," answered Stephen, indifferently. + +"Mrs. Carr is quite an old woman. She must have been old when Mrs. +Philbrick was born. I don't think Mrs. Philbrick can be more than twenty, +do you?" + +"I am sure I don't know. I never thought anything about her age," replied +Stephen, still more indifferently. "I'm no judge of women's ages." + +"Well, I'm sure she isn't more than twenty, if she is that," said Mrs. +White; "and she really is a very pretty woman, Steve. I'll grant you +that." + +"Grant me that, mother?" laughed Stephen, lightly. "I never said she was +pretty, did I? The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly +plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice. I don't think, +however, she would usually be thought pretty." + +Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so +that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, +"I'm real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn't treat her well yesterday. I +didn't mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a +woman's head turned by a man's taking a little notice of her; and I know +very well, Stephy, that women like you. It wouldn't take much to make Mrs. +Philbrick fancy you were in love with her." + +Stephen also was gratified by his mother's apparent softening of mood, and +instinctively met her more than half way, replying,-- + +"I didn't mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed +so plainly that you didn't want them to stay. Perhaps she didn't notice +it, only thought you were tired. It isn't any great matter, any way. We'd +better keep on good terms with them, if they're to live under the same +roof with us, that's all." + +"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. White. "Much better to be on neighborly terms. The +old mother is a childish old thing, though. She'd bore me to death, if she +came in often." + +"Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough," said Stephen; "but she's so +simple, and so much like a child you can't help pitying her." + +They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; +but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to shield +from discovery. When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he +fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict. One +of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this +morning on a street he knew she must pass on her way to market. He did not +define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to +see her face. He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words +he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her +face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this +plan, "Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother +never know any thing about it." + +When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour +or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often +though before on similar occasions, "Well, she won't overtake Stephen +this time. I dare say she planned to." Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was +walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and +shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before. +She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not +observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen's +voice saying, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick." It was the second time that +he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject. +This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color +which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,--undisguised and +honest gladness. + +"Why, Mr. White," she exclaimed, "I never thought of seeing you. I thought +you were always in your office at this time." + +"I waited to see you this morning," replied Stephen, in a tone as simply +honest as her own. "I wanted to speak to you." + +Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak. Stephen smiled. + +"Oh, not for any particular thing," he said: "only for the pleasure of +it." + +Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other's faces with a joy +which neither attempted to disguise. Stephen took Mercy's basket from her +arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so +full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were +walking by each other's side. The few words they did speak were of the +purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so +universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,--a +sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language. When +they parted at the door of Stephen's office, he said,-- + +"I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do +you not?" + +"Yes, always," replied Mercy. + +"Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you," said +Stephen. + +"I like it very much, Mr. White," answered Mercy, eagerly. "I used to walk +a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly." + +A jealous pang shot through Stephen's heart. He had been blind. This was +the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs. +Philbrick and her mother. He remembered now that he had thought at the +time some of the expressions in his friend's letter argued an unusual +interest in the young widow. Of course no man could know Mercy without +loving her. Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene +and smiling face with which he bade Mercy "Good-by," and ran up his +office-stairs three steps at a time. + +All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and +cheer. It was not a conscious anticipation of the morrow: she did not say +to herself "To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour." Love +knows the secret of true joy better than that. Love throws open wider +doors,--lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life +is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a +round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are +perpetually descending to the dreamer below. + +The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than +usual. Her first thought was one of blank disappointment. "Why, I thought +he meant to walk down with me," she said to herself. Her second thought +was a perplexed instinct of the truth: "I wonder if he can be afraid to +have his mother see him with me?" At this thought, Mercy's face burned, +and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time +her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter +had become quite clear in her mind. + +"I shall see him at the corner where he was yesterday," she said. + +But no Stephen was there. Spite of herself, Mercy lingered and looked +back. She was grieved and she was vexed. + +"Why did he say he wanted to walk with me, and then the very first morning +not come?" she said, as she walked slowly into the village. + +It was a cloudy day, and the clouds seemed to harmonize with Mercy's mood. +She did her errands in a half-listless way; and more than one of the +tradespeople, who had come to know her voice and smile, wondered what had +gone wrong with the cheery young lady. All the way home she looked vainly +for Stephen at every cross-street. She fancied she heard his step behind +her; she fancied she saw his tall figure in the distance. After she +reached home and the expectation was over for that day, she took herself +angrily to task for her folly. She reminded herself that Stephen had said +"sometimes," not "always;" and that nothing could have been more unlikely +than that he should have joined her the very next day. Nevertheless, she +was full of uneasy wonder how soon he would come again; and, when the next +morning dawned clear and bright, her first thought as she sprang up was,-- + +"This is such a lovely day for a walk! He will surely come to-day." + +Again she was disappointed. Stephen left the house at a very early hour, +and walked briskly away without looking back. Mercy forced herself to go +through her usual routine of morning work. She was systematic almost to a +fault in the arrangement of her time, and any interference with her hours +was usually a severe trial of her patience. But to-day it was only by a +great effort of her will that she refrained from setting out earlier than +usual for the village. She walked rapidly until she approached the street +where Stephen had joined her before. Then she slackened her pace, and +fixed her eyes on the street. No person was to be seen in it. She walked +slower and slower: she could not believe that he was not there. Then she +began to fear that she had come a little too early. She turned to retrace +her steps; but a sudden sense of shame withheld her, and she turned back +again almost immediately, and continued her course towards the village, +walking very slowly, and now and then halting and looking back. Still no +Stephen. Street after street she passed: no Stephen. A sort of indignant +grief swelled up in Mercy's bosom; she was indignant with herself, with +him, with circumstances, with everybody; she was unreasoning and +unreasonable; she longed so to see Stephen's face that she could not think +clearly of any thing else. And yet she was ashamed of this longing. All +these struggling emotions together were too much for her; tears came into +her eyes; then vexation at the tears made them come all the faster; and, +for the first time in her life, Mercy Philbrick pulled her veil over her +face to hide that she was crying. Almost in the very moment that she had +done this, she heard a quick step behind her, and Stephen's voice +calling,-- + +"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick! Mrs. Philbrick! do not walk so fast. I am trying to +overtake you." + +Feeling as guilty as a child detected in some forbidden spot, Mercy stood +still, vainly hoping her black veil was thick enough to hide her red eyes; +vainly trying to regain her composure enough to speak in her natural +voice, and smile her usual smile. Vainly, indeed! What crape could blind a +lover's eyes, or what forced tone deceive a lover's ears? + +At his first sight of her face, Stephen started; at the first sound of her +voice, he stood still, and exclaimed,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, you have been crying!" There was no gainsaying it, even +if Mercy had not been too honest to make the attempt. She looked up +mischievously at him, and tried to say lightly,-- + +"What then, Mr. White? Didn't you know all women cried?" + +The voice was too tremulous. Stephen could not bear it. Forgetting that +they were on a public street, forgetting every thing but that Mercy was +crying, he exclaimed,-- + +"Mercy, what is it? Do let me help you! Can't I?" + +She did not even observe that he called her "Mercy." It seemed only +natural. Without realizing the full meaning of her words, she said,-- + +"Oh, you have helped me now," and threw up her veil, showing a face where +smiles were already triumphant. Instinct told Stephen in the same second +what she had meant, and yet had not meant to say. He dropped her hand, and +said in a low voice,-- + +"Mercy, did you really have tears in your eyes because I did not come? +Bless you, darling! I don't dare to speak to you here. Oh, pray come down +this little by-street with me." + +It was a narrow little lane behind the Brick Row into which Stephen and +Mercy turned. Although it was so near the centre of the town, it had never +been properly graded, but had been left like a wild bit of uneven field. +One side of it was walled by the Brick Row; on the other side were only a +few poverty-stricken houses, in which colored people lived. The snow lay +piled in drifts here all winter, and in spring it was an almost impassable +slough of mud. There was now no trodden path, only the track made by +sleighs in the middle of the lane. Into this strode Stephen, in his +excitement walking so fast that Mercy could hardly keep up with him. They +were too much absorbed in their own sensations and in each other to +realize the oddity of their appearance, floundering in the deep snow, +looking eagerly in each other's faces, and talking in a breathless and +disjointed way. + +"Mercy," said Stephen, "I have been walking up and down waiting for you +ever since I came out; but a man whom I could not get away from stopped +me, and I had to stand still helpless and see you walk by the street, and +I was afraid I could not overtake you." + +"Oh, was that it?" said Mercy, looking up timidly in his face. "I felt +sure you would be there this morning, because"-- + +"Because what?" said Stephen, gently. + +"Because you said you would come sometimes, and I knew very well that that +need not have meant this particular morning nor any particular morning; +and that was what vexed me so, that I should have been silly and set my +heart on it. That was what made me cry, Mr. White, I was so vexed with +myself," stoutly asserted Mercy, beginning to feel braver and more like +herself. + +Stephen looked her full in the face without speaking for a moment. Then,-- + +"May I call you Mercy?" he said. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"May I say to you exactly what I am thinking?" + +"Yes," she replied again, a little more hesitatingly. + +"Then, Mercy, this is what I want to say to you," said Stephen, earnestly. +"There is no reason why you and I should try to deceive each other or +ourselves. I care very, very much for you, and you care very much for me. +We have come very close to each other, and neither of our lives can ever +be the same again. What is in store for us in all this we cannot now see; +but it is certain we are very much to each other." + +He spoke more and more slowly and earnestly; his eyes fixed on the distant +horizon instead of on Mercy's face. A deep sadness gradually gathered on +his countenance, and his last words were spoken more in the tone of one +who felt a new exaltation of suffering than of one who felt the new +ecstasy of a lover. Looking down into Mercy's face, with a tenderness +which made her very heart thrill, he said,-- + +"Tell me, Mercy, is it not so? Are we not very much to each other?" + +The strange reticence of his tone, even more reticent than his words, had +affected Mercy inexplicably: it was as if a chill wind had suddenly blown +at noonday, and made her shiver in spite of full sunlight. Her tone was +almost as reticent and sad as his, as she said, without raising her +eyes,-- + +"I think it is true." + +"Please look up at me, Mercy," said Stephen. "I want to feel sure that you +are not sorry I care so much for you." + +"How could I be sorry?" exclaimed Mercy, lifting her eyes suddenly, and +looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her +glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry." + +"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you. +You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and +now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought +not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking +here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of +the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his +hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily +loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped +you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone. + +Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of +bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow. +She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled +from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see +us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores +of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her +conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being +engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was +hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than +this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened +on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to +decide what would be right under such circumstances. + +The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, +remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy +which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her +died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a +grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with +an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door. + +He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, +exclaimed,-- + +"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?" + +"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very +gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it. + +Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was +habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so +irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features. Without +speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly +into the fire. Some minutes passed in silence. Mercy felt the tears coming +again into her eyes. What was this intangible but inexorable thing which +stood between this man's soul and hers? She could not doubt that he loved +her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of +which she had never before had even a conception. It seemed to her that +the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond +between them which nothing could hinder or harm. Why should they sit thus +silent by each other's side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full +of joy and gladness? Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on +Stephen's lips? Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert. She saw +clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was +in the dark. She could not even grope her way in this mystery. At last +Stephen spoke. + +"Mercy," he said, "perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for +you. You said yesterday you never would be." + +"Oh, no, indeed! I am not," said Mercy. "I am very glad you care so much +for me." + +"Perhaps you have discovered that you do not care so much for me as you +yesterday thought you did." + +"Oh, no, no!" replied poor Mercy, in a low tone. + +Again Stephen was silent for a long time. Then he said,-- + +"Ever since I can remember, I have longed for a perfect and absorbing +friendship. The peculiar relations of my life have prevented my even +hoping for it. My father's and my mother's friends never could be my +friends. I have lived the loneliest life a mortal man ever lived. Until I +saw you, Mercy, I had never even looked on the face of a woman whom it +seemed possible to me that any man could love. Perhaps, when I tell you +that, you can imagine what it was to me to look on the face of a woman +whom it seems to me no man could help loving. I suppose many men have +loved you, Mercy, and many more men will. I do not think any man has ever +felt for you, or ever will feel for you, as I feel. My love for you +includes every love the heart can know,--the love of father, brother, +friend, lover. Young as I am, you seem to me like my child, to be taken +care of; and you seem like my sister, to be trusted and loved; and like my +friend, to be leaned upon. You see what my life is. You see the burden +which I must carry, and which none can share. Do you think that the +friendship I can give you can be worth what it would ask? I feel withheld +and ashamed as I speak to you. I know how little I can do, how little I +can offer. To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, +Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love +you, if it is only till to-morrow!" + +Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, +flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could +give the faintest indications which way safety might lie. If she had +listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her +native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair. But every +instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was +disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded +by her profound sympathy for his suffering. + +She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very +thoughts of his heart. + +"Do you understand me, Mercy?" he said. + +"I think I do," she replied in a whisper. + +"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued. "I have not +a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it +would be wrong for me to put into words. I stand where I stand; and no +mortal can help me, except you. You can help me infinitely. Already the +joy of seeing you, hearing you, knowing that you are near, makes all my +life seem changed. It is not very much for you to give me, Mercy, after +all, out of the illimitable riches of your beauty, your brightness, your +spirit, your strength,--just a few words, just a few smiles, just a little +love,--for the few days, or it may be years, that fate sets us by each +other's side? And you, too, need a friend, Mercy. Your duty to another has +brought you where you are singularly alone, for the time being, just as my +duty to another has placed me where I must be singularly alone. Is it not +a strange chance which has thus brought us together?" + +"I do not believe any thing is chance," murmured Mercy. "I must have been +sent here for something." + +"I believe you were, dear," said Stephen, "sent here for my salvation. I +was thinking last night that, no matter if my life should end without my +ever knowing what other men call happiness, if I must live lonely and +alone to the end, I should still have the memory of you,--of your face, +of your hand, and the voice in which you said you cared for me. O Mercy, +Mercy! you have not the least conception of what you are to me!" And +Stephen stretched out both his arms to her, with unspeakable love in the +gesture. + +So swiftly that he had not the least warning of her intention, Mercy +threw herself into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. Shame +filled her soul, and burned in her cheeks, when Stephen, lifting her as he +would a child, and kissing her forehead gently, placed her again in her +chair, and said,-- + +"My darling, I cannot let you do that. I will never ask from you any thing +that you can by any possibility come to regret at some future time. I +ought perhaps to be unselfish enough not to ask from you any thing at all. +I did not mean to; but I could not help it, and it is too late now." + +"Yes, it is too late now," said Mercy,--"too late now." And she buried her +face in her hands. + +"Mercy," exclaimed Stephen, in a voice of anguish, "you will break my +heart: you will make me wish myself dead, if you show such suffering as +this. I thought that you, too, could find joy, and perhaps help, in my +love, as I could in yours. If it is to give you pain and not happiness, it +were better for you never to see me again. I will never voluntarily look +on your face after to-night, if you wish it,--if you would be happier so." + +"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy. Then, overwhelmed with the sudden realization +of the pain she was giving to a man whom she so loved that at that moment +she would have died to shield him from pain, she lifted her face, shook +back the hair from her forehead, and, looking bravely into his eyes, +repeated,-- + +"No, no! I am very selfish to feel like this. I do understand you. I +understand it all; and I will help you, and comfort you all I can. And I +do love you very dearly," she added in a lower voice, with a tone of such +incomparable sweetness that it took almost superhuman control on Stephen's +part to refrain from clasping her to his heart. But he did not betray the +impulse, even by a gesture. Looking at her with an expression of great +thankfulness, he said,-- + +"I believe that peace will come to us, Mercy. I believe I can do something +to make you happy. To know that I love you as I do will be a great deal to +you, I think." He paused. + +"Yes," answered Mercy, "a great deal." He went on,-- + +"And to know that you are perpetually helping and cheering me will be +still more to you, I think. We shall know some joys, Mercy, which joyous +lovers never know. Happy people do not need each other as sad people do. O +Mercy, do try and remember all the time that you are the one bright thing +in my life,--in my whole life." + +"I will, Stephen, I will," said Mercy, resolutely, her whole face glowing +with the new purposes forming in her heart. It was marvellous how clear +the relation between herself and Stephen began to seem to her. It was +rather by her magnetic consciousness of all that he was thinking and +feeling than by the literal acceptance of any thing or all things which he +said. She seemed to herself to be already one with him in all his trials, +burdens, perplexities; in his renunciation; in his self-sacrifice; in his +loyalty of reticence; in his humility of uncomplainingness. + +When she bade him "good-night," her face was not only serene: it was +serene with a certain exaltation added, as the face of one who had entered +into a great steadfastness of joy. Stephen wondered greatly at this +transition from the excitement and grief she had at first shown. He had +yet to learn what wellsprings of strength lie in the poetic temperament. + +As he stood lingering on the threshold, finding it almost impossible to +turn away while the sweet face held him by the honest gaze of the loving +eyes, he said, + +"There will be many times, dear, when things will have to be very hard, +when I shall not be able to do as you would like to have me, when you may +even be pained by my conduct. Shall you trust me through it all?" + +"I shall trust you till the day of my death," said Mercy, impetuously. +"One can't take trust back. It isn't a gift: it is a necessity." + +Stephen smiled,--a smile of sorrow rather than gladness. + +"But if you thought me other than you had believed?" he said. + +"I could never think you other than you are," replied Mercy, proudly. "It +is not that I 'believe' you. I know you. I shall trust you to the day of +my death." + +Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the difference between Mercy +Philbrick's nature and Stephen White's, between her love for him and his +for her, than the fact that, after this conversation, she lay awake far +into the early hours of the morning, living over every word that he had +spoken, looking resolutely and even joyously into the strange future which +was opening before her, and scanning with loving intentness every chance +that it could possibly hold for her ministrations to him. He, on the other +hand, laid his head on his pillow with a sense of dreamy happiness, and +sank at once into sleep, murmuring,-- + +"The darling! how she does love me! She shall never regret it,--never. We +can have a great deal of happiness together as it is; and if the time ever +should come," ... + +Here his thoughts halted, and refused to be clothed in explicit phrase. +Never once had Stephen White permitted himself to think in words, even in +his most secret meditations, "When my mother dies, I shall be free." His +fine fastidiousness would shrink from it, as from the particular kind of +brutality and bad taste involved in a murder. If the whole truth could +have been known of Stephen's feeling about all crimes and sins, it would +have been found to be far more a matter of taste than of principle, of +instinct than of conviction. + +Surely never in this world did love link together two souls more +diametrically opposite than Mercy Philbrick's and Stephen White's. It +needed no long study or especial insight into character to know which of +the two would receive the more and suffer the less, in the abnormal and +unfortunate relation on which they had entered. But no presentiment warned +Mercy of what lay before her. She was like a traveller going into a +country whose language he has never heard, and whose currency he does not +understand. However eloquent he may be in his own land, he is dumb and +helpless here; and of the fortune with which he was rich at home he is +robbed at every turn by false exchanges which impose on his ignorance. +Poor Mercy! Vaguely she felt that life was cruel to Stephen and to her; +but she accepted its cruelty to her as an inevitable part of her oneness +with him. Whatever he had to bear she must bear too, especially if he were +helped by her sharing the burden. And her heart glowed with happiness, +recalling the expression with which he had said,-- + +"Remember, Mercy, you are the one bright thing in my life." + +She understood, or thought she understood, precisely the position in which +he was placed. + +"Very possibly he has even promised his mother," she said to herself, +"even promised her he would never be married. It would be just like her to +exact such a promise from him, and never think any thing of it. And, even +if he has not, it is all the same. He knows very well no human being could +live in the house with her, to say nothing of his being so terribly poor. +Poor, dear Stephen! to think of our little rent being more than half his +income! Oh, if there were only some way in which I could contrive to give +him money without his knowing it." + +If any one had said to Mercy at this time: "It was not honorable in this +man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his +love, and to allow you to show him yours for him. He is putting you in a +false position, and may be blighting your whole life," Mercy would have +repelled the accusation most indignantly. She would have said: "He has +never asked me for any such love as that. He told me most honestly in the +very beginning just how it was. He always said he would never fetter me by +a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into +his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put +me away from him almost with a reproof. No, indeed! he is the very soul of +honor. It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my +strength. Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being +his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her? It is just as sacred and +just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more +unselfish. If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father, +for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of +being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards +him?" + +It looked very plain to Mercy in these first days. It looked right, and it +seemed very full of joy. Her life seemed now rounded and complete. It had +a ruling motive, without which no life is satisfying; and that motive was +the highest motive known to the heart,--the desire to make another human +being perfectly happy. All hindrances and difficulties, all drawbacks and +sacrifices, seemed less than nothing to her. When she saw Stephen, she was +happy because she saw him; and when she did not see him, she was happy +because she had seen him, and would soon see him again. Past, present, +and future all melt into one great harmonious whole under the spell of +love in a nature like Mercy's. They are like so many rooms in one great +house; and in one or the other the loved being is always to be found, +always at home, can never depart! Could one be lonely for a moment in such +a house? + +Mercy's perpetual and abiding joy at times terrified Stephen. It was a +thing so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to him hardly natural. +Calm acquiescence he could understand,--serene endurance: he himself never +chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But +there were many days when his sense of deprivation made him sad, subdued, +and quiet. When, in these moods, he came into Mercy's presence, and found +her radiant, buoyant, mirthful even, he wondered; and sometimes he +questioned. He strove to find out the secret of her joy. There seemed to +him no legitimate reason for it. + +"Why, to see that I make you glad, Stephen," she would say. "Is not that +enough? Or even, when I cannot make you glad, just to love you is enough." + +"Mercy, how did you ever come to love me?" he said once, stung by a sense +of his own unworthiness. "How do you know you love me, after all?" + +"How do I know I love you!" she exclaimed. "Can any one ever tell that, I +wonder? I know it by this: that every thing in the whole world, even down +to the smallest grass-blade, seems to me different because you are alive." +She said these words with a passionate vehemence, and tears in her eyes. +Then, changing in a second to a mischievous, laughing mood, she said,-- + +"Yes: you make all that odds to me. But let us not talk about loving each +other, Stephen. That's the way children do with their flower-seeds,--keep +pulling them up, to see how they grow." + +That night, Mercy gave Stephen this sonnet,--the first words she had +written out of the great wellspring of her love:-- + + "HOW WAS IT?" + + Why ask, dear one? I think I cannot tell, + More than I know how clouds so sudden lift + From mountains, or how snowflakes float and drift, + Or springs leave hills. One secret and one spell + All true things have. No sunlight ever fell + With sound to bid flowers open. Still and swift + Come sweetest things on earth. + So comes true gift + Of Love, and so we know that it is well. + Sure tokens also, like the cloud, the snow, + And silent flowing of the mountain-springs, + The new gift of true loving always brings. + In clearer light, in purer paths, we go: + New currents of deep joy in common things + We find. These are the tokens, dear, we know! + + + + +Chapter VIII. + + + +As the months went on, Mercy began to make friends. One person after +another observed her bright face, asked who she was, and came to seek her +out. "Who is that girl with fair hair and blue eyes, who, whenever you +meet her in the street, always looks as if she had just heard some good +news?" was asked one day. It was a noteworthy thing that this description +was so instantly recognized by the person inquired of, that he had no +hesitancy in replying,-- + +"Oh, that is a young widow from Cape Cod, a Mrs. Philbrick. She came last +winter with her mother, who is an invalid. They live in the old Jacobs +house with the Whites." + +Among the friends whom Mercy thus met was a man who was destined to +exercise almost as powerful an influence as Stephen White over her life. +This was Parson Dorrance. + +Parson Dorrance had in his youth been settled as a Congregationalist +minister. But his love of literature and of science was even stronger than +his love of preaching the gospel; and, after a very few years, he accepted +a position as professor in a small college, in a town only four miles +distant from the village in which Mercy had come to live. This was +twenty-five years ago. Parson Dorrance was now fifty-five years old. For a +quarter of a century, his name had been the pride, and his hand had been +the stay, of the college. It had had presidents of renown and professors +of brilliant attainments; but Parson Dorrance held a position more +enviable than all. Few lives of such simple and steadfast heroism have +ever been lived. Few lives have ever so stamped the mark of their +influence on a community. In the second year of his ministry, Mr. Dorrance +had married a very beautiful and brilliant woman. Probably no two young +people ever began married life with a fairer future before them than +these. Mrs. Dorrance was as exceptionally clever and cultured a person as +her husband; and she added to these rare endowments a personal beauty +which is said by all who knew her in her girlhood to have been marvellous. +But, as is so often the case among New England women of culture, the body +had paid the cost of the mind's estate; and, after the birth of her first +child, she sank at once into a hopeless invalidism,--an invalidism all the +more difficult to bear, and to be borne with, that it took the shape of +distressing nervous maladies which no medical skill could alleviate. The +brilliant mind became almost a wreck, and yet retained a preternatural +restlessness and activity. Many regarded her condition as insanity, and +believed that Mr. Dorrance erred in not giving her up to the care of those +making mental disorders a specialty. But his love and patience were +untiring. When her mental depression and suffering reached such a stage +that she could not safely see a human face but his, he shut himself up +with her in her darkened room till the crisis had passed. There were times +when she could not close her eyes in sleep unless he sat by her side, +holding her hand in his, and gently stroking it. He spent weeks of nights +by her bedside in this way. At any hour of the day, a summons might come +from her; and, whatever might be his engagement, it was instantly laid +aside,--laid aside, too, with cheerfulness and alacrity. At times, all his +college duties would be suspended on her account; and his own specialties +of scientific research, in which he was beginning to win recognition even +from the great masters of science in Europe, were very early laid aside +for ever. It must have been a great pang to him,--this relinquishment of +fame, and of what is dearer to the true scientific man than all fame, the +joys of discovery; but no man ever heard from his lips an allusion to the +sacrifice. The great telescope, with which he had so many nights swept the +heavens, still stood in his garden observatory; but it was little used +except for recreation, and for the pleasure and instruction of his boy. +Yet no one would have dreamed, from the hearty joy with which he used it +for these purposes, that it had ever been to him the token and the +instrument of the great hope of his heart. The resolute cheer of this +man's life pervaded the whole atmosphere of his house. Spite of the +perpetual shadow of the invalid's darkened room, spite of the inevitable +circumscribing of narrow means, Parson Dorrance's cottage was the +pleasantest house in the place, was the house to which all the +townspeople took strangers with pride, and was the house which strangers +never forgot. There was always a new book, or a new print, or a new +flower, or a new thought which the untiring mind had just been shaping; +and there were always and ever the welcome and the sympathy of a man who +loved men because he loved God, and who loved God with an affection as +personal in its nature as the affection with which he loved a man. + +Year after year, classes of young men went away from this college, having +for four years looked on the light of this goodness. Said I not well that +few lives have ever been lived which have left such a stamp on a +community? No man could be so gross that he would utterly fail to feel its +purity, no man so stupid that he could not see its grandeur of +self-sacrifice; and to souls of a fibre fine enough to be touched to the +quick by its exaltation, it was-a kindling fire for ever. + +In the twenty-seventh year of her married life, and near the end of the +twenty-fifth year of her confinement to her room, Mrs. Dorrance died. For +a few months after her death, her husband seemed like a man suddenly +struck blind in the midst of familiar objects. He seemed to be groping his +way, to have lost all plan of daily life, so tremendous was the change +involved in the withdrawal of this perpetual burden. Just as he was +beginning to recover the natural tone of his mind, and to resume his old +habits of work, his son sickened and died. The young man had never been +strong: he had inherited his mother's delicacy of constitution, and her +nervous excitability as well; but he had rare qualities of mind, and gave +great promise as a scholar. The news of his death was a blow to every +heart that loved his father. "This will kill the Parson," was said by +sorrowing voices far and near. On the contrary, it seemed to be the very +thing which cleared the atmosphere of his whole life, and renewed his +vigor and energy. He rose up from the terrible grief more majestic than +ever, as some grand old tree, whose young shoots and branches have been +torn away by fierce storms, seems to lift its head higher than before, and +to tower in its stripped loneliness above all its fellows. All the loving +fatherhood of his nature was spent now on the young people of his town; +and, by young people, I mean all between the ages of four and twenty. +There was hardly a baby that did not know Parson Dorrance, and stretch out +its arms to him; there was hardly a young man or a young woman who did not +go to him with troubles or perplexities. You met him, one day, drawing a +huge sledful of children on the snow; another day, walking in the centre +of a group of young men and maidens, teaching them as he walked. They all +loved him as a comrade, and reverenced him as a teacher. They wanted him +at their picnics; and, whenever he preached, they flocked to hear him. It +was a significant thing that his title of Professor was never heard. From +first to last, he was always called "Parson Dorrance;" and there were few +Sundays on which he did not preach at home or abroad. It was one of the +forms of his active benevolence. If a poor minister broke down and needed +rest, Parson Dorrance preached for him, for one month or for three, as the +case required. If a little church were without a pastor and could not find +one, or were in debt and could not afford to hire one, it sent to ask +Parson Dorrance to supply the pulpit; and he always went. Finally, not +content with these ordinary and established channels for preaching the +gospel, he sought out for himself a new one. About eight miles from the +village there was a negro settlement known as "The Cedars." It was a wild +place. Great outcropping ledges of granite, with big boulders toppling +over, and piled upon each other, and all knotted together by the gnarled +roots of ancient cedar-trees, made the place seem like ruins of old +fortresses. There were caves of great depth, some of them with two +entrances, in which, in the time of the fugitive slave law, many a poor +hunted creature had had safe refuge. Besides the cedar-trees, there were +sugar-maples and white birches; and the beautiful rock ferns grew all over +the ledges in high waving tufts, almost as luxuriantly as if they were in +the tropics; so that the spot, wild and fierce as it was, had great +beauty. Many of the fugitive slaves had built themselves huts here: some +lived in the caves. A few poor and vicious whites had joined them, +intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as +mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen. They were the terror of the +neighborhood. Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as +dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws. No man cared for them; +and they cared for no man. Parson Dorrance's heart yearned over these +poor Ishmaelites; and he determined to see if they were irreclaimable. The +first thing that his townsmen knew of his plan was his purchase of several +acres of land near "The Cedars." He bought it very cheap, because land in +that vicinity was held to be worthless for purposes of cultivation. Unless +the crops were guarded night and day, they were surreptitiously harvested +by foragers from "The Cedars." Then it was found out that Parson Dorrance +was in the habit of driving over often to look at his new property. +Gradually, the children became used to his presence, and would steal out +and talk to him. Then he carried over a small microscope, and let them +look through it at insects; and before long there might have been seen, on +a Sunday afternoon, a group of twenty or thirty of the outcasts gathered +round the Parson, while he talked to them as he had talked to the +children. Then he told them that, if they would help, he would build a +little house on his ground, and put some pictures and maps in it for them, +and come over every Sunday and talk to them; and they set to work with a +will. Very many were the shrugs and smiles over "Parson Dorrance's Chapel +at 'The Cedars.'" But the chapel was built; and the Parson preached in it +to sometimes seventy-five of the outlaws. The next astonishment of the +Parson's friends was on finding him laying out part of his new land in a +nursery of valuable young fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Then they +said,-- + +"Really, the Parson is mad! Does he think he has converted all those +negroes, so that they won't steal fruit?" And, when they met the Parson, +they laughed at him. "Come, come, Parson," they said, "this is carrying +the thing a little too far, to trust a fruit orchard over there by 'The +Cedars.'" + +Parson Dorrance's eyes twinkled. + +"I know the boys better than you do," he replied. "They will not steal a +single pear." + +"I'd like to wager you something on that," said the friend. + +"Well, I couldn't exactly take such a wager," answered the Parson, +"because you see I know the boys won't steal the fruit." + +Somewhat vexed at the obstinacy of the Parson's faith, his friend +exclaimed, "I'd like to know how you can know that beforehand?" + +Parson Dorrance loved a joke. + +"Neighbor," said he, "I wish I could in honor have let you wager me on +that. I've given the orchard to the boys. The fruit's all their own." + +This was the man whom Mercy Philbrick met early in her first summer at +Penfield. She had heard him preach twice, and had been so greatly +impressed by his words and by his face that she longed very much to know +him. She had talked with Stephen about him, but had found that Stephen did +not sympathize at all in her enthusiasm. "The people over at Danby are all +crazy about him, I think," said Stephen. "He is a very good man no doubt, +and does no end of things for the college boys, that none of the other +professors do. But I think he is quixotic and sentimental; and all this +stuff about those niggers at the Cedars is moonshine. They'd pick his very +pocket, I daresay, any day; and he'd never suspect them. I know that lot +too well. The Lord himself couldn't convert them." + +"Oh, Stephen! I think you are wrong," replied Mercy. "Parson Dorrance is +not sentimental, I am sure. His sermons were clear and logical and +terse,--not a waste word in them; and his mouth and chin are as strong as +an old Roman's." + +Stephen looked earnestly at Mercy. "Mercy," said he, "I wonder if you +would love me better if I were a preacher, and could preach clear, +logical, and terse sermons?" + +Mercy was impatient. Already the self-centring of Stephen's mind, his +instant reverting from most trains of thought to their possible bearing on +her love for him, had begun to irritate her. It was so foreign to her own +unconscious, free-souled acceptance and trust. + +"Stephen," she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Besides +seeming to imply a sort of distrust of my love for you, they are +illogical; and you know there is nothing I hate like bad logic." + +Stephen made no reply. The slightest approach to a disagreement between +Mercy and himself gave him great pain and a sense of terror; and he took +refuge instantly behind his usual shield of silence. This also was foreign +to Mercy's habit and impulse. When any thing went wrong, it was Mercy's +way to speak out honestly; to have the matter set in all its lights, until +it could reach its true one. She hated mystery; she hated reticence; she +hated every thing which fell short of full and frank understanding of each +other. + +"Oh, Stephen!" she used to say often, "it is bad enough for us to be +forced into keeping things back from the world. Don't let us keep any +thing back from each other." + +Poor Mercy! the days were beginning to be hard for her. Her face often +wore a look of perplexed thought which was very new to it. Still she never +wavered for a moment in her devotion to Stephen. If she had stood +acknowledged before all the world as his wife, she could not have been any +more single-hearted and unquestioning in her loyalty. + +It was at a picnic in which the young people of both Danby and Penfield +had joined that Mercy met Parson Dorrance. No such gathering was ever +thought complete without the Parson's presence. Again and again one might +hear it said in the preliminary discussion: "But we must find out first +what day Parson Dorrance can go. It won't be any fun without him!" + +Until Mercy came, Stephen White had rarely been asked to the pleasurings +of the young people in Penfield. There was a general impression that he +did not care for things of that sort. His manner was wrongly interpreted, +however: it was really only the constraint born of the feeling that he was +out of his place, or that nobody wanted him. He watched in silent wonder +the cordial way in which, it seemed to him, that Mercy talked with +everybody, and made everybody feel happy. + +"Oh, Mercy, how can you!" he would exclaim: "I feel so dumb, even while I +am talking the fastest!" + +"Why, so do I, Stephen," said Mercy. "I am often racking my brains to +think what I shall say next. Half the people I meet are profoundly +uninteresting to me; and half of the other half paralyze me at first +sight, and I feel like such a hypocrite all the time; but, oh, what a +pleasure it is to talk with the other quarter!" + +"Yes," sighed Stephen, "you look so happy and absorbed sometimes that it +makes me feel as if you had forgotten me altogether." + +"Silly boy!" laughed Mercy. "Do you want me to prove to you by a long face +that I am remembering you?--Darling," she added, "at those very times when +you see me seem so absorbed and happy in company, I am most likely +thinking about the last time you looked into my face, or the next time you +will." + +And for once Stephen was satisfied. + +The picnic at which Mercy met Parson Dorrance had taken place on a +mountain some six miles south-west of Penfield. This mountain was the +western extremity of the range of which I have before spoken; and at its +base ran the river which made the meadow-lands of Penfield and Danby so +beautiful. Nowhere in America is there a lovelier picture than these +meadow-lands, seen from the top of this mountain which overhangs them. The +mountain is only about twenty-five hundred feet high: therefore, one loses +no smallest shade of color in the view; even the difference between the +green of broom-corn and clover records itself to the eye looking down from +the mountain-top. As far as one can see to northward the valley stretches +in bands and belts and spaces of varied tints of green. The river winds +through it in doubling curves, and looks from the height like a line of +silver laid in loops on an enamelled surface. To the east and the west +rise the river terraces, higher and higher, becoming, at last, lofty and +abrupt hills at the horizon. + +When Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy, she was alone on a spur of +rock which jutted out from the mountain-side and overhung the valley. She +had wandered away from the gay and laughing company, and was sitting +alone, absorbed and almost saddened by the unutterable beauty of the +landscape below. Stephen had missed her, but had not yet dared to go in +search of her. He imposed on himself a very rigid law in public, and never +permitted himself to do or say or even look any thing which could suggest +to others the intimacy of their relations. Mercy sometimes felt this so +keenly that she reproached him. "I can't see why you should think it +necessary to avoid me so," she would say. "You treat me exactly as if I +were only a common acquaintance." + +"That is exactly what I wish to have every one believe you to be, Mercy," +Stephen would reply with emphasis. "That is the only safe course. Once let +people begin to associate our names together, and there is no limit to the +things they would say. We cannot be too careful. That is one thing you +must let me be the judge of, dear. You cannot understand it as I do. So +long as I am without the right or the power to protect you, my first duty +is to shield you from any or all gossip linking our names together." + +Mercy felt the justice of this; and yet to her there seemed also a sort +of injustice involved in it. She felt stung often, and wounded, in spite +of all reasoning with herself that she had no cause to do so, that Stephen +was but doing right. So inevitable and inextricable are pains and dilemmas +when once we enter on the paths of concealment. + +Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy by Mrs. Hunter, a young married +woman, who was fast becoming her most intimate friend. Mrs. Hunter's +father had been settled as the minister of a church in Penfield, in the +same year that Parson Dorrance had taken his professorship in Danby, and +the two men had been close friends from that day till the day of Mr. +Adams's death. Little Lizzy Adams had been Parson Dorrance's pet when she +lay in her cradle. He had baptized her; and, when she came to woman's +estate, he had performed the ceremony which gave her in marriage to Luke +Hunter, the most promising young lawyer in the county. + +She had always called Parson Dorrance her uncle, and her house in Penfield +was his second home. It had been Mrs. Hunter's wish for a long time that +he should see and know her new friend, Mercy. But Mercy was very shy of +seeing the man for whom she felt such reverence, and had steadily refused +to meet him. It was therefore with a certain air of triumphant +satisfaction that Mrs. Hunter led Parson Dorrance to the rock where Mercy +was sitting, and exclaimed,-- + +"There, Uncle Dorrance! here she is!" + +Parson Dorrance did not wait for any farther introduction; but; holding +out both his hands to Mercy, he said in a deep, mellow voice, and with a +tone which had a benediction in it,-- + +"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Philbrick. My child Lizzy here has been +telling me about you for a long time. You know I'm the same as a father to +her; so you can't escape me, if you are going to be her friend." + +Mercy looked up half-shamefacedly and half-archly, and replied,-- + +"It was not that I wanted to escape you; but I wanted you to escape me." +She perceived that the Parson had been told of her refusals to meet him. +Then they all sat down again on the jutting rock; and Mercy, leaning +forward with her hands clasped on her knees, fixed her eyes on Parson +Dorrance's face, and drank in every word that he said. He had a rare +faculty of speaking with the greatest simplicity, both of language and +manner. It was impossible not to feel at ease in his presence. It was +impossible not to tell him all that he asked. Before you knew it, you were +speaking to him of your own feelings, tastes, the incidents of your life, +your plans and purposes, as if he were a species of father confessor. He +questioned you so gently, yet with such an air of right; he listened so +observantly and sympathetically. He did not treat Mercy Philbrick as a +stranger; for Mrs. Hunter had told him already all she knew of her +friend's life, and had showed him several of Mercy's poems, which had +surprised him much by their beauty, and still more by their condensation +of thought. They seemed to him almost more masculine than feminine; and +he had unconsciously anticipated that in seeing Mercy he would see a woman +of masculine type. He was greatly astonished. He could not associate this +slight, fair girl, with a child's honesty and appeal in her eyes, with the +forceful words he had read from her pen. He pursued his conversation with +her eagerly, seeking to discover the secret of her style, to trace back +the poetry from its flower to its root. It was an astonishment to Mercy to +find herself talking about her own verses with this stranger whom she so +reverenced. But she felt at once as if she had sat at his feet all her +life, and had no right to withhold any thing from her master. + +"I suppose, Mrs. Philbrick, you have read the earlier English poets a +great deal, have you not?" he said. "I infer so from the style of some of +your poems." + +"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mercy, in honest vehemence. "I have read hardly any +thing, Mr. Dorrance. I know Herbert a little; but most of the old English +poets I have never even seen. I have never lived where there were any +books till now." + +"You love Wordsworth, I hope," he said inquiringly. + +Mercy turned very red, and answered in a tone of desperation, "I've tried +to. Mr. Allen said I must. But I can't. I don't care any thing about him." +And she looked at the Parson with the air of a culprit who has confessed a +terrible misdemeanor. + +"Ah," he replied, "you have not then reached the point in the journey at +which one sees him. It is only a question of time: one comes of a sudden +into the presence of Wordsworth, as a traveller finds some day, upon a +well-known road, a grand cathedral, into which he turns aside and +worships, and wonders how it happens that he never before saw it. You will +tell me some day that this has happened to you. It is only a question of +time." + +Just as Parson Dorrance pronounced the last words, they were echoed by a +laughing party who had come in search of him. "Yes, yes, only a question +of time," they said; "and it is our time now, Parson. You must come with +us. No monopoly of the Parson allowed, Mrs. Hunter," and they carried him +off, joining hands around him and singing the old college song, "Gaudeamus +igitur." + +Stephen, who had joined eagerly in the proposal to go in search of the +Parson, remained behind, and made a sign to Mercy to stay with him. +Sitting down by her side, he said gloomily,-- + +"What were you talking about when we came up? Your face looked as if you +were listening to music." + +"About Wordsworth," said Mercy. "Parson Dorrance said such a beautiful +thing about him. It was like music, like far off music," and she repeated +it to Stephen. "I wonder if I shall ever reach that cathedral," she added. + +"Well, I've never reached it," said Stephen, "and I'm a good deal older +than you. I think two thirds of Wordsworth's poetry is imbecile, +absolutely imbecile." + +Mercy was too much under the spell of Parson Dorrance's recent words to +sympathize in this; but she had already learned to avoid dissent from +Stephen's opinions, and she made no reply. They were sitting on the edge +of a great fissure in the mountain. Some terrible convulsion must have +shaken the huge mass to its centre, to have made such a rift. At the +bottom ran a stream, looking from this height like little more than a +silver thread. Shrubs and low flowering things were waving all the way +down the sides of the abyss, as if nature had done her best to fill up the +ugly wound. Many feet below them, on a projecting rock, waved one little +white blossom, so fragile it seemed as if each swaying motion in the +breeze must sever it from the stem. + +"Oh, see the dainty, brave little thing!" exclaimed Mercy. "It looks as if +it were almost alone in space." + +"I will get it for you," said Stephen; and, before Mercy could speak to +restrain him, he was far down the precipice. With a low ejaculation of +terror, Mercy closed her eyes. She would not look on Stephen in such +peril. She did not move nor open her eyes, until he stood by her side, +exclaiming, "Why, Mercy! my darling, do not look so! There was no danger," +and he laid the little plant in her hand. She looked at it in silence for +a moment, and then said,-- + +"Oh, Stephen! to risk your life for such a thing as that! The sight of it +will always make me shudder." + +"Then I will throw it away," said Stephen, endeavoring to take it from her +hand; but she held it only the tighter, and whispered,-- + +"No! oh, what a moment! what a moment! I shall keep this flower as long as +I live!" And she did,--kept it wrapped in a paper, on which were written +the following lines:-- + + A MOMENT. + + Lightly as an insect floating + In the sunny summer air, + Waved one tiny snow-white blossom, + From a hidden crevice growing, + Dainty, fragile-leaved, and fair, + Where great rocks piled up like mountains, + Well-nigh to the shining heavens, + Rose precipitous and bare, + With a pent-up river rushing, + Foaming as at boiling heat + Wildly, madly, at their feet. + + Hardly with a ripple stirring + The sweet silence by its tone, + Fell a woman's whisper lightly,-- + "Oh, the dainty, dauntless blossom! + What deep secret of its own + Keeps it joyous and light-hearted, + O'er this dreadful chasm swinging, + Unsupported and alone, + With no help or cheer from kindred? + Oh, the dainty, dauntless thing, + Bravest creature of the spring!" + + Then the woman saw her lover, + For one instant saw his face, + Down the precipice slow sinking, + Looking up at her, and sending + Through the shimmering, sunny space + Look of love and subtle triumph, + As he plucked the tiny blossom + In its airy, dizzy place,-- + Plucked it, smiling, as if danger + Were not danger to the hand + Of true lover in love's land. + + In her hands her face she buried, + At her heart the blood grew chill; + In that one brief moment crowded + The whole anguish of a lifetime, + Made her every pulse stand still. + Like one dead she sat and waited, + Listening to the stirless silence, + Ages in a second, till, + Lightly leaping, came her lover, + And, still smiling, laid the sweet + Snow-white blossom at her feet. + + "O my love! my love!" she shuddered, + "Bloomed that flower by Death's own spell? + Was thy life so little moment, + Life and love for that one blossom + Wert thou ready thus to sell? + O my precious love! for ever + I shall keep this faded token + Of the hour which came to tell, + In such voice I scarce dared listen, + How thy life to me had grown + So much dearer than my own!" + +On their way home from the picnic late in the afternoon, they came at the +base of the mountain to a beautiful spot where two little streams met. The +two streams were in sight for a long distance: one shining in a green +meadow; the other leaping and foaming down a gorge in the mountain-side. A +little inn, which was famous for its beer, stood on the meadow space, +bounded by these two streams; and the picnic party halted before its door. +While the white foamy glasses were clinked and tossed, Mercy ran down the +narrow strip of land at the end of which the streams met. A little +thicket of willows grew there. Standing on the very edge of the shore, +Mercy broke off a willow wand, and dipped it to right in the meadow +stream, to the left in the stream from the gorge. Then she brought it back +wet and dripping. + +"It has drank of two waters," she cried, holding it up. "Oh, you ought to +see how wonderful it is to watch their coming together at that point! For +a little while you can trace the mountain water by itself in the other: +then it is all lost, and they pour on together." This picture, also, she +set in a frame of verse one day, and gave it to Stephen. + + On a green point of sunny land, + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high, + I stood alone as dreamers stand, + And watched two streams that hurried by. + + One ran to east, and one to south; + They leaped and sparkled in the sun; + They foamed like racers at the mouth, + And laughed as if the race were won. + + Just on the point of sunny land + A low bush stood, like umpire fair, + Waving green banners in its hand, + As if the victory to declare. + + Ah, victory won, but not by race! + Ah, victory by a sweeter name! + To blend for ever in embrace, + Unconscious, swift, the two streams came. + + One instant, separate, side by side + The shining currents seemed to pour; + Then swept in one tumultuous tide, + Swifter and stronger than before. + + O stream to south! O stream to east! + Which bears the other, who shall see? + Which one is most, which one is least, + In this surrendering victory? + + To that green point of sunny land, + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high, + I called my love, and, hand in hand, + We watched the streams that hurried by. + + + + +Chapter IX. + + + +It was a turning-point in Mercy's life when she met Parson Dorrance. Here +at last was a man who had strength enough to influence her, culture enough +to teach her, and the firm moral rectitude which her nature so inexorably +demanded. During the first few weeks of their acquaintance, Mercy was +conscious of an insatiable desire to be in his presence: it was an +intellectual and a moral thirst. Nothing could be farther removed from the +absorbing consciousness which passionate love feels of its object, than +was this sentiment she felt toward Parson Dorrance. If he had been a being +from another planet, it could not have been more so. In fact, it was very +much as if another planet had been added to her world,--a planet which +threw brilliant light into every dark corner of this one. She questioned +him eagerly. Her old doubts and perplexities, which Mr. Allen's narrower +mind had been unable to comprehend or to help, were now set at rest and +cleared up by a spiritual vision far keener than her own. Her mind was fed +and trained by an intellect so much stronger than her own that it +compelled her assent and her allegiance. She came to him almost as a +maiden, in the ancient days of Greece, would have gone to the oracle of +the holiest shrine. Parson Dorrance in his turn was as much impressed by +Mercy; but he was never able to see in her simply the pupil, the +questioner. To him she was also a warm and glowing personality, a young +and beautiful woman. Parson Dorrance's hair was white as snow; but his +eyes were as keen and dark as in his youth, his step as firm, and his +pulse as quick. Long before he dreamed of such a thing, he might have +known, if he had taken counsel of his heart, that Mercy was becoming to +him the one woman in the world. There was always this peculiarity in +Mercy's influence upon all who came to love her. She was so unique and +incalculable a person that she made all other women seem by comparison +with her monotonous and wearying. Intimacy with her had a subtle flavor to +it, by which other flavors were dulled. The very impersonality of her +enthusiasms and interests, her capacity for looking on a person for the +time being merely as a representative or mouth-piece, so to speak, of +thoughts, of ideas, of narrations, was one of her strongest charms. By +reason of this, the world was often unjust to her in its comments on her +manner, on her relations with men. The world more than once accused her +uncharitably of flirting. But the men with whom she had friendships knew +better; and now and then a woman had the insight to be just to her, to see +that she was quite capable of regarding a human being as objectively as +she would a flower or a mountain or a star. The blending of this trait in +her with the strong capacity she had for loving individuals was singular; +not more so, perhaps, than the blending of the poetic temperament with the +active, energetic, and practical side of her nature. + +It was not long before her name began to be mentioned in connection with +Parson Dorrance's, by the busy tongues which are always in motion in small +villages. It was not long, moreover, before a thought and a hope, in which +both these names were allied, crept into the heart of Lizzy Hunter. + +"Oh," she thought, "if only Uncle Dorrance would marry Mercy, how happy I +should be, she would be, every one would be." + +No suspicion of the relation in which Mercy stood to Stephen White had +ever crossed Mrs. Hunter's mind. She had never known Stephen until +recently; and his manner towards her had been from the outset so chilled +and constrained by his unconscious jealousy of every new friend Mercy +made, that she had set him down in her own mind as a dull and surly man, +and rarely thought of him. And, as one of poor Mercy's many devices for +keeping up with her conscience a semblance of honesty in the matter of +Stephen was the entire omission of all reference to him in her +conversation, nothing occurred to remind her friends of him. Parson +Dorrance, indeed, had said to her one day,-- + +"You never speak of Mr. White, Mercy. Is he an agreeable and kind +landlord?" + +Mercy started, looked bewilderedly in the Parson's face, and repeated his +words mechanically,-- + +"Landlord?" Then recollecting herself, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes! we do pay +rent to him; but it was paid for the whole year in advance, and I had +forgotten all about it." + +Parson Dorrance had had occasion to distrust Stephen's father, and he +distrusted the son. "Advance? advance?" he exclaimed. "Why did you do +that, child? That was all wrong." + +"Oh, no!" said Mercy, eagerly. "I had the money, and it made no difference +to me; and Mr. Allen told me that Mr. White was in a great strait for +money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible +burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White, +until she had effectually led the conversation away from Stephen. + +When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle +Dorrance's loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to +refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a +possibility. But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would +terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether. So she contented +herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations +on the subject of marriage. Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging, +caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men's affections as kittens +nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,--love of +warmth and shelter, and of being fondled. To all these instincts in Lizzy, +however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of +affection. If the world held more such women, there would be more happy +children and contented husbands. + +"Mercy," said she one afternoon, earnestly, "Mercy, it makes me perfectly +wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married. +You don't know what you are talking about: you don't realize in the least +what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days." + +"I never need be homeless, dear," said Mercy. "I shall always have a home, +even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near, +she has failed so much this past summer. But, even if I were all alone, I +should still keep my home." + +"A house isn't a home, Mercy!" exclaimed Lizzy. Of course you can always +be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort." + +"And that's a great way, my Lizzy," interrupted Mercy, laughing,--"a great +way. No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?" + +"Now, Mercy, don't talk so. You know very well what I mean," replied +Lizzy. "It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to +have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and +not to have anybody to love herself. Oh, Mercy, I don't see how any woman +lives without it!" + +The tears came into Mercy's eyes. There were depths of lovingness in her +soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream. But she spoke in a +resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, when she said,-- + +"Well, I don't see how any woman can help living very well without it, if +it doesn't come to her. I don't see how any human being--man or woman, +single or married--can help being glad to be alive under any conditions. +It is such a glorious thing to have a soul and a body, and to get the most +out of them. Just from the purely selfish point of view, it seems to me a +delight to live; and when you look at it from a higher point, and think +how much each human being can do for those around him, why, then it is +sublime. Look at Parson Dorrance, Lizzy! Just think of the sum of the +happiness that man has created in this world! He isn't lonely. He couldn't +think of such a thing." + +"Yes, he is, too,--I know he is," said Lizzy, impetuously. "The very way +he takes up my children and hugs them and kisses them shows that he longs +for a home and children of his own." + +"I think not," replied Mercy. "It is all part of the perpetual overflow of +his benevolence. He can't pass by a living creature, if it is only a dog, +without a desire to give it a moment's happiness. Of happiness for himself +he never thinks, because he is on a plane above happiness,--a plane of +perpetual joy." Mercy hesitated, paused, and then went on, "I don't mean +to be irreverent, but I could never think of his needing personal +ministrations to his own happiness, any more than I could think of God's +needing them. I think he is on a plane as absolutely above such needs as +God is. Not so high above, but as absolutely." + +"How are you so sure God is above it?" said Lizzy, timidly. "I can't +conceive of God's being happy if nobody loved him." + +Mercy was startled by these words from Lizzy, who rarely questioned and +never philosophized. She opened her lips to reply with a hasty reiteration +of her first sentiment, but the words died even before they were spoken, +arrested by her sudden consciousness of the possibility of a grand truth +underlying Lizzy's instinct. If that were so, did it not lie out far +beyond every fact in life, include and control them all, as the great +truth of gravitation outlies and embraces the physical universe? Did God +so need as well as so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son +for it? Is this what it meant to be "one with God"? Then, if the great, +illimitable heart of God thus yearns for the love of his creatures, the +greater the heart of a human being, the more must he yearn for a fulness +of love, a completion of the cycle of bonds and joys for which he was +made. From these simple words of a loving woman's heart had flashed a +great light into Mercy's comprehension of God. She was silent for some +moments; then she said solemnly,-- + +"That was a great thought you had then, Lizzy. I never saw it in that +light before. I shall never forget it. Perhaps you are right about the +Parson, too. I wonder if there is any thing he does long for? If there is, +I would die to give it to him,--I know that." + +It was very near Lizzy's lips to say, "If you would live to give it to +him, it would be more to the purpose, perhaps;" but she wisely forbore and +they parted in silence, Mercy absorbed in thinking of this new view of +God's relation to man, and Lizzy hoping that Mercy was thinking of Parson +Dorrance's need of a greater happiness than he possessed. + +As Mercy's circle of friends widened, and her interests enlarged and +deepened, her relation to Stephen became at once easier and harder: +easier, because she no longer spent so many hours alone in perplexed +meditation as to the possible wrong in it; harder, because he was +frequently unreasonable, jealous of the pleasure that he saw she found in +others, jealous of the pleasure she gave to others,--jealous, in short, of +every thing in which he was not her centre. Mercy was very patient with +him. She loved him unutterably. She never forgot for an instant the quiet +heroism with which he bore his hard life. As the months had gone on, she +had gradually established a certain kindly familiarity with his mother; +going in often to see her, taking her little gifts of flowers or fruit, +and telling her of all little incidents which might amuse her. She seemed +to herself in this way to be doing a little towards sharing Stephen's +burden; and she also felt a certain bond to the woman who, being Stephen's +mother, ought to have been hers by adoption. The more she saw of Mrs. +White's tyrannical, exacting nature, the more she yearned over Stephen. +Her first feeling of impatience with him, of resentment at the seeming +want of manliness in such subjection, had long ago worn away. She saw that +there were but two courses for him,--either to leave the house, or to buy +a semblance of peace at any cost. + +"Flesh and blood can't stand up agin Mis' White," said Marty one day, in +an irrepressible confidence to Mercy. "An' the queerest thing is, that +she'll never let go on you. There ain't nothin' to hender my goin' away +any day, an' there hain't been for twenty year; but she sez I'm to stay +till she dies, an' I don't make no doubt I shall. It's Mister Stephen I +stay for, though, after all, more 'n 't is her. I don't believe the Lord +ever made such a man." + +Mercy's cheeks would burn after such a talk as this; and she would lavish +upon Stephen every device of love and cheer which she could invent, to +atone to him by hours, if possible, for the misery of days. + +But the hours were few and far between. Stephen's days were filled with +work, and his evenings were his mother's. Only after she slept did he have +freedom. Just as soon as it was safe for him to leave the house, he flew +to Mercy; but, oh, how meagre and pitiful did the few moments seem! + +"Hardly long enough to realize that I am with you, my darling," he often +said. + +"But then it is every day, Stephen,--think of that," Mercy would reply, +bent always on making all things easier instead of harder for him. Even +the concealment, which was at times well-nigh insupportable to her, she +never complained of now. She had accepted it. "And, after accepting it, I +have no right to reproach him with it: it would be base," she thought. + +Nevertheless, it was slowly wearing away the very foundations of her +peace. The morning walks had long been given up. Mercy had been resolute +about this. When she found Stephen insisting upon going in by-ways and +lanes, lest some one should see them who might mention it to his mother, +when he told her that she must not speak of it to her own mother, she said +firmly,-- + +"This must end, Stephen. How hard it is to me to give it up you know very +well. It is like the sunrise to my day, always, these moments with you. +But I will not multiply concealments. It makes me guilty and ashamed all +the time. Don't urge me to any such thing; for I am not sure that too much +of it would not kill my love for you. Let us be patient. Chance will do a +good deal for us; but I will not plan to meet clandestinely. Whenever you +can come to our house, that is different. It distresses me to have you do +that and never tell of it; but that is yours and not mine, if any thing +can be yours and not mine," she added sadly. Stephen had not heard the +last words. + +"Kill your love for me, Mercy!" he exclaimed. "Are you really afraid of +that?" + +"No, not kill my love for you," replied Mercy, "I think nothing could do +that, but kill all my joy in my love for you; and that would be as +terrible to you as if the love were killed. You would not know the +difference, and I should not be able to make you see it." + +It was a strange thing that with all Stephen's jealousy of Mercy's +enlarged and enlarging life, of her ever-widening circle of friends, he +had no especial jealousy of Parson Dorrance. The Parson was Mercy's only +frequent visitor; and Stephen knew very well that he had become her +teacher and her guide, that she referred every question to his decision, +and was guided implicitly by his taste and wish in her writing and in her +studies. But, when Stephen was a boy in college, Parson Dorranee had +seemed to him an old man; and he now seemed venerable. Stephen could not +have been freer from a lover's jealousy of him, if he had been Mercy's own +father. Perhaps, if his instinct had been truer, it might have quickened +Mercy's. She was equally unaware of the real nature of the Parson's regard +for her. He did for her the same things he did for Lizzy, whom he called +his child. He came to see her no oftener, spoke to her no more +affectionately: she believed that she and Lizzy were sisters together in +his fatherly heart. + +When she was undeceived, the shock was very great: it was twofold,--a +shock to her sense of loyalty to Stephen, a shock to her tender love for +Parson Dorrance. It was true, as she had said to Lizzy, that she would +have died to give him a pleasure; and yet she was forced to inflict on him +the hardest of all pains. Every circumstance attending it made it harder; +made it seem to Mercy always in after life, as she looked back upon it, +needlessly hard,--cruelly, malignantly hard. + +It was in the early autumn. The bright colors which had thrilled Mercy +with such surprise and pleasure on her first arrival in Penfield were +glowing again on the trees, it seemed to her brighter than before. Purple +asters and golden-rod waved on the roadsides and in the fields; and blue +gentians, for which Penfield was famous, were blooming everywhere. Parson +Dorrance came one day to take Lizzy and Mercy over to his "Parish," as he +called "The Cedars." They had often been with him there; and Mercy had +been for a long time secretly hoping that he would ask her to help him in +teaching the negroes. The day was one of those radiant and crystalline +days peculiar to the New England autumn. On such days, joy becomes +inevitable even to inert and lifeless natures: to enthusiastic and +spontaneous ones, the exhilaration of the air and the sun is as +intoxicating as wine. Mercy was in one of her most mirthful moods. She +frolicked with the negro children, and decked their little woolly heads +with wreaths of golden-rod, till they looked as fantastic as dancing +monkeys. She gathered great sheaves of ferns and blue gentians and asters, +until the Parson implored her to "leave a few just for the poor sun to +shine on." The paths winding among "The Cedars" were in some places +thick-set with white eupatoriums, which were now in full, feathery flower, +some of them so old that, as you brushed past them, a cloud of the fine +thread-like petals flew in all directions. Mercy gathered branch after +branch of these, but threw them away impatiently, as the flowers fell off, +leaving the stems bare. + +"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "Nature wants some seeds, I suppose; but I want +flowers. What becomes of the poor flower, any way? it lives such a short +while; all its beauty and grace sacrificed to the making of a seed for +next year." + +"That's the way with every thing in life, dear child," said Parson +Dorrance. "The thing that shall be is the thing for which all the powers +of nature are at work. We, you and Lizzy and I, will drop off our stems +presently,--I, a good deal the first, for you and Lizzy have the blessing +of youth, but I am old." + +"You are not old! You are the youngest person I know," exclaimed Mercy, +impetuously. "You will never be old, Mr. Dorrance, not if you should live +to be as old as--as old as the Wandering Jew!" + +Mercy's eyes were fixed intently on the Parson's face; but she did not +note the deep flush which rose to his very hair, as she said these words. +She was thinking only of the glorious soul, and seeing only its shining +through the outer tabernacle. Lizzy Hunter, however, saw the flush, and +knew what it meant, and her heart gave a leap of joy. "Now he can see that +Mercy never thinks of him as an old man, and never would," she thought to +herself; and while her hands were idly playing with her flowers and +mosses, and her face looked as innocent and care-free as a baby's, her +brain was weaving plots of the most complicated devices for hastening on +the future which began to look to her so assured for these two. + +They were sitting on a mossy mound in the shadow of great cedar-trees. The +fields around "The Cedars" were filled with low mounds, like velvet +cushions: some of them were merely a mat of moss over great rocks; some of +them were soft yielding masses of moss, low cornel, blueberry-bushes, +wintergreen, blackberry-vines, and sweet ferns; dainty, fragrant, crowded +ovals, lovelier than any florist could ever make; white and green in the +spring, when the cornels were in flower; scarlet and green and blue in the +autumn, when the cornels and the blueberries were in fruit. + +Mercy was sitting on a mound which was thick-grown with the shining +wintergreen. She picked a stem which had a cluster of red berries on it, +and below the berries one tiny pink blossom. As she held it up, the +blossom fell, leaving a tiny satin disk behind it on its stem. She took +the bell and tried to fit it again on its place; then she turned it over +and over, held it up to the light and looked through it. "It makes me +sad," she said: "I wish I knew if the flower knows any thing about the +fruit. If it were working to that end all the while, and so were content +to pass on and make room, it would seem all right. But I don't want to +pass on and make room! I do so like to be here!" + +Parson Dorrance looked from one woman's face to the other, both young, +both lovely: Lizzy's so full of placid content, unquestioning affection, +and acceptance; Mercy's so full of mysterious earnestness, far-seeing +vision, and interpretation. + +"What a lot lies before that gifted creature," he said to himself, "if +life should go wrong with her! If only I might dare to take her fate into +my hands! I do not believe any one else can do for her what I could, if I +were only younger." And the Parson sighed. + +That night he stayed in Penfield at Lizzy's house. The next morning, on +his way to Danby, he stopped to see Mercy for a moment. When he entered +her door, he had no knowledge of what lay before him; he had not yet said +to himself, had not yet dared to say to himself, that he would ask Mercy +to be his wife. He knew that the thought of it was more and more present +with him, grew sweeter and sweeter; yet he had never ceased resisting it, +saying that it was impossible. That is, he had never ceased saying so in +words; but his heart had ceased resisting long ago. Only that traitor +which we call judgment had been keeping up a false show of resolute +opinion, just to lure the beguiled heart farther and farther on in a +mistaken security. + +But love is like the plants. It has its appointed days for flowers and for +the falling of the flowers. The vague, sweetness of the early hours and +days together, the bright happiness of the first close intimacy and +interchange,--these reach their destined moment, to pass on and make room +for the harvest. Blessed are the lives in which all these sweet early +petals float off gently and in season for the perfect setting of the holy +fruit! + +On this morning, when Parson Dorrance entered Mercy's room, it was already +decorated as if for a festival. Every blooming thing she had brought from +"The Cedars" the day before had taken its own place in the room, and +looked as at home as it had looked in the fields. One of Mercy's great +gifts was the gift of creating in rooms a certain look which it is hard to +define. The phrase "vitalized individuality," perhaps, would come as near +describing it as is possible; for it was not merely that the rooms looked +unlike other rooms. Every article in them seemed to stand in the place +where it must needs stand by virtue of its use and its quality. Every +thing had a certain sort of dramatic fitness, without in the least +trenching on the theatrical. Her effects were always produced with simple +things, in simple ways; but they resulted in an impression of abundance +and luxury. As Parson Dorrance glanced around at all the wild-wood beauty, +and the wild-wood fragrance stole upon his senses, a great mastering wave +of love for the woman whose hand had planned it all swept over him. He +recalled Mercy's face the day before, when she had said,-- + +"You are the youngest person I know;" and, as she crossed the threshold of +the door at that instant, he went swiftly towards her with outstretched +hands, and a look on his face which, if she had seen, she could not have +failed to interpret aright. + +But she was used to the outstretched hands; she always put both her own in +them, as simply as a child; and she was bringing to her teacher now a +little poem, of which her thoughts were full. She did not look fully in +his face, therefore; for it was still a hard thing for her to show him her +verses. + +Holding out the paper, she said shyly,-- + +"It had to get itself said or sung, you know,--that thought that haunted +me so yesterday at 'The Cedars.' I daresay it is very bad poetry, though." + +Parson Dorrance unfolded the paper, and read the following poem:-- + + WHERE? + + My snowy eupatorium has dropped + Its silver threads of petals in the night; + No sound told me its blossoming had stopped; + Its seed-films flutter, silent, ghostly white: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask, "Where?" + + Beneath the glossy leaves of wintergreen + Dead lily-bells lie low, and in their place + A rounded disk of pearly pink is seen, + Which tells not of the lily's fragrant grace: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask "Where?" + + This morning's sunrise does not show to me + Seed-film or fruit of my sweet yesterday; + Like falling flowers, to realms I cannot see + Its moments floated silently away: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask, "Where?" + +As he read the last verse, his face altered. Mercy was watching him. + +"I thought you wouldn't like the last verse," she said eagerly. "But, +indeed, it doesn't mean doubt. I know very well no day dies; but we can't +see the especial good of each single day by itself. That is all I meant." + +Parson Dorrance came closer to Mercy: they were both standing. He laid one +hand on her' head, and said,-- + +"Child, it was a 'sweet yesterday' wasn't it?" + +"Oh, yes," said Mercy, still absorbed in the thought of the poem. "The +day was as sweet as the flowers. But all days are heavenly sweet out of +doors with you and Lizzy," she continued, lifting one hand, and laying it +caressingly on the hand which was stroking her hair. + +"O Mercy! Mercy! couldn't I make all days sweet for you? Come to me, +darling, and let me try!" came from Parson Dorrance's lips in hurried and +husky tones. + +Mercy looked at him for one second in undisguised terror and bewilderment. +Then she uttered a sharp cry, as of one who had suddenly got a wound, and, +burying her face in her hands, sank into a chair and began to cry +convulsively. + +Parson Dorrance walked up and down the room. He dared not speak. He was +not quite sure what Mercy's weeping meant; so hard is it, for a single +moment, to wrench a great hope out of a man's heart. But, as she continued +sobbing, he understood. Unselfish to the core, his first thought was, even +now, "Alas! now she will never let me do any thing more for her. Oh, how +shall I win her back to trust me as a father again?" + +"Mercy!" he said. Mercy did not answer nor look up. + +"Mercy!" he repeated in a firmer tone. "Mercy, my child, look up at me!" + +Docile from her long habit and from her great love, Mercy looked up, with +the tears streaming. As soon as she saw Parson Dorrance's face, she burst +again into more violent crying, and sobbed out incoherently,-- + +"Oh! I never knew it. It wouldn't be right." + +"Hush, dear! Hush!" said the Parson, in a voice of tender authority. "I +have done wrong; and you must forgive me, and forget it. You are not in +the least to blame. It is I who ought to have known that you could never +think of me as any thing but a father." + +"Oh! it is not that," sobbed Mercy, vehemently,--"it is not that at all! +But it wouldn't be right." + +Parson Dorrance would not have been human if Mercy's vehement "It is not +that,--it is not that!" had not fallen on his ear gratefully, and made +hope stir in his heart again. But her evident grief was too great for the +hope to last a moment. + +"You may not know why it seems so wrong to you, dear child," he continued; +"but that is the real reason. There could be no other." He paused. Mercy +shuddered, and opened her lips to speak again; but the words refused to be +uttered. This was the supreme moment of pain. If she could but have +said,-- + +"I loved some one else long before I saw you. I was not my own. If it had +not been for that, I should have loved you, I know I should!" Even in her +tumult of suffering, she was distinctly conscious of all this. The words +"I could have loved him, I know I could! I can't bear to have him think it +is because he is so old," went clamoring in her heart, pleading to be +said; but she dared not say them. + +Tenderly and patiently Parson Dorrance endeavored to soothe her, to +convince her that his words sprung from a hasty impulse which he would be +able wholly to put aside and forget. The one thing that he longed now to +do, the only reparation that he felt was left for him to make to her, was +to enable her, if possible, to look on him as she had done before. But +Mercy herself made this more difficult. Suddenly wiping her tears, she +looked very steadily into his face, and said slowly,--"It is not of the +least use, Mr. Dorrance, for you to say this sort of thing to me. You +can't deceive me. I know exactly how you love me, and how you always will +love me. And, oh, I wish I were dead! It can never be any thing but pain +to you to see me,--never," and she wept more bitterly than before. + +"You do not know me, Mercy," replied the Parson, speaking as slowly as she +had done. "All my life has been one long sacrifice of my own chief +preferences. It is not hard for me to do it." + +Mercy clasped her hands tighter, and groaned,-- + +"Oh, I know it! I know it! and I said you were on a plane above all +thought of personal happiness." + +The Parson looked bewildered, but went on,-- + +"You do love me, my child, very dearly, do you not?" + +"Oh, you know I do!" cried Mercy. "You know I do!" + +"Yes, I know you do, or I should not have said that. You know I am all +alone in the world, do you not?" + +"Yes," moaned Mercy. + +"Very well. Now remember that you and Lizzy are my two children, and that +the greatest happiness I can have, the greatest help in my loneliness, is +the love of my two daughters. You will not refuse me this help, will you? +You will let me be just as I was before, will you not?" + +Mercy did not answer. + +"Will you try, Mercy?" he said in a tone almost of the old affectionate +authority; and Mercy again moaned rather than said,-- + +"Yes." + +Then Parson Dorrance kissed her hair where his hand had lain a few moments +before, and said,-- + +"Now I must go. Good-by, my child." + +But Mercy did not look up; and he closed the door gently, leaving her +sitting there bowed and heart-stricken, in the little room so gay with the +bright flowers she had gathered on her "sweet yesterday." + + + + +Chapter X. + + + +The winter set in before its time, and with almost unprecedented severity. +Early in the last week in November, the whole country was white with snow, +the streams were frozen solid, and the cold was intense. Week after week +the mercury ranged from zero to ten, fifteen, and even twenty below, and +fierce winds howled night and day. It was a terrible winter for old +people. They dropped on all sides, like leaves swept off of trees in +autumn gales. It was startling to read the death records in the +newspapers, so large a proportion of them were of men and women past +sixty. Mrs. Carr had been steadily growing feebler all summer; but the +change had seemed to Mercy to be more mental than physical, and she had +been in a measure blinded to her mother's real condition. With the +increase of childishness and loss of memory had come an increased +gentleness and love of quiet, which partially disguised the loss of +strength. She would sit in her chair from morning till night, looking out +of the window or watching the movements of those around her, with an +expression of perfect placidity on her face. When she was spoken to, she +smiled, but did not often speak. The smile was meaningless and yet +infinitely pathetic: it was an infant's smile on an aged face; the +infant's heart and infant's brain had come back. All the weariness, all +the perplexity, all the sorrow, had gone from life, had slipped away from +memory. This state had come on so gradually that even Mercy hardly +realized the extent of it. The silent smile or the gentle, simple +ejaculations with which her mother habitually replied meant more to her +than they did to others. She did not comprehend how little they really +proved a full consciousness on her mother's part; and she was unutterably +shocked, when, on going to her bedside one morning, she found her unable +to move, and evidently without clear recognition of any one's face. The +end had begun; the paralysis which had so slowly been putting the mind to +rest had prostrated the body also. It was now only a question of length of +siege, of how much vital force the system had hoarded up. Lying helpless +in bed, the poor old woman was as placid and gentle as before. She never +murmured nor even stirred impatiently. She seemed unconscious of any +weariness. The only emotion she showed was when Mercy left the room; then +she would cry silently till Mercy returned. Her eyes followed Mercy +constantly, as a little babe's follow its mother; and she would not take a +mouthful of food from any other hand. + +It was the very hardest form of illness for Mercy to bear. A violent and +distressing disease, taxing her strength, her ingenuity to their utmost +every moment, would have been comparatively nothing to her. To sit day +after day, night after night, gazing into the senseless yet appealing eyes +of this motionless being, who had literally no needs except a helpless +animal's needs of food and drink; who clung to her with the irrational +clinging of an infant, yet would never know even her name again,--it was +worse than the chaining of life to death. As the days wore on, a species +of terror took possession of Mercy. It seemed to her that this silent +watchful, motionless creature never had been her mother,--never had been a +human being like other human beings. As the old face grew more and more +haggard, and the old hands more and more skinny and claw-like, and the +traces of intellect and thought more and more faded away from the +features, the horror deepened, until Mercy feared that her own brain must +be giving way. She revolted from the very thought of herself for having +such a feeling towards her mother. Every instinct of loyalty in her deeply +loyal nature rose up indignantly against her. She would reiterate to +herself the word, "Mother! mother! mother!" as she sat gazing with a +species of horror-stricken fascination into the meaningless face. But she +could not shake off the feeling. Her nerves were fast giving way under the +strain, and no one could help her. If she left the room or the house, the +consciousness that the helpless creature was lying silently weeping for +lack of the sight of her pursued her like a presence. She saw the piteous +old face on the pillow, and the slow tears trickling down the cheeks, just +as distinctly as if she were sitting by the bed. On the whole, the torture +of staying was less than the torture of being away; and for weeks +together she did not leave the house. Sometimes a dull sense of relief +came to her in the thought that by this strange confinement she was +escaping many things which would have been hard. She rarely saw Stephen +except for a few moments late in the evening. He had ventured into Mrs. +Carr's room once or twice; but his presence seemed to disturb her, the +only presence that had done so. She looked distressed, made agonizing +efforts to speak, and with the hand she could lift made a gesture to repel +him when he drew near the bed. In Mercy's overwrought state, this seemed +to her like an omen. She shuddered, and drew Stephen away. + +"O Stephen," she said, "she knows now that I have deceived her about you. +Don't come near her again." + +"You never deceived her, darling. Do not distress yourself so," whispered +Stephen. They were standing on the threshold of the room. A slight +rustling in the bed made them turn: Mrs. Carr had half-lifted her head +from the pillow, her lower jaw had fallen to its utmost extent in her +effort to articulate, and she was pointing the forefinger of her left hand +at the door. It was a frightful sight. Even Stephen turned pale, and +sprang hastily away. + +"You see," said Mercy, in a ghastly whisper, "sometimes she certainly does +know things; but she never looks like that except at you. You must never +come in again." + +"No," said Stephen, almost as horror-stricken as Mercy. "It is very +strange though, for she always used to seem so fond of me." + +"She was very childish and patient," said Mercy. "And I think she thought +that you were slowly getting to care about me; but now, wherever her soul +is,--I think it has left her body,--she knows that we deceived her." + +Stephen made no answer, but turned to go. The expression of resolved +endurance on his face pierced Mercy to the quick, as it always did. She +sprang after him, and clasped both her hands on his arm. "O Stephen, +darling,--precious, brave, strong darling! do forgive me. I ought to be +killed for even saying one word to give you pain. How I can, I don't see, +when I long so to make you happy always." + +"You do give me great, unutterable happiness, Mercy," he replied. "I never +think of the pain: I only think of the joy," and he laid her hand on his +lips. "All the pain that you could possibly give me in a lifetime could +not outweigh the joy of one such moment as this, when you say that you +love me." + +These days were unspeakably hard for Stephen. He had grown during the past +year to so live on the sight and in the blessedness of Mercy that to be +shut away from them was simply a sort of dying. There was no going back +for him to the calm routine of the old life before she came. He was +restless and wretched: he walked up and down in front of the house every +night, watching the shadow of her figure on the curtains of her mother's +room. He made all manner of excuses, true and false, reasonable and +unreasonable, to speak to her for a moment at the door in the morning. He +carried the few verses in his pocket-book she had given him; and, although +he knew them nearly by heart, he spent long hours in his office turning +the little papers over and over. Some of them were so joyous that they +stirred in him almost a bitter incredulity as he read them in these days +of loss and pain. One was a sonnet which she had written during a two +days' absence of his,--his only absence from his mother's house for six +years. Mercy had been astonished at her sense of loneliness in these two +days. "O Stephen," she had said, when he came back, "I am honestly ashamed +of having missed you so much. Just the knowing that you wouldn't be here +to come in, in the evenings, made the days seem a thousand years long, and +this is what came of it." + +And she gave him this sonnet:-- + + TO AN ABSENT LOVER. + + That so much change should come when them dost go, + Is mystery that I cannot ravel quite. + The very house seems dark as when the light + Of lamps goes out. Each wonted thing doth grow + So altered, that I wander to and fro, + Bewildered by the most familiar sight, + And feel like one who rouses in the night + From dream of ecstasy, and cannot know + At first if he be sleeping or awake, + My foolish heart so foolish for thy sake + Hath grown, dear one! + Teach me to be more wise. + I blush for all my foolishness doth lack; + I fear to seem a coward in thine eyes. + Teach me, dear one,--but first thou must come back! + +Another was a little poem, which she laughingly called his and not hers. +One morning, when they had bade each other "good-by," and she had kissed +him,--a rare thing for Mercy to do, he had exclaimed, "That kiss will go +floating before me all day in the air, Mercy. I shall see every thing in a +light as rosy as your lips." + +At night she gave him this little poem, saying,-- + +"This is your poem, not mine, darling. I should never have thought of any +thing so absurd myself." + + "COULEUR DE ROSE." + + All things to-day "Couleur de rose," + I see,--oh, why? + I know, and my dear love she knows, + Why, oh, why! + On both my eyes her lips she set, + All red and warm and dewy wet, + As she passed by. + The kiss did not my eyelids close, + But like a rosy vapor goes, + Where'er I sit, where'er I lie, + Before my every glance, and shows + All things to-day "Couleur de rose." + + Would it last thus? Alas, who knows? + Men ask and sigh: + They say it fades, "Couleur de rose." + Why, oh, why? + Without swift joy and sweet surprise, + Surely those lips upon my eyes + Could never lie, + Though both our heads were white as snows, + And though the bitterest storm that blows, + Of trouble and adversity, + Had bent us low: all life still shows + To eyes that love "Couleur de rose." + +This sonnet, also, she persisted in calling Stephen's, and not her own, +because he had asked her the question which had suggested it:-- + + LOVERS' THOUGHTS. + + "How feels the earth when, breaking from the night, + The sweet and sudden Dawn impatient spills + Her rosy colors all along the hills? + How feels the sea, as it turns sudden white, + And shines like molten silver in the light + Which pours from eastward when the full moon fills + Her time to rise?" + + "I know not, love, what thrills + The earth, the sea, may feel. How should I know? + Except I guess by this,--the joy I feel + When sudden on my silence or my gloom + Thy presence bursts and lights the very room? + Then on my face doth not glad color steal + Like shining waves, or hill-tops' sunrise glow?" + +One of the others was the poem of which I spoke once before, the poem +which had been suggested to her by her desolate sense of homelessness on +the first night of her arrival in Penfield. This poem had been widely +copied after its first appearance in one of the magazines; and it had been +more than once said of it, "Surely no one but a genuine outcast could have +written such a poem as this." It was hard for Mercy's friends to +associate the words with her. When she was asked how it happened that she +wrote them, she exclaimed, "I did not write that poem, I lived it one +night,--the night when I came to Penfield, and drove through these streets +in the rain with mother. No vagabond in the world ever felt more forlorn +than I did then." + + THE OUTCAST. + + O sharp, cold wind, thou art my friend! + And thou, fierce rain, I need not dread + Thy wonted touch upon my head! + On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend + Your force on all these dwellings. Rend + These doors so pitilessly locked, + To keep the friendless out! Strike dead + The fires whose glow hath only mocked + By muffled rays the night where I, + The lonely outcast, freezing lie! + + Ha! If upon those doors to-night + I knocked, how well I know the stare, + The questioning, the mingled air + Of scorn and pity at the sight, + The wonder if it would be right + To give me alms of meat and bread! + And if I, reckless, standing there, + For once the truth imploring said, + That not for bread or meat I longed, + That such an alms my real need wronged, + + That I would fain come in, and sit + Beside their fire, and hear the voice + Of children; yea, and if my choice + Were free, and I dared mention it, + And some sweet child should think me fit + To hold a child upon my knee + One moment, would my soul rejoice, + More than to banquet royally, + And I the pulses of its wrist + Would kiss, as men the cross have kissed. + + Ha! Well the haughty stare I know + With which they'd say, "The man is mad!" + "What an impostor's face he had!" + "How insolent these beggars grow!" + Go to, ye happy people! Go! + My yearning is as fierce as hate. + Must my heart break, that yours be glad? + Will your turn come at last, though late? + I will not knock, I will pass by; + My comrades wait,--the wind, the rain. + Comrades, we'll run a race to-night! + The stakes may not seem much to gain: + The goal is not marked plain in sight; + But, comrades, understand,--if I + Drop dead, 't will be a victory! + +These poems and many others Stephen carried with him wherever he went. To +read them over was next to seeing Mercy. The poet was hardly less dear to +him than the woman. He felt at times so removed from her by the great gulf +which her genius all unconsciously seemed to create between herself and +him that he doubted his own memories of her love, and needed to be +reassured by gazing into her eyes, touching her hand, and listening to her +voice. It seemed to him that, if this separation lasted much longer, he +should lose all faith in the fact of their relation. Very impatient +thoughts of poor old Mrs. Carr filled Stephen's thoughts in these days. +Heretofore she had been no barrier to his happiness; her still and +childlike presence was no restraint upon him; he had come to disregard it +as he would the presence of an infant in a cradle. Therefore, he had, or +thought he had, the kindest of feelings towards her; but now that her +helpless paralyzed hands had the power to shut him away from Mercy, he +hated her, as he had always hated every thing which stood between him and +delight. Yet, had it been his duty to minister to her, he would have done +it as gently, as faithfully, as Mercy herself. He would have spoken to her +in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her +dead. So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of +compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite. + +Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter. By +the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him +often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy's life. The +one great desire he had left now was to regain that,--to see her again +look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had +had until that sad morning. + +A strange incident happened to Mercy in these first weeks of her mother's +illness. She was called to the door one morning by the message that a +stranger wished to speak to her. She found standing there an elderly +woman, with a sweet but care-worn face, who said eagerly, as soon as she +appeared,-- + +"Are you Mrs. Philbrick?" + +"Yes," said Mercy. "Did you wish to see me?" + +The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and +then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,-- + +"Won't you come and help me make my husband come home. He is so sick, and +I believe he will die in that wretched old garret." + +Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that +she must be insane; but the woman continued,-- + +"I'm Mrs. Wheeler. You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about +you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day. You're the only +human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if +anybody could do any thing with him, you could." + +It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man +Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving +no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a +human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one +place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and +factories, and uninhabited rooms and houses in all the towns in the +vicinity. There was hardly any article of merchandise which he had not at +one time or another had a depot for, or a manufactory of. He had +especially a hobby for attempting to make articles which were not made in +this country. It was only necessary for some one to go to him, and say, +"Mr. Wheeler, do you know how much this country pays every year for +importing such or such an article?" to throw him into a rage. + +"Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, sir. Just as well make it here. I'll +make it myself." And up would start a new manufacture, just as soon as he +could get men to work at it. + +At one time it was ink, at another time brushes, then chintz, and then +pocket-books; in fact, nobody pretended to remember all the schemes which +the old man had failed in. He would stop them as instantaneously as he +began them, dismiss the workmen, shut up the shops or the mills, turn the +key on them just as they stood, very possibly filled full of material in +the rough. He did not care. The hobby was over: he had proved that the +thing could be made in America, and he was content. It was usually in some +one of these disused buildings that he set up his hermitage in these +absences from home. He would sally out once a day and buy bread, just a +pittance, hardly enough to keep him alive, and then bury himself again in +darkness and solitude. If the absence did not last more than three or four +days, his wife and sons gave themselves no concern about him. He usually +returned a saner and healthier man than he went away. When the absences +were longer, they went in search of him, and could usually prevail on him +to return home with them. But this last absence had been much longer than +usual before they found him. He was as cunning and artful as a fugitive +from justice in concealing his haunt. At last he was discovered in the old +garret store-room over the Brick Row. The marvel was that he had not died +of cold there. He was not far from it, however; for he was so ill that at +times he was delirious. He lay curled up in the old stack of comforters in +the corner, with only a jug of water and some crumbs of bread by his side, +when they found him. He had been so ill when he last crawled up the stairs +that he had forgotten to take the key out of the keyhole, but left it on +the outside, and by that they found him. At the bare suggestion of his +going home, he became so furious that it seemed unsafe to urge it. His +wife and eldest son had stayed there with him now for two days; but he had +grown steadily worse, and it was plain that he must die unless he could be +properly cared for. + +"At last I thought of you," said the poor woman. "He's always said so much +about you; and once, when I was riding with him, he pointed you out to me +on the street, and said he, 'That's the very nicest girl in America.' And +he told me about his giving you the clock; and I never knew him give any +thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very +good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd +always pay bills,--that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to +'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to +let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find +her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I +don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of queer way Mr. Wheeler's +always had; and everybody's got something queer about 'em, first or last; +and this way of Mr. Wheeler's of going off don't hurt anybody but himself. +I got used to 't long ago. Now, won't you come, and try and see if you +can't persuade him? It won't do any harm to try." + +"Why, yes, indeed, Mrs. Wheeler, I'll come; but I don't believe I can do +any thing," said Mercy, much touched by the appeal to her. "I have +wondered very much what had become of Mr. Wheeler. I had not seen him for +a long time." + +When they went into the garret, the old man was half-lying, half-sitting, +propped on his left elbow. In his right hand he held his cane, with which +he continually tapped the floor, as he poured out a volley of angry +reproaches to his son "'Siah," a young man of eighteen or twenty years +old, who sat on a roll of leather at a safe distance from his father's +lair. As the door opened, and he saw Mercy entering with his wife, the old +man's face underwent the most extraordinary change. Surprise, shame, +perplexity, bravado,--all struggled together there. + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, trying to draw the +comforters more closely about him. + +Mercy went up to him, and, sitting down by his side, began to talk to him +in a perfectly natural tone, as if she were making an ordinary call on an +invalid in his own home. She said nothing to suggest that he had done any +thing unnatural in hiding himself, and spoke of his severe cold as being +merely what every one else had been suffering from for some time. Then she +told him how ill her mother was, and succeeded in really arousing his +interest in that. Finally, she said,-- + +"But I must go now. I can't be away from my mother long. I will come and +see you again to-morrow. Shall I find you here or at your home?" + +"Well, I was thinking I 'd better move home to-day," said he. + +His wife and son involuntarily exchanged glances. This was more than they +had dared to hope. + +"Yes, I would, if I were you," replied Mercy, still in a perfectly natural +tone. "It would be so much better for you to be in a room with a fire in +it for a few days. There isn't any way of warming this room, is there?" +said she, looking all about, as if to see if it might not be possible +still to put up a stove there. "'Siah" turned his head away to hide a +smile, so amused was he by the tact of the remark. "No, I see there is no +stovepipe-hole here," she went on, "so you'd much better move home. I'm +going by the stable. Let me send Seth right up with the carriage, won't +you?" + +"No, no! Bless my soul! Thinks I'm made of money, don't she! No, no! I can +walk." And the old half-crazy glare came into his eyes. + +Mercy went nearer to him, and laid her hand gently on his. + +"Mr. Wheeler," said she, "you did something very kind for me once: now +won't you do something once more,--just once? I want you to go home in the +carriage. It is a terribly cold day, and the streets are very icy. I +nearly fell several times myself coming over here. You will certainly +take a terrible cold, if you walk this morning. Please say I may get the +carriage." + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul, child! Go get it then, if you care so much; +but tell him I'll only pay a quarter,--only a quarter, remember. They'd +take every cent I've got. They are all wolves, wolves, wolves!" + +"Yes, I'll tell him only a quarter. I'll have him here in a few minutes!" +exclaimed Mercy, and ran out of the room hastily before the old man could +change his mind. + +As good luck would have it, Seth and his "kerridge" were in sight when +Mercy reached the foot of the staircase. So in less than five minutes she +returned to the garret, exclaiming,-- + +"Here is Seth now, Mr. Wheeler. It is so fortunate I met him. Now I can +see you off." The old man was so weak that his son had to carry him down +the stairs; and his face, seen in the broad daylight, was ghastly. As they +placed him in the carriage, he called out to his wife and son, sharply,-- + +"Don't you get in! You can walk, you can walk. Mind, he's to have but a +quarter, tell him." And, as Seth whipped up his horses and drove off, the +words, "wolves, wolves, wolves," were heard coming in muffled tones +through the door. + +"He'd never have gone, if you hadn't come back,--never," said Mrs. +Wheeler, as she turned to Mercy. "I never can thank you enough. It'll save +his life, getting him out of that garret." + +Mercy did not say, but she thought that it was too late. A mortal +sickness had fastened upon the old man; and so it proved. When she went to +his home the next day, he was in a high fever and delirious; and he lived +only a few days. He had intervals of partial consciousness, and in those +he seemed to be much touched by the patient care which his two sons were +giving to him. He had always been a hard father; had compelled his sons +very early to earn their own living, and had refused to give them money, +which he could so easily have spared, to establish themselves in business. +Now, that it was too late, he repented. + +"Good boys, good boys, good boys after all," he would mutter to himself, +as they bent over him, and nursed him tenderly in his helplessness. "Might +have left them more money, might have left them more. Mistake, mistake!" +Once he roused, and with great vehemence asked to have his lawyer sent for +immediately. But, when the lawyer came, the delirium had returned again: +it was too late; and the old man died without repairing the injustice he +had done. The last intelligible words he spoke were, "Mistake! mistake!" + +And he had indeed made a mistake. When his will was opened, it was found +that the whole bulk of his large estate had been left to trustees, to be +held as a fund for assisting poor young men to a certain amount of capital +to go into business with,--the very thing which he had never done for his +own children. The trust was burdened with such preposterous conditions, +however, that it never could have amounted to any thing, even if the +courts had not come to the rescue, and mercifully broken the will, +dividing the property where it rightfully belonged, between the wife and +children. + +Early in February Mrs. Carr died. It was more like a going to sleep than +like a death. She lay for two days in a dozing state, smiling whenever +Mercy spoke to her, and making great efforts to swallow food whenever +Mercy offered it to her. At last she closed her eyes, turned her head on +one side, as if for a sounder sleep, and never moved again. + +However we may think we are longing for the release from suffering to come +to one we love, when it does come, it is a blow, is a shock. Hundreds of +times Mercy had said to herself in the course of the winter, "Oh, if God +would only take my mother to heaven! Her death would be easier to bear +than this." But now she would have called her back, if she could. The +silent house, the empty room, still more terrible the long empty hours in +which nobody needed her help, all wrung Mercy's heart. It was her first +experience of being alone. She had often pictured to herself, or rather +she thought she had, what it would be; but no human imagination can ever +sound the depths of that word: only the heart can feel it. It is a marvel +that hearts do not break under it oftener than they do. The silence which +is like that darkness which could be felt; the sudden awakening in the +night with a wonder what it means that the loved one is not there; the +pitiless morning light which fills the empty house, room after room; and +harder than all else to forget, to rise above--the perpetual sense of no +future: even the little near futures of the next hour, the next day, all +cut off, all closed, to the human being left utterly alone. The mockery of +the instincts of hunger and need of rest seems cruel. What a useless +routine, for one left alone, to be fed, to sleep, and to rise up to eat +and sleep again! + +Mercy bore all this in a sort of dumb bewilderment for a few days. All +Stephen's love and sympathy did not help her. He was unutterably tender +and sympathizing now that poor old Mrs. Carr was fairly out of his way. It +surprised even himself to see what a sort of respectful affection he felt +for her in her grave. Any misgiving that this new quiet and undisturbed +possession of Mercy might not continue did not cross his mind; and when +Mercy said to him suddenly, one evening about ten days after her mother's +death, "Stephen, I must go away, I can't live in this house another week," +it was almost as sudden a shock to him as if he had gone in and found her +dead. + +"Go away! Leave me!" he gasped, rather than said. "Mercy, you can't mean +it!" and the distress in his face smote Mercy bitterly. But she persisted. +"Yes, I do mean it," she said. "You must not ask me to stay. I should lose +my senses or fall ill. You can't think how terrible it is to me to be all +alone in these rooms. Perhaps in new rooms I should not feel it so much. I +have always looked forward to being left alone at some time, and have +thought I would still have my home; but I did not think it could feel like +this. I simply cannot bear it,--at any rate, not till I am stronger. And +besides, Stephen," and Mercy's face flushed red, "there is another thing +you have not thought of: it would never do for me to live here alone in +this house with you, as we have been living. You couldn't come to see me +so much now mother is not here." + +Poor Mrs. Carr! avenged at last, by Stephen's own heart. How gladly would +he have called her to life now! Mercy's words carried instantaneous +conviction to his mind. It was strange he had never thought of this +before; but he had not. He groaned aloud. + +"O Mercy! O Mercy!" he exclaimed, "I never once thought of that, we have +been living so so long. You are right: you cannot stay here. Oh, what +shall I do without you, my darling, my darling?" + +"I do not think you can ever be so lonely as I," said Mercy; "for you have +still your work left you to do. If I had any human being to need me, I +could bear being separated from you." + +"Where will you go, Mercy?" asked Stephen, in a tone of dull, hopeless +misery. + +"I do not know. I have not thought yet. Back to my old home for a visit, I +think, and then to some city to study and work. That is the best life for +me." + +"O Mercy, Mercy, I am going to lose you,--lose you utterly!" exclaimed +Stephen. + +Mercy looked at him with a pained and perplexed expression. "Stephen," she +said earnestly, "I can't understand you. You bear your hard life so +uncomplainingly, so bravely, that it seems as if you could not have a +vestige of selfishness in you; and yet"--Mercy halted; she could not put +her thought in words. Stephen finished it for her. + +"And yet," he said, "I am selfish about you, you think. Selfish! Good God! +do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a +man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread? What else have I that +one could call life except you? Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is +the whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it +selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy +almost angrily. She was writhing under his words. She had always an +unspeakable dread of being unjust to him. Love made her infinitely tender, +and pity made her yearn over him. But neither her own love and pity nor +his passionate words could wholly blind her now; and there was a sadness +in the tones in which she replied,-- + +"No, Stephen, I did not mean to call you selfish; but I can't understand +why you are not as brave and patient about all hard things as you are +about the one hardest thing of all." + +"Mercy, would you marry me now, if I asked you?" said Stephen. He did not +realize the equivocal form of his question. An indignant look swept over +Mercy's face for a moment, but only for a moment. She knew Stephen's love +too well. + +"No, Stephen," she said, "I would not. If you had asked me at first, I +should have done it. I thought then that it would be best," she said, with +hot blushes mounting high on her cheeks; "but I have seen since that it +would not." + +Stephen sighed. "I am glad you see that," he said. Then in a lower tone, +"You know you are free, Mercy,--utterly free. I would never be so base as +to hold you by a word." + +Mercy smiled half-bitterly, as she replied,-- + +"Words never hold people, and you know very well it is only an empty form +of words to say that I am free. I do not want to be free, darling," she +added, in a burst of tenderness toward him. "You could not set me free, if +you tried." + +When Mercy told Parson Dorrance her intention of going away, his face +changed as if some fierce spasm wrung him; but it was over in a second, +and he said,-- + +"You are quite right, my child,--quite right. It will be a great deal +better for you in every way. This is no place for you now. You must have +at least a year or two of travel and entire change." + +In her heart, Mercy contrasted the replies of her two lovers. She could +not banish the feeling that one was the voice of a truer love than the +other. She fought against the feeling as against a treason; but the truth +was strongest. In her heart, she knew that the man she did not love was +manlier than the man she loved. + + + + +Chapter XI + + + +For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself +to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain +movements for a certain length of time, and could by no possibility stop. +He did not suffer as he had expected. Sometimes it seemed to him that he +did not suffer at all; and he was terrified at this very absence of +suffering. Then again he had hours and days of a dull despair, which was +worse than any more active form of suffering. Now he understood, he +thought, how in the olden time men had often withdrawn themselves from the +world after some great grief, and had lived long, stagnant lives in +deserts and caves. He had thought it would kill him to lose Mercy out of +his life. Now he felt sure that he should live to be a hundred years old; +should live by very help of the apathy into which he had sunk. Externally, +he seemed very little changed,--a trifle quieter, perhaps, and gentler. +His mother sometimes said to herself,-- + +"Steve is really getting old very fast for so young a man;" but she was +content with the change. It seemed to bring them nearer together, and made +her feel more at ease as to the possibility of his falling in love. Her +old suspicions and jealousies of Mercy had died out root and branch, +within three months after her departure. Stephen's unhesitating assurance +to her that he did not expect to write to Mercy had settled the question +in her mind once for all. If she had known that at the very moment when he +uttered these words he had one long letter from Mercy and another to her +lying in his pocket, the shock might well-nigh have killed her; for never +once in Mrs. White's most jealous and ill-natured hours had the thought +crossed her mind that her son would tell her a deliberate lie. He told it, +however, unflinchingly, in as gentle and even a tone and with as unruffled +a brow as he would have bade her good-morning. He had thought the whole +matter over, and deliberately resolved to do it. He did it to save her +from pain; and he had no more compunction about it than he would have had +about closing a blind, to shut out a sunlight too strong for her eyes. +What a terrible thing is the power which human beings have of deceiving +each other! Woe to any soul which trusts itself to any thing less than an +organic integrity of nature, to which a lie is impossible! + +Mercy's letters disappointed Stephen. They were loving; but they were +concise, sensible, sometimes merry, and always cheerful. Her life was +constantly broadening; friends crowded around her; and her art was +becoming more and more to her every day. Her name was beginning to be +known, and her influence felt. Her verses were simple, and went to +people's hearts. They were also of a fine and subtle flavor, and gave +pleasure to the intellect. Strangers began to write words of +encouragement to her,--sometimes a word of gratitude for help, sometimes a +word of hearty praise. She began to feel that she had her own circle of +listeners, unknown friends, who were always ready to hear her when she +spoke. This consciousness is a most exquisite happiness to a true artist: +it is a better stimulus than all the flattering criticism in the world can +give. + +She was often touched to tears by the tributes she received from these +unknown friends. They had a wide range, coming sometimes from her +fellow-artists in literature, sometimes from lowly and uncultured people. +Once there came to her by mail, on a sheet of coarse paper, two faded +roses, fragrant,--for they were cinnamon roses, whose fragrance never +dies,--but yellow and crumpled, for they had journeyed many days to reach +her. They were tied together by a bit of blue yarn; and on the paper was +written, in ill-spelt words, "I wanted to send you something; and these +were all I had. I am an old woman, and very poor. You've helped me ever so +much." + +Another gift was a moss basket filled with arbutus blossoms. Hid away in +the leaves was a tiny paper, on which were written some graceful verses, +evidently by a not unpractised hand. The signature was in initials unknown +to Mercy; but she hazarded a guess as to the authorship, and sent the +following verses in reply:-- + + TO E.B. + + At night, the stream came to the sea. + "Long leagues," it cried, "this drop I bring, + O beauteous, boundless sea! + What is the meagre, paltry thing + In thine abundance unto thee? + No ripple, in thy smallest wave, of me + Will know! No thirst its suffering + Shall better slake for my surrendering + My life! O sea, in vain + My leagues of toil and pain!" + + At night, wayfarers reached the sea. + "Long weary leagues we came," they cried, + "O beauteous, boundless sea! + The swelling waves of thy swift tide + Break on the shores where souls are free: + Through lonely wildernesses, unto thee + One tiny stream has been our guide, + And in the desert we had died, + If its oases sweet + Had not refreshed our feet." + + O tiny stream, lost in the sea, + Close symbol of a lifetime's speech! + O beauteous, boundless sea, + Close fitting symbol of the reach, + Of measureless Eternity! + Be glad, O stream, O sea, blest equally! + And thou whose words have helped to teach + Me this,--my unknown friend,--for each + Kind thought, warm thanks. + Only the stream can know + How at such words the long leagues lighter grow. + +All these new interests and occupations, while they did not in the least +weaken her loyalty to Stephen, filled her thoughts healthfully and +absorbingly, and left her no room for any such passionate longing and +brooding as Stephen poured out to her in his letters. He looked in vain +for any response to these expressions. Sometimes, unable to bear the +omission any longer, he would ask her pathetically why she did not say +that she longed to see him. Her reply was characteristic:-- + +"You ask me, dear, why I do not say that I long to see you. I am not sure +that I ever do long, in the sense in which you use the word. I know that I +cannot see you till next winter, just as I used to know every morning that +I could not see you until night; and the months between now and then seem +to me one solid interval of time to be filled up and made the most of, +just as the interval of the daytime between your going away in the morning +and coming home at night used to seem to me. I do not think, dear Stephen, +there is a moment of any day when I have not an under current of +consciousness of you; but it is not a longing for the sight of you. Are +you sure, darling, that the love which takes perpetual shape in such +longings is the strongest love?" + +Little by little, phrases like this sank into Stephen's mind, and +gradually crystallized into a firm conviction that Mercy was being weaned +from him. It was not so. It was only that separation and its surer tests +were adjusting to a truer level the relation between them. She did not +love him one whit less; but she was taking the position which belonged to +her stronger and finer organization. If she had ever lived by his side as +his wife, the same change would have come; but her never-failing +tenderness would have effectually covered it from his recognition, and hid +it from her own, so long as he looked into her eyes with pleading love, +and she answered with woman's fondness. No realization of inequality could +ever have come. It is, after all, the flesh and blood of the loved one +which we idealize. There is in love's sacraments a "real presence," which +handling cannot make us doubt. It is when we go apart and reflect that our +reason asks questions. Mercy did not in the least know that she was +outgrowing Stephen White. She did not in the least suspect that her +affection and her loyalty were centring around an ideal personality, to +which she gave his name, but which had in reality never existed. She +believed honestly that she was living for and in Stephen all this time; +that she was his, as he was hers, inalienably and for ever. If it had been +suggested to her that it was unnatural that she should be so content in a +daily life which he did not share, so busy and glad in occupations and +plans and aspirations into which he did not enter, she would have been +astonished. She would have said, "How foolish of me to do otherwise! We +have our lives to lead, our work to do. It would be a sin to waste one's +life, to leave one's work undone, because of the mere lack of seeing any +one human being, however dear." Stephen knew love better than this: he +knew that life without the daily sight of Mercy was a blank drudgery; +that, day by day, month by month, he was growing duller and duller, and +more and more lifeless, as if his very blood were being impoverished by +lack of nourishment. Surely it was a hard fate which inflicted on this +man, already so overburdened, the perpetual pain of a love denied, +thwarted, unhappy. Surely it was a brave thing in him to bear the double +load uncomplainingly, to make no effort to throw it off, and never by a +word or a look to visit his own sufferings on the head of the helpless +creature, who seemed to be the cause of them all. If there were any change +in his manner toward his mother during these months, it was that he grew +tenderer and more demonstrative to her. There were even times when he +kissed her, solely from the yearning need he felt to kiss something human, +he so longed for one touch of Mercy's hand. He would sometimes ask her +wistfully, "Do I make you happy, mother?" And she would be won upon and +softened by the words; when in reality they were only the outcry of the +famished heart which needed some reassurance that its sacrifices had not +been all in vain. + +Month after month went on, and no tenants came for the "wing." Stephen +even humiliated himself so far as to offer it to Jane Barker's husband at +a lowered rent; but his offer was surlily rejected, and he repented having +made it. Very bitterly he meditated on the strange isolation into which he +and his mother were forced. His sympathies were not broad and general +enough to comprehend it. He did not know how quickly all people feel an +atmosphere of withdrawal, an air of indifference. If Stephen had been rich +and powerful, the world would have forgiven him these traits, or have +smothered its dislike of them; but in a poor man, and an obscure one, such +"airs" were not to be tolerated. Nobody would live in the "wing." And so +it came to pass that one day Stephen wrote to Mercy the following +letter:-- + +"You will be sorry to hear that I have had to foreclose the mortgage on +this house. It was impossible to get a tenant for the other half of it, +and there was nothing else to be done. The house must be sold, but I doubt +if it brings the full amount of the loan. I should have done this three +months ago, except for your strong feeling against it. I am very sorry for +old Mrs. Jacobs; but it is her misfortune, not my fault. I have my mother +to provide for, and my first duty is to her. Of course, Mrs. Jacobs will +now have to go to the alms-house but I am not at all sure that she will +not be more comfortable there than she has made herself in the cottage. +She has starved herself all these years. Some people say she must have a +hoard of money there somewhere, that she cannot have spent even the little +she has received. + +"I shall move out of the house at once, into the little cottage you liked +so much, farther up on the hill. That is for rent, only fifty dollars a +year. I shall put this house into good repair, run a piazza around it as +you suggested, and paint it; and then I think I shall be sure of finding a +purchaser. It can be made a very pretty house by expending a little money +on it; and I can sell it for enough more to repay me. I am sure nobody +would buy it as it is." + +Mercy replied very briefly to this part of Stephen's letter. She had +discussed the question with him often before, and she knew the strict +justice of his claim; but her heart ached for the poor friendless old +woman, who was thus to lose her last dollar. If it had been possible for +Mercy to have continued to pay the rent of the wing herself, she would +gladly have done so; but, at her suggestion of such a thing, Stephen had +been so angry that she had been almost frightened. + +"I am not so poor yet, Mercy," he had exclaimed, "as to take charity from +you! I think I should go to the alms-house myself first. I don't see why +old Granny Jacobs is so much to you, any way." + +"Only because she is so absolutely friendless, Stephen," Mercy had replied +gently. "I never before knew of anybody who had not a relative or a friend +in the world; and I am afraid they are cruel to the poor people at the +alms-house. They all look so starved and wretched!" + +"Well, it will be no more than she deserves," said Stephen; "for she was +cruel to her husband's brother's wife. I used to hear horrid stories, when +I was a boy, about how she drove them out of the house; and she was cruel +to her son too, and drove him away from home. Of course, I am sorry to be +the instrument of punishing her, and I do have a certain pity for the old +woman; but it is really her own fault. She might be living now in comfort +with her son, perhaps, if she had treated him well." + +"We can't go by such 'ifs' in this world, Steve," said Mercy, earnestly. +"We have to take things as they are. I don't want to be judged way back in +my life. Only God knows all the 'ifs.'" Such conversations as these had +prepared Mercy for the news which Stephen now wrote her; but they had in +no wise changed her feeling in regard to it. She believed in the bottom of +her heart that Stephen might have secured a tenant, if he had tried. He +had once, in speaking of the matter, dropped a sentence which had shocked +her so that she could never forget it. + +"It would be a great deal better for me," he had said, "to have the money +invested in some other way. If the house does fall into my hands, I shall +sell it; and, even if I don't get the full amount of what father loaned, I +shall make it bring us in a good deal more than it does this way." + +This sentence rang in Mercy's ears, as she read in Stephen's letter all +his plans for improving the house; but the thing was done, and it was not +Mercy's habit to waste effort or speech over things which could not be +altered. + +"I am very sorry," she wrote, "that you have been obliged to take the +house. You know how I always felt for poor old Granny Jacobs. Perhaps we +can do something to make her more comfortable in the alms-house. I think +Lizzy could manage that for us." + +And in her own mind Mercy resolved that the old woman should never lack +for food and fire, however unwilling the overseers might be to permit her +to have unusual comforts. + +Stephen's next letter opened with these words: "O Mercy, I have such a +strange thing to tell you. I am so excited I can hardly find words. I have +found a lot of money in your old fireplace. Just think of our having sat +there so quietly night after night, within hands' reach of it, all last +winter! And how lucky that I found it, instead of any of the workmen! +They'd have pocketed it, and never said a word." + +"To be sure they would," thought Mercy, "and poor old Granny Jacobs would +have been"--she was about to think, "cheated out of her rights again," +but with a pang she changed the phrase into "none the better off for it. +Oh, how glad I am for the poor old thing! People always said her husband +must have hid money away somewhere." + +Mercy read on. "I was in such a hurry to get the house done before the +snow came that I took hold myself, and worked every night and morning +before the workmen came; and, after they had gone, I found this last +night, and I declare, Mercy, I haven't shut my eyes all night long. It +seems to me too good to be true. I think there must be as much as three +thousand dollars, all in solid gold. Some of the coins I don't know the +value of; but the greater proportion of them are English sovereigns. Of +course rich people wouldn't think this such a very big sum, but you and I +know how far a little can go for poor people." + +"Yes, indeed," thought Mercy. "Why, it will make the poor old woman +perfectly comfortable all her life: it will give her more than she had +from the house." And Mercy laid the letter in her lap and fell into a +reverie, thinking how strange it was that this good fortune should have +come about by means of an act which had seemed to her cruel on Stephen's +part. + +She took the letter up again. It continued: "O Mercy, my darling, do you +suppose you can realize what this sudden lift is to me? All my life I have +found our poverty so hard to bear, and these latter years I have bitterly +felt the hardship of being unable to go out into the world and make my +fortune as other men do, as I think I might, if I were free. But this sum, +small as it is, will be a nucleus, I feel sure it will, of a competency at +least. I know of several openings where I can place it most +advantageously. O Mercy! dear, dear Mercy! what hopes spring up in my +heart! The time may yet come when we shall build up a lovely home +together. Bless old Jacobs's miserliness! How little he knew what he was +hoarding up his gold for!" + +At this point, Mercy dropped the letter,--dropped it as if it had been a +viper that stung her. She was conscious of but two things: a strange, +creeping cold which seemed to be chilling her to the very marrow of her +bones; and a vague but terrible sense of horror, mentally. The letter fell +to the floor. She did not observe it. A half-hour passed, and she did not +know that it had been a moment. Gradually, her brain began to rouse into +activity again, and strove confusedly with the thoughts which crowded on +it. + +"That would be stealing. He can't mean it. Stephen can't be a thief." +Half-formed, incoherent sentences like these floated in her mind, seemed +to be floating in the air, pronounced by hissing voices. + +She pressed her hands to her temples, and sprang to her feet. The letter +rustled on the floor, as her gown swept over it. She turned and looked at +it, as if it were a living thing she would kill. She stooped to pick it +up, and then recoiled from it. She shrank from the very paper. All the +vehemence of her nature was roused. As in the moment of drowning people +are said to review in one swift flash of consciousness their whole lives, +so now in this moment did Mercy look back over the months of her life with +Stephen. Her sense of the baseness of his action now was like a lightning +illuming every corner of the past: every equivocation, every concealment, +every subterfuge he had practised, stood out before her, bare, stripped of +every shred of apology or excuse. "He lies; he has always lied. Why should +he not steal?" she exclaimed. "It is only another form of the same thing. +He stole me, too; and he made me steal him. He is dishonest to the very +core. How did I ever love such a man? What blinded me to his real nature?" + +Then a great revulsion of feeling, of tenderness toward Stephen, would +sweep over her, and drown all these thoughts. "O my poor, brave, patient +darling! He never meant to do any thing wrong in his life. He does not see +things as I do: no human soul could see clearly, standing where he stands. +There is a moral warp in his nature, for which he is no more responsible +than a tree is responsible for having grown into a crooked shape when it +was broken down by heavy stones while it was a sapling. Oh, how unjust I +am to him! I will never think such thoughts of him again. My darling, my +darling! He did not stop to think in his excitement that the money was +not his. I daresay he has already seen it differently." + +Like waves breaking on a beach, and rolling back again to meet higher +waves and be swallowed up in them, these opposing thoughts and emotions +struggled with each other in Mercy's bosom. Her heart and her judgment +were at variance, and the antagonism was irreconcilable. She could not +believe that her lover was dishonest. She could not but call his act a +theft. The night came and went, and no lull had come to the storm by which +her soul was tossed. She could not sleep. As the morning dawned, she rose +with haggard and weary eyes, and prepared to write to Stephen. In some of +her calmer intervals, she had read the remainder of his letter. It was +chiefly filled with the details of the manner in which the gold had been +hidden. A second fireplace had been built inside the first, leaving a +space of several inches between the two brick walls. On each side two +bricks had been so left that they could be easily taken out and replaced; +and the bags of gold hung upon iron stanchions in the outer wall. What a +strange picture it must have been in the silent night hours,--the old +miser bending above the embers of the dying fire on the hearth, and +reaching down the crevice to his treasures! The bags were of leather, +curiously embossed; they were almost charred by the heat, and the gold was +dull and brown. + +"I wonder which old fellow put it there?" said Stephen, at the end of his +letter. "Captain John would have been more likely to have foreign gold; +but why should he hide it in his brother's fireplace? At any rate, to +whichever of them I am indebted for it, I am most profoundly grateful. If +ever I meet him in any world, I'll thank him." + +Suddenly the thought occurred to Mercy, "Perhaps old Mrs. Jacobs is dead. +Then there would be nobody who had any right to the money. But no: Stephen +would have told me if she had been." + +Still she clung to this straw of a hope; and, when she sat down to write +to Stephen, these words came first to her pen:-- + +"Is Mrs. Jacobs dead, Stephen? You do not say any thing about her; but I +cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself, unless she is dead. If she is alive, the money is hers. Nobody +but her husband or his brother could have put it there. Nobody else has +lived in the house, except very poor people. Forgive me, dear, but perhaps +you had not thought of this when you first wrote: it has very likely +occurred to you since then, and I may be making a very superfluous +suggestion." So hard did she cling to the semblance of a trust that all +would yet prove to be well with her love and her lover. + +Stephen's reply came by the very next mail. It was short: it ran thus:-- + +"DEAR DARLING,--I do not know what to make of your letter. Your sentence, +'I cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself,' is a most extraordinary one. What do you mean by 'keeping it +for myself'? It is mine: the house was mine and all that was in it. Old +Mrs. Jacobs is alive still, at least she was last week; but she has no +more claim on that money than any other old woman in town. I can't suppose +you would think me a thief, Mercy; but your letter strikes me as a very +strange one. Suppose I were to discover that there is a gold mine in the +orchard,--stranger things than that have happened,--would you say that +that also belonged to Mrs. Jacobs and not to me? The cases are precisely +parallel. You have allowed your impulsive feeling to run away with your +judgment; and, as I so often tell you, whenever you do that, you are +wrong. I never thought, however, it would carry you so far as to make you +suspect me of a dishonorable act." + +Stephen was deeply wounded. Mercy's attempted reticence in her letter had +not blinded him. He felt what had underlain the words, and it was a hard +blow to him. His conscience was as free from any shadow of guilt in the +matter of that money as if it had been his by direct inheritance from his +own father. Feeling this, he had naturally the keenest sense of outrage at +Mercy's implied accusation. + +Before Stephen's second letter came, Mercy had grown calm. The more she +thought the thing over, the more she felt sure that Mrs. Jacobs must be +dead, and that Stephen in his great excitement had forgotten to mention +the fact. Therefore the second letter was even a greater blow to her than +the first: it was a second and a deeper thrust into a wound which had +hardly begun to heal. There was also a tone of confident, almost +arrogant, assumption in the letter, it seemed to Mercy, which irritated +her. She did not perceive that it was the inevitable confidence of a +person so sure he is right that he cannot comprehend any doubt in +another's mind on the subject. There was in Mercy's nature a vein of +intolerance, which was capable of the most terrible severity. She was as +blinded, to Stephen's true position in the matter as he was to hers. The +final moment of divergence had come: its seeds were planted in her nature +and in Stephen's when they were born. Nothing could have hindered their +growth, nothing could have forestalled their ultimate result. It was only +a question of time and of occasion, when the two forces would be arrayed +against each other, and would be found equally strong. + +Mercy took counsel with herself now, and delayed answering this second +letter. She was resolved to be just to Stephen. + +"I will think this thing over and over," she said to herself, "till I am +sure past all doubt that I am right, before I say another word." + +But her long thinking did not help Stephen. Each day her conviction grew +deeper, her perception clearer, her sense of alienation from Stephen +profounder. If a moral antagonism had grown up between them in any other +shape, it would have been less fatal to her love. There were many species +of wrong-doing which would have been less hateful in her sight. It seemed +to her sometimes that there could be no crime in the world which would +appear to her so odious as this. Her imagination dwelt on the picture of +the lonely old woman in the alms-house. She had been several times to see +Mrs. Jacobs, and had been much moved by a certain grim stoicism which gave +almost dignity to her squalor and wretchedness. + +"She always had the bearing of a person who knew she was suffering +wrongly, but was too proud to complain," thought Mercy. "I wonder if she +did not all along believe there was something wrong about the mortgage?" +and Mercy's suspicious thoughts and conjectures ran far back into the +past, fastening on the beginnings of all this trouble. She recollected old +Mr. Wheeler's warnings about Stephen, in the first weeks of her stay in +Penfield. She recollected Parson Dorrance's expression, when he found out +that she had paid her rent in advance. She tortured herself by reviewing +minutely every little manoeuvre she had known of Stephen's practising to +conceal his relation with her. + +Let Mercy once distrust a person in one particular, and she distrusted him +in all. Let one act of his life be wrong, and she believed that his every +act was wrong in motive, or in relation to others, however specious and +fair it might be made to appear. All the old excuses and apologies she had +been in the habit of making for Stephen's insincerities to his mother and +to the world seemed to her now less than nothing; and she wondered how she +ever could have held them as sufficient. In vain her heart pleaded. In +vain tender memories thrilled her, by their vivid recalling of hours, of +moments, of looks and words. It was with a certain sense of remorse that +she dwelt on them, of shame that she was conscious of clinging to them +still. "I shall always love him, I am afraid," she said to herself; "but I +shall never trust him again,--never!" + +And hour by hour Stephen was waiting and looking for his letter. + + + + +Chapter XII. + + + +Stephen took Mercy's letter from the post-office at night. It was one week +past the time at which it would have reached him, if it had been written +immediately on the receipt of his. Only too well he knew what the delay +meant. He turned the letter over and over in his hand, and noted without +surprise it was very light. The superscription was written with unusual +care. Mercy's handwriting was free and bold, but illegible, unless she +made a special effort to write with care; and she never made that effort +in writing to Stephen. How many times he had said to her: "Never mind how +you write to me, dear. I read your sentences by another sense than the +sense of sight." This formally and neatly written, superscription smote +him, as a formal bow and a chilling glance from Mercy would, if he had +passed her on the street. + +He carried the letter home unopened. All through the evening it lay like a +leaden weight in his bosom, as he sat by his mother's side. He dared not +read it until he was sure of being able to be alone for hours. At last he +was free. As he went upstairs to his room, he thought to himself, "This is +the hour at which I used to fly to her, and find such welcome. A year ago +to-night how happy we were!" With a strange disposition to put off the +opening of the letter, he moved about his room, rearranged the books, +lighted an extra lamp, and finally sat down in an arm-chair, and leaning +both his arms on the table looked at the letter lying there so white, so +still. He felt a preternatural consciousness of what was in it; and he +shrank from looking at the words, as a condemned prisoner might shrink +from reading his own death-warrant. The room was bitterly cold. Fires in +bed-rooms were a luxury Stephen had never known. As he sat there, his body +and heart seemed to be growing numb together. At last he said, "I may as +well read it," and took the letter up. As he opened it and read the first +words, "My darling Stephen," his heart gave a great bound. She loved him +still. What a reprieve in that! He had yet to learn that love can be +crueller than any friendship, than any indifference, than any hate: +nothing is so exacting, so inexorable, as love. The letter was full of +love; but it was, nevertheless, hard and pitiless in its tone. Stephen +read it again and again: then he held it in the flame of the lamp, and let +it slowly burn, until only a few scorched fragments remained. These he +folded in a small paper, and put into his pocket-book. Why he did this, he +could not tell, and wondered at himself for doing it. Then he walked the +room for an hour or two, revolving in his mind what he should say to +Mercy. His ideas arranged themselves concisely and clearly. He had been +stung by Mercy's letter into a frame of feeling hardly less inexorable +than her own. He said to himself, "She never truly loved me, or nothing +under heaven could make her believe me capable of a dishonesty;" and, in +midst of all his pain at this thought, he had an indignant resentment, as +if Mercy herself had been in some way actively responsible for all this +misery. + +His letter was shorter than Mercy's. They were sad, strange letters to +have passed between lovers. Mercy's ran as follows:-- + +"MY DARLING STEPHEN,--Your letters have shocked me so deeply that I find +myself at a loss for words in which to reply. I cannot understand your +present position at all. I have waited all these days, hoping that some +new light would come to me, that I could see the whole thing differently; +but I cannot. On the contrary, each hour that I think of it (and I have +thought of nothing else since your second letter came) only makes my +conviction stronger. Darling, that money is Mrs. Jacobs's money, by every +moral right. You may be correct in your statement as to the legal rights +of the case. I take it for granted that you are. At any rate, I know +nothing about that; and I rest no argument upon it at all. But it is clear +as daylight to me that morally you are bound to give her the money. +Suppose you had had permission from her to make those changes in the +house, while you were still her tenant, and had found the money, then you +would have handed it to her unhesitatingly. Why? Because you would have +said, 'This woman's husband built this house. No one except his brother +who could possibly have deposited this money here has lived in the house. +One of those two men was the owner of that gold. In either case, she is +the only heir, and it is hers. I am sure you would have felt this, had we +chanced to discover the money on one of those winter nights you refer to. +Now in what has the moral obligation been changed by the fact that the +house has come into your hands? Not by ordinary sale, either; but simply +by foreclosure of a mortgage, under conditions which were certainly very +hard for Mrs. Jacobs, inasmuch as one-half the interest has always been +paid. This money which you have found would have paid nearly the whole of +the original loan. It was hers, only she did not know where it lay. O +Stephen, my darling, I do implore you not to do this great wrong. You will +certainly come to see, sooner or later, that it was a dishonest act; and +then it will be too late to undo it. If I thought that by talking with you +I could make you see it as I do, I would come to you at once. But I keep +clinging to the hope that you will see it of yourself, that a sudden +realization of it will burst upon you like a great light. Don't speak so +angrily to me of calling you a thief. I never used the word. I never +could. I know the act looks to you right, or you would not commit it. But +it is terrible to me that it should look so to you. I feel, darling, as if +you were color-blind, and I saw you about to pick a most deadly fruit, +whose color ought to warn every one from touching it; but you, not seeing +the color, did not know the danger; and I must save you at all hazards, at +all costs. Oh, what shall I say, what shall I say! How can I make you see +the truth? God help us if I do not; for such an act as this on your part +would put an impassable gulf between our souls for ever. Your loving, + +"MERCY." + +Stephen's letter was in curter phrase. Writing was not to him a natural +form of expression. Even of joyous or loving words he was chary, and much +more so of their opposites. His life-long habit of repression of all signs +of annoyance, all complaints, all traces of suffering, told still more on +his written words than on his daily speech and life. His letter sounded +harder than it need for this reason; seemed to have been written in +antagonism rather than in grief, and so did injustice to his feeling. + +"MY DEAR MERCY,--It is always a mistake for people to try to impose their +own standards of right and wrong on others. It gives me very great pain to +wound you in any way, you know that; and to wound you in such a way as +this gives me the greatest possible pain. But I cannot make your +conscience mine. If this money had not seemed to me to be justly my own, I +should never have thought of taking it. As it does seem to me to be justly +my own, your believing it to be another's ought not to change my action. +If I had only my own future to consider, I might give it up, for the sake +of your peace of mind. But it is not so. I have a helpless invalid +dependent on me; and one of the hardest things in my life to bear has +always been the fear that I might lose my health, and be unable to earn +even the poor living we now have. This sum, small as it is, will remove +that fear, will enable me to insure for my mother a reasonable amount of +comfort as long as she lives; and I cannot give it up. I do not suppose, +either, that it would make any difference in your feeling if I gave it up +solely to please you, and not because I thought it wrong to keep it. How +any act which I honestly believe to be right, and which you know I +honestly believe to be right, can put 'an impassable gulf between our +souls for ever,' I do not understand. But, if' it seems so to you, I can +only submit; and I will try to forget that you ever said to me, 'I shall +trust you till I die!' O Mercy, Mercy, ask yourself if you are just! + +"STEPHEN." + +Mercy grasped eagerly at the intimation in this letter that Stephen might +possibly give the money up because she desired it. + +"Oh, if he will only not keep it, I don't care on what grounds he gives it +up!" she exclaimed. "I can bear his thinking it was his, if only the money +goes where it belongs. He will see afterwards that I was right." And she +sat down instantly, and wrote Stephen a long letter, imploring him to do +as he had suggested. + +"Darling," she said, "this last letter of yours has given me great +comfort." As Stephen read this sentence, he uttered an ejaculation of +surprise. What possible comfort there could have been in the words he +remembered to have written he failed to see; but it was soon made clear to +him. + +"You say," she continued, "that you might possibly give the money up for +sake of my peace of mind, if it were not for the fear that your mother +might suffer. O Stephen, then give it up! give it up! Trust to the +future's being at least as kind as the past. I will not say another word +about the right or wrong of the thing. Think that my feeling is all morbid +and overstrained about it, if you will. I do not care what you think of +me, so that I do not have to think of you as using money which is not your +own. And, darling, do not be anxious about the future: if any thing +happens to you, I will take care of your mother. It is surely my right +next to yours. I only wish you would let me help you in it even now. I am +earning more and more money. I have more than I need. Oh, if you would +only take some of it, darling! Why should you not? I would take it from +you, if you had it and I had not. I could give you in a very few years as +much as this you have found and never miss it. Do let me atone to you in +this way for your giving up what you think is your right in the matter of +this ill-fated money. O Stephen, I could be almost happy again, if you +would do this! You say it would make no difference in my feeling about it, +if you gave the money up only to please me, and not because you thought it +wrong to keep it. No, indeed! that is not so. I would be happier, if you +saw it as I do, of course; but, if you cannot, then the next best thing, +the only thing left for my happiness, is to have you yield to my wish. +Why, Stephen, I have even felt so strongly about it as this: that +sometimes, in thinking it over, I have had a wild impulse to tell you that +if you did not give the money to Mrs. Jacobs I would inform the +authorities that you had it, and so test the question whether you had the +right to keep it or not. Any thing, even your humiliation, has at times +seemed to me better than that you should go on living in the possession of +stolen money. You can see from this how deeply I felt about the thing. I +suppose I really never could have done this. At the last moment, I should +have found it impossible to array myself against you in any such public +way; but, oh, my darling, I should always have felt as if I helped steal +the money, if I kept quiet about it. You see I use a past tense already, I +feel so certain that you will give it up now. Dear, dear Stephen, you will +never be sorry: as soon as it is done, you will be glad. I wish that gold +had been all sunk in the sea, and never seen light again, the sight of it +has cost us so dear. Darling, I can't tell you what a load has rolled off +my heart. Oh, if you could know what it has been to me to have this cloud +over my thoughts of you! I have always been so proud of you, +Stephen,--your patience, your bravery. In my thought, you have stood +always for my ideal of the beautiful alliance of gentleness and strength. +Darling, we owe something to those who love us: we owe it to them not to +disappoint them. If I were to be tempted to do some dishonorable thing, I +should say to myself: 'No, for I must be what Stephen believes me. It is +not only that I will not grieve him: still more, I will not disappoint +him.'" + +Mercy wrote on and on. The reaction from the pent-up grief, the prolonged +strain, was great. In her first joy at any, even the least, alleviation of +the horror she had felt at the thought of Stephen's dishonesty, she +over-estimated the extent of the relief she would feel from his +surrendering the money at her request. She wrote as buoyantly, as +confidently, as if his doing that would do away with the whole wrong from +the beginning. In her overflowing, impetuosity, also, she did not consider +what severe and cutting things were implied as well as said in some of her +sentences. She closed the letter without rereading it, hastened to send it +by the first mail, and then began to count the days which must pass before +Stephen's answer could reach her. + +Alas for Mercy! this was a sad preparation for the result which was to +follow her hastily written words. It seems sometimes as if fate delighted +in lifting us up only to cast us down, in taking us up into a high +mountain to show us bright and goodly lands, only to make our speedy +imprisonment in the dark valley the harder to bear. + +Stephen read this last letter of Mercy's with an ever-increasing sense of +resentment to the very end. For the time being it seemed to actually +obliterate every trace of his love for her. He read the words as +wrathfully as if they had been written by a mere acquaintance. + +"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Stolen money! Inform the authorities!' +Let her do it if she likes and see how she would come out at the end of +that.' And Stephen wrote Mercy very much such a letter as he would have +written to a man under the same circumstances. Luckily, he kept it a day, +and, rereading it in a cooler moment was shocked at its tone, destroyed +it, and wrote another. But the second one was no less hard, only more +courteous, than the first. It ran thus:-- + +"MERCY,--I am sorry that any thing in my last letter should have led you +to suppose that under the existing circumstances you could control my +actions. All I said was that I might, for the sake of your peace of mind, +give up this money, if it were not for my obligations to my mother. It was +a foolish thing to say, since those obligations could not be done away +with. I ought to have known that in your overwrought frame of mind you +would snatch at the suggestion, and make it the basis of a fresh appeal. + +"Now let me say, once for all, that my mind is firmly made up on this +subject, and that it must be dropped between us. The money is mine, and I +shall keep it. If you think it your duty to 'inform the authorities,' as +you say, you must do so; and I would not say one word to hinder you. I +would never, as you do in this case, attempt to make my own conscience the +regulator of another's conduct. If you do regard me as the possessor of +'stolen money,' it is undoubtedly your duty to inform against me. I can +only warn you that all you would gain by it would be a most disagreeable +exposure of your own and my private affairs, and much mortification to +both of us. The money is mine beyond all question. I shall not reply to +any more letters from you on this subject. There is nothing more to be +said; and all prolonging of the discussion is a needless pain, and is +endangering the very foundations of our affection for each other. I want +to say one thing more, however; and I hope it will impress you as it +ought. Never forget that the strongest proof that my conscience was +perfectly clear in regard to that money is that I at once told you of its +discovery. It would have been perfectly easy for me to have accounted to +you in a dozen different ways for my having come into possession of a +little money, or even to have concealed from you the fact that I had done +so; and, if I had felt myself a thief, I should certainly have taken good +care that you did not know it. + +"I must also thank you for your expressions of willingness to take care of +my mother, in case of any thing's happening to me. Until these last +letters of yours, I had often thought, with a sense of relief, that, if I +died, you would never see my mother suffer; but now any such thought is +inseparably associated with bitter memories. And my mother will not, in +any event, need your help; for the money I shall have from the sale of the +house, together with this which I have found, will give her all she will +require. + +"You must forgive me if this letter sounds hard, Mercy. I have not your +faculty of mingling endearing epithets with sharp accusations and +reproaches. I cannot be lover and culprit at once, as you are able to be +lover and accuser, or judge. I love you, I think, as deeply and tenderly +as ever; but you yourself have made all expression of it impossible. +STEPHEN." + +This letter roused in Mercy most conflicting emotions. Wounded feeling at +its coldness, a certain admiration for its tone of immovable resolution, +anger at what seemed to her Stephen's unjustifiable resentment of her +effort to influence his action,--all these blended in one great pain which +was well-nigh unbearable. For the time being, her distress in regard to +the money seemed cast into shadow and removed by all this suffering in her +personal relation with Stephen; but the personal suffering had not so deep +a foundation as the other. Gradually, all sense of her own individual +hurts in Stephen's words, in his acts, in the weakening of the bond which +held them together, died out, and left behind it only a sense of +bereavement and loss; while the first horror of Stephen's wrong-doing, of +the hopeless lack in his moral nature, came back with twofold intensity. +This had its basis in convictions,--in convictions which were as strong as +the foundations of the earth: the other had its basis in emotions, in +sensibilities which might pass away or be dulled. + +Spite of Stephen's having forbidden all reference to the subject, Mercy +wrote letter after letter upon it, pleading sometimes humbly, sometimes +vehemently. It seemed to her that she was fighting for Stephen's very +life, and she could not give way. To all these out-pourings Stephen made +no reply. He answered the letters punctually, but made no reference to the +question of the money, save by a few short words at the end of his letter, +or in a postscript: such as, "It grieves me to see that you still dwell on +that matter of which I said we must speak no more;" or, "Pray, dear Mercy, +do not prolong that painful discussion. I have nothing more to say to you +about it." + +For the rest, his letters were faithful transcripts of the little events +of his uneventful life, warm comments on any of Mercy's writings which he +read, and gentle assurances of his continued affection. The old longings, +broodings, and passionate yearnings, which he used to pour out, ceased. +Stephen was wounded to the very quick; and the wound did not heal. Yet he +felt no withdrawal from Mercy: probably nothing she could do would ever +drive him from her. He would die, if worst came to worst, lying by her +side and looking up in her eyes, like a dog at the feet of its master who +had shot him. + +Mercy was much moved by this tone of patience in his letters: it touched +her, as the look of patient endurance on his face used to touch her. It +also irritated her, it was so foreign to her own nature. + +"How can he help answering these things I say?" she would exclaim. "He has +no right to refuse to talk with me about such a vital matter." If any one +had said to Mercy, "He has as much right to refuse to discuss the question +as you have to force it upon him," she could not have seen the point +fairly. + +But all Stephen's patience, gentleness, and firmness did not abate one jot +or tittle of Mercy's conviction that he was doing a dishonest thing. Oh +the contrary, his quiet appeared to her more and more like a callous +satisfaction; and his occasional cheerfulness, like an exultation over his +ill-gotten gains. Slowly there crept into her feeling towards him a +certain something which was akin to scorn,--the most fatal of deaths to +love. The hateful word "thief" seemed to be perpetually ringing in her +ears. When she read accounts of robberies, of defalcations, of breaches of +trust, she found herself always drawing parallels between the conduct of +these criminals and Stephen's. The secrecy, the unassailable safety of his +crime, seemed to her to make it inexpressibly more odious. + +"I do believe," she thought to herself again and again, "that if he had +been driven by his poverty to knocking men down on the highway, and +robbing them of their pocket-books, I should not have so loathed it!" + +As the weeks went on, Mercy's unhappiness increased rather than +diminished. There seemed an irreconcilible conflict between her love and +every other emotion in her soul. She seemed to herself to be, as it were, +playing the hypocrite to her own heart in thinking thus of a man and +loving him still; for that she still loved Stephen, she did not once +doubt. At this time, she printed a little poem, which set many of her +friends to vondering from what experience of hers it could possibly have +been drawn. Mercy's poems were so largely subjective in tone that it was +hard for her readers to believe that they were not all drawn from her own +individual experience. + + A WOMAN'S BATTLE. + + Dear foe, I know thou'lt win the fight; + I know thou hast the stronger bark, + And thou art sailing in the light, + While I am creeping in the dark. + Thou dost not dream that I am crying, + As I come up with colors flying. + + I clear away my wounded, slain, + With strength like frenzy strong and swift; + I do not feel the tug and strain, + Though dead are heavy, hard to lift. + If I looked on their faces dying, + I could not keep my colors flying. + + Dear foe, it will be short,--our fight,-- + Though lazily thou train'st thy guns: + Fate steers us,--me to deeper night, + And thee to brighter seas and suns; + But thou'lt not dream that I am dying, + As I sail by with colors flying! + +There was great injustice to Stephen in this poem. When he read it, he +groaned, and exclaimed aloud, "O Mercy! O Mercy!" Then, as he read it over +again, he said, "Surely she could not have meant herself in this: it is +only dramatic. She could never call me her foe." Mercy had often said to +him of some of her most intense poems, "Oh, it was purely dramatic. I just +fancied how anybody would feel under such circumstances;" and he clung to +the hope that it was true in this case. But it was not. Already Mercy had +a sense of antagonism, of warfare, with Stephen, or rather with her love +for him. Already her pride was beginning to array itself in reticence, in +withdrawal, in suppression. More than once she had said to herself "I can +live without him! I could bear that pain better than this." More than once +she had asked herself with a kind of terror, "Do I really wish ever to see +Stephen again?" and had been forced to own in her secret thought that she +shrank from meeting him. She began even to consider the possibility of +deferring the visit to Lizzy Hunter, which she had promised to make in the +spring. As the time drew nearer, her unwillingness to go increased, and +she would no doubt have discovered some way of escape; but one day early +in March a telegram came to her, which left her no longer any room for +choice. + +It ran:-- + +"Uncle Dorrance is not expected to live. He wishes to see you. He is at my +house. Come immediately. + +"LIZZY HUNTER." + + + + +Chapter XIII. + + + +Within six hours after the receipt of this telegram, Mercy was on her way +to Penfield. Her journey would take a night and part of a day. As the +morning dawned, and she drew near the old familiar scenes, her heart was +wrung with conflicting memories and hopes and fears. The whole landscape +was dreary: the fields were dark and sodden, with narrow banks of +discolored snow lying under the fences, and thin rims of ice along the +edges of the streams and pools. The sky was gray; the bare trees were +gray: all life looked gray and hopeless to Mercy. She had had an +over-mastering presentiment from the moment when she read the telegram +that she should reach Penfield too late to see Parson Dorrance alive. A +strange certainty that he had died in the night settled upon her mind as +soon as she waked from her troubled sleep; and when she reached Lizzy's +door, and saw standing before it the undertaker's wagon, which she so well +remembered, there was no shock of surprise to her in the sight. At the +first sound of Mercy's voice, Lizzy came swiftly forward, and fell upon +her neck in a passion of crying. + +"O Mercy, Mercy, he"-- + +"Yes, dear, I know it," interrupted Mercy, in a calm tone. "I know he is +dead." + +"Why, who told you, Mercy?" exclaimed Lizzy. "He only died a few hours +ago,--about daybreak," + +"Oh, I thought he died in the night!" said Mercy, in a strange tone, as if +trying to recollect something accurately about which her memory was not +clear. Her look and her tone filled Lizzy with terror, and banished her +grief for the time being. + +"Mercy, Mercy, don't look so!" she exclaimed. "Speak to me! Oh, do cry, +can't you?" And Lizzy's tears flowed afresh. + +"No, Lizzy, I don't think I can cry," said Mercy, in the same strange, low +voice. "I wish I could have spoken to him once, though. Did he leave any +word for me? Perhaps there is something he wanted me to do." + +Mercy's face was white, and her lips trembled; but her look was hardly the +look of one in sorrow: it was a rapt look, as of one walking on dizzy +heights, breathless with some solemn purpose. Lizzy was convulsed with +grief, sobbing like a child, and pouring out one incoherent sentence after +another. Mercy soothed her and comforted her as a mother might have done, +and finally compelled her to be more calm. Mercy's magnetic power over +those whom she loved was almost unlimited. She forestalled their very +wills, and made them desire what she desired. + +"O Mercy, don't make me glad he is dead! You frighten me, darling. I don't +want to stop crying; but you have sealed up all my tears," cried Lizzy, +later in the day, when Mercy had been talking like a seer, who could look +into the streets of heaven, and catch the sound of the songs of angels. + +Mercy smiled sadly. "I don't want to prevent your crying, dear," she said, +"if it does you any good. But I am very sure that Mr. Dorrance sees us at +this moment, and longs to tell us how glad he is, and that we must be glad +for him." And Mercy's eyes shone as they looked steadfastly across the +room, as if the empty space were, to her vision, peopled with spirits. +This mood of exalted communion did not leave her. Her face seemed +transfigured by it. When she stood by the body of her loved teacher and +friend, she clasped her hands, and, bending over the face, exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, how good God was!" Then, turning suddenly to Lizzy, she exclaimed,-- + +"Lizzy, did you know that he loved me, and asked me to be his wife? This +is why I am thanking God for taking him to heaven." + +Lizzy's face paled. Astonishment, incredulity, anger, grief, all blended +in the sudden look she turned upon Mercy. "I thought so! I thought so! But +I never believed you knew it. And you did not love him! Mercy, I will +never forgive you!" + +"He forgave me," said Mercy, gently; "and so you might. But I shall never +forgive myself!" + +"Mercy Philbrick!" exclaimed Lizzy, "how could you help loving that man?" +And, in her excitement, Lizzy stretched out her right hand towards the +rigid, motionless figure under the white pall. "He was the most glorious +man God ever made." + +The two women stood side by side, looking into the face of the dead. It +was a strange place for these words to be spoken. It was as solemn as +eternity. + +"I did not help loving him," said Mercy, in a lower tone, her white face +growing whiter as she spoke. "But"--she paused. No words came to her lips, +for the bitter consciousness which filled her heart. + +Lizzy's voice sank to a husky whisper. + +"But what?" she said. "O Mercy, Mercy! is it Stephen White you love?" And +Lizzy's face, even in that solemn hour, took a look of scorn. "Are you +going to marry Stephen White?" she continued. + +"Never, Lizzy,--never!" said Mercy, in a tone as concentrated as if a +lifetime ended there; and, stooping low, she kissed the rigid hands which +lay folded on the heart of the man she ought to have loved, but had not. +Then, turning away, she took Lizzy's hands in hers, and kissing, her +forehead said earnestly,-- + +"We will never speak again of this, Lizzy, remember." Lizzy was overawed +by her tone, and made no reply. + +Parson Dorrance's funeral was a scene which will never be forgotten by +those who saw it. It was on one of the fiercest days which the fierce New +England March can show. A storm of rain and sleet, with occasional +softened intervals of snow, raged all day. The roads were gullies of +swift-running water and icy sloughs; the cold was severe; and the cutting +wind at times drove the sleet and rain in slanting scourges, before which +scarce man or beast could stand. The funeral was held in the village +church, which was larger than the college chapel. Long before the hour at +which the services were to begin, every pew was filled, and the aisles +were crowded with those who could not find seats. From every parish within +twenty miles the mourners had come. There was not one there who had not +heard words of help or comfort from Parson Dorrance's lips. The students +of the college filled the body of the church; the Faculty and +distinguished strangers sat in the front pews. The pews under one of the +galleries had been reserved for the negroes from "The Cedars." Early in +the morning the poor creatures had begun to flock in. Not a seat was +empty: old women, women with babies, old men, boys and girls, wet, +dripping, ragged, friendless, more than one hundred of them,--there they +were. They had walked all that distance in that terrible storm. Each one +had brought in his hand a green bough or a bunch of rock-ferns, something +of green beauty from the woods their teacher had taught them to love. They +sat huddled together, with an expression of piteous grief on every face, +which was enough to touch the stoniest heart. Now and then sobs would +burst from the women, and some old figure would be seen rocking to and fro +in uncontrollable sorrow. + +The coffin stood on a table in front of the pulpit. It seemed to be +resting on an altar of cedar and ferns. Mercy had brought from her old +haunts in the woods masses of the glossy evergreen fern, and interwoven +them with the boughs of cedar. At the end of the services, it was +announced that all who wished could pass by the coffin and take one last +look at their friend. + +Slowly and silently the congregation passed up the right aisle, looked on +the face, and passed out at the left door. It was a pathetic sight to see +the poor, outcast band wait patiently, humbly, till every one else had +gone: then, like a flock of stricken sheep, they rushed confusedly towards +the pulpit, and gathered round the coffin. Now burst out the grief which +had been pent up: with cries and ejaculations, they went tottering and +stumbling down the aisles. One old man, with hair as white as snow,--one +of the original fugitive slaves who had founded the settlement,--bent over +the coffin at its head, and clung with both hands to its edge, swaying +back and forth above it, crying aloud, till the sexton was obliged to +loosen his grasp and lead him away by force. + +The college faculty still sat in the front pews. There were some of their +number, younger men, scholars and men of the world, who had not been free +from a disposition to make good-natured fun of Parson Dorrance's +philanthropies. They shrugged their shoulders sometimes at the mention of +his parish at "The Cedars;" they regarded him as old-fashioned and +unpractical. They sat conscience-stricken and abashed now; the tears of +these bereaved black people smote their philosophy and their worldliness, +and showed them how shallow they were. Tears answered to tears, and the +college professors and the negro slaves wept together. + +"They have nobody left to love them now," exclaimed one of the youngest +and hitherto most cynical of Parson Dorrance's colleagues, as he stood +watching the grief-stricken creatures. + +While the procession formed to bear the body to the grave, the blacks +stood in a group on the church-steps, watching it. After the last carriage +had fallen into line, they hurried down and followed on in the storm. In +vain some kindly persons tried to dissuade them. It was two miles to the +cemetery, two miles farther away from their homes; but they repelled all +suggestions of the exposure with indignant looks, and pressed on. When the +coffin was lowered into the grave, they pushed timidly forward, and began +to throw in their green boughs and bunches of ferns. Every one else +stepped back respectfully as soon as their intention was discovered, and +in a moment they had formed in solid ranks close about the grave, each one +casting in his green palm of crown and remembrance,--a body-guard such as +no emperor ever had to stand around him in his grave. + +On the day after Mercy's arrival in town, Stephen had called to see her. +She had sent down to him a note with these words:-- + +"I cannot see you, dear Stephen, until after all is over. The funeral will +be to-morrow. Come the next morning, as early as you like." + +The hours had seemed bitterly long to Stephen. He had watched Mercy at the +funeral; and, when he saw her face bowed in her hands, and felt rather +than saw that she was sobbing, he was stung by a new sense of loss and +wrong that he had no right to be by her side and comfort her. He forgot +for the time, in the sight of her grief, all the unhappiness of their +relation for the past few months. He had unconsciously felt all along +that, if he could but once look in her eyes, all would be well. How +could he help feeling so, when he recalled the expression of childlike +trust and devotion which her sweet face always wore when she lifted it to +his? And now, as his eyes dwelt lingeringly and fondly on every line of +her bowed form, he had but one thought, but one consciousness,--his desire +to throw his arms about her, and exclaim, "O Mercy, are you not my own, my +very own?" + +With his heart full of this new fondness and warmth, Stephen went at an +early hour to seek Mercy. As he entered the house, he was sensibly +affected by the expression still lingering of the yesterday's grief. The +decorations of evergreens and flowers were still untouched. Mercy and +Lizzy had made the whole house gay as for a festival; but the very +blossoms seemed to-day to say that it had been a festival of sorrow. A +large sheaf of callas had stood on a small table at the head of the +coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood +near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange +expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into +the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as +fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the +door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with +outstretched arms. Something in her look made the outstretched arms fall +nerveless; made his springing step pause suddenly; made the very words +die away on his lips. "O Mercy!" was all he could say, and he breathed it +rather than said it. + +Mercy smiled a very piteous smile, and said, "Yes, Stephen, I am here." + +"O Mercy, it is not you! You are not here. What has done this to you? Did +you so love that man?" exclaimed Stephen, a sudden pang seizing him of +fiercest jealousy of the dead, whom he had never feared while he was +living. + +Mercy's face contracted, as if a sharp pain had wrenched every nerve. + +"No, I did not love him; that is, not as you mean. You know how very +dearly I did love him, though." + +"Dear darling, you are all worn out. This shock has been too much for you. +You are not well," said Stephen, tenderly, coming nearer to her and taking +her hand. "You must have rest and sleep at once." + +The hand was not Mercy's hand any more than the voice had been Mercy's +voice. Stephen dropped it, and, looking fixedly at Mercy's eyes, +whispered, "Mercy, you do not love me as you used to." + +Mercy's eyes drooped; she locked her hands tightly together, and said, "I +can't, Stephen." No possible form of words could have been so absolute. "I +can't!" "I do not," would have been merciful, would have held a hope, by +the side of this helpless, despairing, "I can't." + +Stephen sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. Mercy +stood still, near the white callas; her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed +on Stephen. At last she spoke, in a voice of unutterable yearning and +tenderness, "I do love you, Stephen." + +At these words, he pressed his hands tighter upon his eyes for one second, +then shook them hastily free, and looking up at Mercy said gently,-- + +"Yes, dear, I know you do; and I know you would have loved me always, if +you could. Do not be unhappy. I told you a long time ago that to have had +you once love me was enough for a lifetime." And Stephen smiled,--a smile +more pathetic than Mercy's had been. He went on, still in the same gentle +voice,--a voice out of which the very life seemed to have died,--"I hoped, +when we met, all would be right. It used to be so much to you, Mercy, to +look into my eyes, I thought you would trust me when you saw me." + +No reproach, no antagonism, no entreaty. With the long-trained patience of +a lifetime, Stephen accepted this great grief, and made no effort to +gainsay it. Mercy tried again and again to speak, but no words came. At +last, with a flood of tears, she exclaimed,-- + +"I cannot help it, Stephen,--I cannot help it." + +"No, darling, you cannot help it; and it is not your fault," replied +Stephen. Touched to the heart by his sweetness and forbearance, Mercy went +nearer him, and took his hand, and in her old way was about to lay it to +her cheek. + +Stephen drew it hastily away, and a shudder ran over his body. "No, Mercy, +do not try to do that. That is not right, when you do not trust me. You +cannot help loving the touch of my hand, Mercy,"--and a certain sad pride +lighted Stephen's face at the thought of the clinging affection which even +now stirred this woman's veins for him,--"any more than you can help +having ceased to trust me. If the trust ever comes back, then"--Stephen +turned his head away, and did not finish the sentence. A great silence +fell upon them both. How inexplicable it seemed to them that there was +nothing to say! At last Stephen rose, and said gravely,-- + +"Good-by, Mercy. Unless there is something I can do to help you, I would +rather not see you again." + +"No," whispered Mercy. "That is best." + +"And if the time ever comes, darling, when you need me, ... or trust me ... +again, will you write to me and say so?" + +"Yes," sobbed Mercy, and Stephen left her. On the threshold of the door, +he turned and fixed his eyes upon her with one long look of sorrow, +compassion, and infinite love. Her heart thrilled under it. She made an +eager step forward. If he had returned, she would have thrown herself into +his arms, and cried out, "O Stephen, I do love you, I do trust you." But +Stephen made an inexorable gesture of his hand, which said more than any +words, "No! no! do not deceive yourself," and was gone. + +And thus they parted for ever, this man and this woman who had been for +two years all in all to each other, who had written on each other's hearts +and lives characters which eternity itself could never efface. + +Hope lived long in Stephen's heart. He built too much on the memories of +his magnetic power over Mercy, and he judged her nature too much by his +own. He would have loved and followed her to the end, in spite of her +having become a very outcast of crime, if she had continued to love him; +and it was simply impossible for him to conceive of her love's being +either less or different. But, when in a volume of poems which Mercy +published one year after their parting, he read the following sonnet, he +knew that all was indeed over:-- + + DIED. + + Not by the death that kills the body. Nay, + By that which even Christ bade us to fear + Hath died my dead. + Ah, me! if on a bier + I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day, + I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay + My cheek to his in anguish which were near + To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear + In death as life. Mere separations weigh + As dust in balances of love. The death + That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain + To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore, + O thou once loved so well, loved now no more! + There is no resurrection for such slain, + No miracle of God could give thee breath! + + * * * * * + +Mercy Philbrick lived thirty years after the events described in these +pages. It was a life rich to overflowing, yet uneventful, as the world +reckons: a life lonely, yet full of companionship; sady yet full of cheer; +hard, and yet perpetually uplifted by an inward joy which made her very +presence like sunshine, and made men often say of her, "Oh, she has never +known sorrow." This was largely the result of her unquenchable gift of +song, of the true poet's temperament, to which life is for ever new, +beautiful, and glad. It was also the result of her ever-increasing +spirituality of nature. This took no shape of creed, worship, or what the +world's common consent calls religion. Most of the words spoken by the +teachers of churches repelled Mercy by their monotonous iteration of the +letter which killeth. But her realization of the solemn significance of +the great fact of being alive deepened every hour; her tenderness, her +sense of brotherhood to every human being, and her sense of the actual +presence and near love of God. Her old intolerance was softened, or rather +it had changed from antagonisms on the surface to living principles at the +core. Truth, truth, truth, was still the war-cry of her soul; and there +was an intensity in every word of her written or spoken pleadings on this +subject which might well have revealed to a careful analyzer of them that +they had sprung out of the depths of the profoundest experiences. Her +influence as a writer was very great. As she grew older, she wrote less +and less for the delight of the ear, more and more for the stirring of the +heart. To do a little towards making people glad, towards making them kind +to one another, towards opening their eyes to the omnipresent +beauty,--these were her ambitions. "Oh, the tender, unutterable beauty of +all created things!" were the opening lines of one of her sweetest songs; +and it might have been said to be one of the watchwords of her life. + +It took many years for her to reach this plane, to attain to the fulness +of this close spiritual communion with things seen and unseen. The double +bereavement and strain of her two years of life in Penfield left her for a +long time bruised and sore. Her relation with Stephen, as she looked back +upon it, hurt her in every fibre of her nature. Sometimes she was filled +with remorse for the grief she had caused him, and sometimes with poignant +distress, of doubt whether she had not after all been unjust to him. +Underlying all this remorse, all this doubt was a steadily growing +consciousness that her love for him was in the very outset a mistake, an +abnormal emotion, born of temporary and insufficient occasion, and +therefore sure to have sooner or later proved too weak for the tests of +life. On the other hand, her thoughts of Parson Dorrance grew constantly +warmer, tenderer, more assured. His character, his love for her, his +beautiful life, rose steadily higher and higher, and brighter and brighter +on her horizon, as the lofty snow-clad peaks of a mountain land reveal +themselves in all their grandeur to our vision only when we have journeyed +away from their base. Slowly the whole allegiance of her heart transferred +itself to the dead man's memory; slowly her grief for his loss deepened, +and yet with the deepened grief came a certain new and holy joy. It surely +could not be impossible for him to know in heaven that she was his on +earth? As confidently as if she had been wedded to him here, she looked +forward to the reunion with him there, and found in her secret +consciousness of this eternal bond a hidden rapture, such as has been the +stay of many a widowed heart through long lifetimes of loneliness. This +secret bond was like an impalpable yet impenetrable veil between her soul +and the souls of all men who came into relation with her. Men loved her +and sought her,--loved her warmly and sought her with long years of +devotion. The world often judged her uncharitably by reason of these +friendships, which were only friendships, and yet pointed to a warmer +regard than the world consents that friends may feel. But there was never +a man, of all the men who loved Mercy, who did not feel himself, spite of +all her frank and loving intimacy, withheld, debarred, separated from her +at a certain point, as if there stood drawn up there a cordon of viewless +spirits. + +The one grief above which she could not wholly rise, which at times smote +her and bowed her down, was her sense of her loss in being childless. The +heart of mother was larger in her even than the heart of wife. Her longing +for children of her own was so great that it was often more than she could +bear to watch little children at their play. She stood sometimes at her +window at dusk, and watched the poor laboring men and women going home, +leading or carrying their children; and it seemed as if her heart would +break. Everywhere, her eye noted the swarming groups of children, poor, +uncared for, so often unwelcome; and she said sadly to herself, "So many! +so many! and not one for me." Yet she never felt any desire to adopt +children. She distrusted her own patience and justice too much; and she +feared too deeply the development of hereditary traits which she could not +conquer; "I might find that I had taken a liar," she thought; "and I +should hate him." + +As she reached middle age, this unsatisfied desire ceased to be so great a +grief. She became more and more like a motherly friend to the young people +surrounding her. Her house was a home to them all, and she reproduced in +her own life very nearly the relation which Parson Dorrance had held to +the young people of Danby. Her friend Lizzy Hunter was now the mother of +four girls, all in their first young womanhood. They all strove eagerly +for the privilege of living with "Aunt Mercy," and went in turn to spend +whole seasons with her. + +On Stephen White's thirty-sixth birthday, his mother died. The ten years +which had passed since Mercy left him had grown harder and harder, day by +day; but he bore the last as silently and patiently as he bore the first, +and Mrs. White's last words to the gray-haired man who bent over her bed +were,-- + +"You have been a good boy, Steve,--a good boy. You'll have some rest now." + +Since the day he bade good-by to Mercy in the room from which Parson +Dorrance had just been buried, Stephen had never written to her, never +heard from her, except as all the world heard from her, in her published +writings. These he read eagerly, and kept them carefully in scrap-books. +He took great delight in collecting all the copies of her verses. +Sometimes a little verse of hers would go the rounds of the newspapers +for months, and each reappearance of it was a new pleasure to Stephen. He +knew most of them by heart; and he felt that he knew Mercy still, as well +as he knew her when she looked up in his face. On the night of his +mother's death he wrote to her these words:-- + +"MERCY,--It is ten years since we parted. I love you as I loved you then. +I shall never love any other woman. I am free now. My mother has died this +night. May I come and see you? I ask nothing of you, except to be your +friend. Can I not be that? + +"STEPHEN." + +If a ghost of one dead for ten years had entered her presence, Mercy had +hardly been more startled. Stephen had ceased to be a personality to her. +Striving very earnestly with herself to be kind, and to do for this +stranger whom she knew not what would be the very best and most healing +thing for his soul, Mercy wrote to him as follows:-- + +"DEAR STEPHEN,--Your note was a very great surprise to me. I am most +heartily thankful that you are at last free to live your life like other +men. I think that the future ought to hold some very great and good gifts +in store for you, to reward you for your patience. I have never known any +human being so patient as you. + +"You must forgive me for saying that I do not believe it is possible for us +to be friends. I could be yours, and would be glad to be so. But you could +not be mine while you continue so to set me apart from all other women, +as you say you do, in your affection. I am truly grieved that you do this, +and I hope that in your new free life you will very soon find other +relations which will make you forget your old one with me. I did you a +great harm, but we were both ignorant of our mistake. I pray that it may +yet be repaired, and that you may soon be at rest in a happy home with a +wife and children. Then I should be glad to see you: until then, it is not +best. + +"Yours most honestly, + +"MERCY." + +Until he read this letter, Stephen had not known that secretly in the +bottom of his heart he riad all these years cherished a hope that there +might yet be a future in store for him and Mercy. Now, by the new sense of +desolation which he felt, he knew that there must have been a little more +life than he thought left; in him to die. + +As soon as his mother was buried, he closed the house and went abroad. +There he roamed about listlessly from country to country, for many years, +acquiring a certain desultory culture, and buying, so far as his income +would permit, every thing he saw which he thought Mercy would like. Then +he went home, bought the old Jacobs house back again, and fitted it up in +every respect as Mercy had once suggested. This done, he sat down to +wait--for he knew not what. He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, +and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and +spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life +together. He led the life of a hermit,--rarely went out, and still more +rarely saw any one at home. He looked like a man of sixty rather than like +one of fifty. He was fast becoming an invalid, more, however, from the +lack of purpose and joy than from any disease. Life had been very hard to +Stephen. + +Nothing seemed more probable, contrasting his listless figure, gray hair, +and jaded face with Mercy's full, fresh countenance and bounding +elasticity, than that his dream of going first, and leaving to her the +gift of all he had, would be realized; but he was destined to outlive her +by many a long year. + +Mercy's death was a strange one. She had gone with two of Lizzy Hunter's +daughters to spend a few weeks in one of the small White Mountain +villages, which was a favorite haunt of hers. The day after their arrival, +a two days' excursion to some of the mountains was proposed; and Mercy, +though not feeling well enough to join it herself, insisted that the girls +should go. They were reluctant to leave her; but, with her usual +vehemence, she resisted all their protestations, and compelled them to +join the party. She was thus left alone in a house crowded with people, +all of whom were strangers to her. Some of them recollected afterward to +have noticed her sitting on the piazza at sunset, looking at the mountains +with an expression of great delight; but no one spoke with her, and no one +missed her the next morning, when she did not come to breakfast. Late in +the forenoon, the landlady came running in great terror and excitement to +one of the guests, exclaiming: "That lady that came yesterday is dying. +The chambermaids could not get into her room, nor get any answer, so we +broke open the door. The doctor says she'll never come to again!" + +Helpless, the village doctor, and the servants, and the landlady, and as +many of the guests as could crowd into the little room, stood around +Mercy's bed. It seemed a sad way to die, surrounded by strangers, who did +not even know her name; but Mercy was unconscious. It made no difference +to her. Her heavy breathing told only too well the nature of the trouble. + +"This cannot be the first attack she has had," said the doctor; and it was +found afterward that Mercy had told Lizzy Hunter of her having twice had +threatenings of a paralytic seizure. "If only I die at once," she had said +to Lizzy, "I would rather go that way than in most others. I dread the +dying part of death. I don't want to know when I am going." + +And she did not. All day her breathing grew slower and more labored, and +at night it stopped. In a few hours, there settled upon her features an +expression of such perfect peace that each one who came to look at her +stole away reverent and subdued. + +The two old crones who had come to "lay out" the body crept about on +tiptoe, their usual garrulity quenched by the sad and beautiful spectacle. +It was a singular thing that no one knew the name of the stranger who had +died thus suddenly and alone. In the confusion of their arrival, Mercy +had omitted to register their names. In the smaller White Mountain houses, +this formality is not rigidly enforced. And so it came to pass that this +woman, so well known, so widely beloved, lay a night and a day dead, +within a few hours' journey of her home as unknown as if she had been cast +up from a shipwrecked vessel on a strange shore. + +The two old crones sat with the body all night and all the next day. They +sewed on the quaint garments in which it is still the custom of rural New +England to robe the dead. They put a cap of stiff white muslin over +Mercy's brown hair, which even now, in her fiftieth year, showed only here +and there a silver thread. They laid fine plaits of the same stiff white +muslin over her breast, and crossed her hands above them. + +"She must ha' been a handsome woman in her time, Mis' Bunker. I 'spect +she was married, don't you?" said Ann Sweetser, Mrs. Bunker's spinster +cousin, who always helped her on these occasions. + +"Well, this ere ring looks like it," replied Mrs. Bunker, taking up a bit +of the muslin and rubbing the broad gold band on the third finger of +Mercy's left hand. "But yer can't allers tell by that nowadays. There's +folks wears 'em that ain't married. This is a real harndsome ring, 's +heavy 's ever I see." + +How Mercy's heart must have been touched, and also her fine and pathetic +sense of humor, if her freed spirit hovered still in that little +low-roofed room! This cast-off garment of hers, so carefully honored, so +curiously considered and speculated upon by these simple-minded people! +There was something rarely dramatic in all the surroundings of these last +hours. Among the guests in the house was one, a woman, herself a poet, who +toward the end of the second day came into the chamber, bringing long +trailing vines of the sweet Linnea, which was then in full bloom. Her +poet's heart was moved to the depths by the thought of this unknown, dead +woman lying there, tended by strangers' hands. She gazed with an +inexplicable feeling of affection upon Mercy's placid brow. She lifted the +lifeless hands and laid them down again in a less constrained position. +She, too, noted the broad gold ring, and said,-- + +"She has been loved then. I wonder if he is alive!" The door was closed, +and no one was in the room. With a strange impulse she could not account +for to herself, she said, "I will kiss her for him," and bent and kissed +the cold forehead. Then she laid the fragrant vines around the face and +across the bosom, and went away, feeling an inexplicable sense of nearness +to the woman she had kissed. When the next morning she knew that it was +Mercy Philbrick, the poet, in whose lifeless presence she had stood, she +exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh, I might have known that there was +some subtile bond which made me kiss her! I have always loved her verses +so." + +On the day after Lizzy Hunter returned from Mercy's funeral, Stephen White +called at her house and asked to speak to her. She had almost forgotten +his existence, though she knew that he was living in the Jacobs house. +Their paths never crossed, and Lizzy had long ago forgotten her passing +suspicion of Mercy's regard for him. The haggard and bowed man who met her +now was so unlike the Stephen White she recollected, that Lizzy +involuntarily exclaimed. Stephen took no notice of her exclamation. + +"No, thank you, I will not sit down," he said, as with almost solicitude +in her face she offered him a chair. "I merely wish to give you something +of"--he hesitated--"Mrs. Philbrick's." + +He drew from his breast a small package of papers, yellow, creased, old. +He unfolded one of these and handed it to Lizzy, saying,-- + +"This is a sonnet of hers which has never been printed. She gave it to me +when,"--he hesitated again,--"when she was living in my house. She said at +that time that she would like to have it put on her tombstone. I did not +know any other friend of hers to go to but you. Will you see that it is +done?" + +Lizzy took the paper and began to read the sonnet. Stephen stood leaning +heavily on the back of a chair; his breath was short, and his face much +flushed. + +"Oh, pray sit down, Mr. White! You are ill," exclaimed Lizzy. + +"No, I am not ill. I would rather stand," replied Stephen. His eyes were +fixed on the spot where thirty years before Mercy had stood when she said, +"I can't, Stephen." + +Lizzy read the sonnet with tears rolling down her cheeks. + +"Oh, it is beautiful,--beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Why did she never have +it printed?" + +Stephen colored and hesitated. One single thrill of pride followed by a +bitter wave of pain, and he replied,-- + +"Because I asked her not to print it." + +Lizzy's heart was too full of tender grief now to have any room for wonder +or resentment at this, or even to realize in that first moment that there +was any thing strange in the reply. + +"Indeed, it shall be put on the stone," she said. "I am so thankful you +brought it. I have been thinking that there were no words fit to put above +her grave. No one but she herself could have written any that would be," +and she was folding up the paper. + +Stephen stretched out his hand. "Pardon me," he said, "I cannot part with +that. I have brought a copy to leave with you," and he gave Lizzy another +paper. + +Mechanically she restored to him the first one, and gazed earnestly into +his face. Its worn and harrowed features, its look of graven patience, +smote her like a cry. She was about to speak to him eagerly and with +sympathy, but he was gone. His errand was finished,--the last thing he +could do for Mercy. She watched his feeble steps as he walked away, and +her pity revealed to her the history of his past. + +"How he loved her! how he loved her!" she said, and watched his figure +lingeringly, till it was out of sight. + +This is the sonnet which was cut on the stone above Mercy's grave:-- + + EMIGRAVIT. + + With sails full set, the ship her anchor weighs; + Strange names shine out beneath her figure-head: + What glad farewells with eager eyes are said! + What cheer for him who goes, and him who stays! + Fair skies, rich lands, new homes, and untried days + Some go to seek: the rest but wait instead + Until the next stanch ship her flag shall raise. + Who knows what myriad colonies there are + Of fairest fields, and rich, undreamed-of gains, + Thick-planted in the distant shining plains + Which we call sky because they lie so far? + Oh, write of me, not,--"Died in bitter pains," + But, "Emigrated to another star!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Mercy Philbrick's Choice, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10519 *** diff --git a/10519-h/10519-h.htm b/10519-h/10519-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42a5625 --- /dev/null +++ b/10519-h/10519-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7817 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html> + +<head> +<title> Mercy Philbrick's Choice, by H. H.</title> + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- +body { + margin .5em; + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps +} + +.smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + +a { text-decoration: none; } + +a:hover { background-color: #ffffcc } + +div.chapter { + margin-top: 4em; +} + +ul { + list-style-type: none; +} + + + --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10519 ***</div> + +<h1 class="title">Mercy Philbrick's Choice.</h1> + +<h4>1876,<br /> +</h4> + + + +<blockquote> +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p><i>To one who found us on a starless night,<br /> +All helpless, groping in a dangerous way,<br /> +Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay,<br /> +And, seeing all our peril, flashed a light<br /> +To show to our bewildered, blinded sight,<br /> +By one swift, clear, and piercing ray,<br /> +The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the height<br /> +Of our great thankfulness? And yet, at most,<br /> +The most he saved was this poor, paltry life<br /> +Of flesh, which is so little worth its cost,<br /> +Which eager sows, but may not stay to reap,<br /> +And so soon breathless with the strain and strife,<br /> +Its work half-done, exhausted, falls asleep.</i></p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p><i>But unto him who finds men's souls astray<br /> +In night that they know not is night at all,<br /> +Walking, with reckless feet, where they may fall<br /> +Each moment into deadlier deaths than slay<br /> +The flesh,--to him whose truth can rend away<br /> +From such lost souls their moral night's black pall,--<br /> +Oh, unto him what words can hearts recall<br /> +Which their deep gratitude finds fit to say?<br /> +No words but these,--and these to him are best:--<br /> +That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame,<br /> +His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine;<br /> +His memory be truth worshipped and confessed;<br /> +Our gratitude and love, the priestess line,<br /> +Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name.</i></p> +</blockquote> + + + +<h1>Mercy Philbrick's Choice.</h1> + + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-01"> +<h2>Chapter I.</h2> + + + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of a November day. The sky had worn all day +that pale leaden gray color, which is depressing even to the least +sensitive of souls. Now, at sunset, a dull red tint was slowly stealing +over the west; but the gray cloud was too thick for the sun to pierce, and +the struggle of the crimson color with the unyielding sky only made the +heavens look more stern and pitiless than before.</p> + +<p>Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut +off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in +which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic +in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a +fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and +only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and +gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can +look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your +neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you +say on a summer night, where windows are open.</p> + +<p>One cannot walk through the streets of a New England village, without +being impressed by a sense of this futile semblance of barrier, this +touching effort at withdrawal and reticence. Often we see the tacit +recognition of its uselessness in an old gate shoved back to its farthest, +and left standing so till the very grass roots have embanked themselves on +each side of it, and it can never again be closed without digging away the +sods in which it is wedged. The gate on which Stephen White was leaning +had stood open in that way for years before Stephen rented the house; had +stood open, in fact, ever since old Billy Jacobs, the owner of the house, +had been carried out of it dead, in a coffin so wide that at first the +bearers had thought it could not pass through the gate; but by huddling +close, three at the head and three at the feet, they managed to tug the +heavy old man through without taking down the palings. This was so long +ago that now there was nobody left who remembered Billy Jacobs distinctly, +except his widow, who lived in a poor little house on the outskirts of the +town, her only income being that derived from the renting of the large +house, in which she had once lived in comfort with her husband and son. +The house was a double house; and for a few years Billy Jacobs's twin +brother, a sea captain, had lived in the other half of it. But Mrs. Billy +could not abide Mrs. John, and so with a big heart wrench the two +brothers, who loved each other as only twin children can love, had +separated. Captain John took his wife and went to sea again. The ship was +never heard of, and to the day of Billy Jacobs's death he never forgave +his wife. In his heart he looked upon her as his brother's murderer. Very +much like the perpetual presence of a ghost under her roof it must have +been to the woman also, the unbroken silence of those untenanted rooms, +and that never opened door on the left side of her hall, which she must +pass whenever she went in or out of her house. There were those who said +that she was never seen to look towards that door; and that whenever a +noise, as of a rat in the wall, or a blind creaking in the wind, came from +that side of the house, Mrs. Billy turned white, and shuddered. Well she +might. It is a fearful thing to have lying on one's heart in this life the +consciousness that one has been ever so innocently the occasion, if not +the cause, of a fellow-creature's turning aside into the path which was +destined to take him to his death.</p> + +<p>The very next day after Billy Jacobs's funeral, his widow left the house. +She sold all the furniture, except what was absolutely necessary for a +very meagre outfitting of the little cottage into which she moved. The +miserly habit of her husband seemed to have suddenly fallen on her like a +mantle. Her life shrank and dwindled in every possible way; she almost +starved herself and her boy, although the rent of her old homestead was +quite enough to make them comfortable. In a few years, to complete the +poor woman's misery, her son ran away and went to sea. The sea-farer's +stories which his Uncle John had told him, when he was a little child, +had never left his mind; and the drearier his mother made life for him on +land, the more longingly he dwelt on his fancies of life at sea, till at +last, when he was only fifteen, he disappeared one day, leaving a note, +not for his mother, but for his Sunday-school teacher,--the only human +being he loved. This young woman carried the note to Mrs. Jacobs. She read +it, made no comment, and handed it back. Her visitor was chilled and +terrified by her manner.</p> + +<p>"Can I do any thing for you, Mrs. Jacobs?" she said. "I do assure you I +sympathize with you most deeply. I think the boy will soon come back. He +will find the sea life very different from what he has dreamed."</p> + +<p>"No, you can do nothing for me," replied Mrs. Jacobs, in a voice as +unmoved as her face. "He will never come back. He will be drowned." And +from that day no one ever heard her mention her son. It was believed, +however, that she had news from him, and that she sent him money; for, +although the rents of her house were paid to her regularly, she grew if +possible more and more penurious every year, allowing herself barely +enough food to support life, and wearing such tattered and patched clothes +that she was almost an object of terror to children when they met her in +lonely fields and woods, bending down to the ground and searching for +herbs like an old witch. At one time, also, she went in great haste to a +lawyer in the village, and with his assistance raised three thousand +dollars on a mortgage on her house, mortgaging it very nearly to its full +value. In vain he represented to her that, in case the house should chance +to stand empty for a year, she would have no money to pay the interest on +her mortgage, and would lose the property. She either could not +understand, or did not care for what he said. The house always had brought +her in about so many dollars a year; she believed it always would; at any +rate, she wanted this money. And so it came to pass that the mortgage on +the old Jacobs house had come into Stephen White's hands, and he was now +living in one half of it, his own tenant and landlord at once, as he often +laughingly said.</p> + +<p>These old rumors and sayings about the Jacobs's family history were +running in Stephen's head this evening, as he stood listlessly leaning on +the gate, and looking down at the unsightly spot of bare earth still left +where the gate had so long stood pressed back against the fence.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how long it'll take to get that old rut smooth and green like +the rest of the yard," he thought. Stephen White absolutely hated +ugliness. It did not merely irritate and depress him, as it does everybody +of fine fastidiousness: he hated not only the sight of it, he hated it +with a sort of unreasoning vindictiveness. If it were a picture, he wanted +to burn the picture, cut it, tear it, trample it under foot, get it off +the face of the earth immediately, at any cost or risk. It had no business +to exist: if nobody else would make way with it, he must. He often saw +places that he would have liked to devastate, to blot out of existence if +he could, just because they were barren and unsightly. Once, when he was a +very little child, he suddenly seized a book of his father's,--an old, +shabby, worn dictionary,--and flung it into the fire with uncontrollable +passion; and, on being asked why he did it, had nothing to say in +justification of his act, except this extraordinary statement: "It was an +ugly book; it hurt me. Ugly books ought to go in the fire." What the child +suffered, and, still more, what the man suffered from this hatred of +ugliness, no words could portray. Ever since he could remember, he had +been unhappy from the lack of the beautiful in the surroundings of his +daily life. His father had been poor; his mother had been an invalid; and +neither father nor mother had a trace of the artistic temperament. From +what long-forgotten ancestor in his plain, hard-working family had come +Stephen's passionate love of beauty, nobody knew. It was the despair of +his father, the torment of his mother. From childhood to boyhood, from +boyhood to manhood, he had felt himself needlessly hurt and perversely +misunderstood on this one point. But it had not soured him: it had only +saddened him, and made him reticent. In his own quiet way, he went slowly +on, adding each year some new touch of simple adornment to their home. +Every dollar he could spare out of his earnings went into something for +the eye to feast on; and, in spite of the old people's perpetual grumbling +and perpetual antagonism, it came about that they grew to be, in a surly +fashion, proud of Stephen's having made their home unlike the homes of +their neighbors.</p> + +<p>"That's Stephen's last notion. He's never satisfied without he's sticking +up suthin' new or different," they would say, as they called attention to +some new picture or shelf or improvement in the house. "It's all tom- +foolery. Things was well enough before." But in their hearts they were +secretly a little elate, as in latter years they had come to know, by +books and papers which Stephen forced them to hear or to read, that he was +really in sympathy with well-known writers in this matter of the adornment +of homes, the love of beautiful things even in every-day life.</p> + +<p>A little more than a year before the time at which our story begins, +Stephen's father had died. On an investigation of his affairs, it was +found that after the settling of the estate very little would remain for +Stephen and his mother. The mortgage on the old Jacobs house was the +greater part of their property. Very reluctantly Stephen decided that +their wisest--in fact, their only--course was to move into this house to +live. Many and many a time he had walked past the old house, and thought, +as he looked at it, what a bare, staring, hopeless, joyless-looking old +house it was. It had originally been a small, square house. The addition +which Billy Jacobs had made to it was oblong, running out to the south, +and projecting on the front a few feet beyond the other part. This +obtrusive jog was certainly very ugly; and it was impossible to conceive +of any reason for it. Very possibly, it was only a carpenter's blunder; +for Billy Jacobs was, no doubt, his own architect, and left all details of +the work to the builders. Be that as it may, the little, clumsy, +meaningless jog ruined the house,--gave it an uncomfortably awry look, +like a dining-table awkwardly pieced out for an emergency by another table +a little too narrow.</p> + +<p>The house had been for several years occupied by families of mill +operatives, and had gradually acquired that indefinable, but unmistakable +tenement-house look, which not even neatness and good repair can wholly +banish from a house. The orchard behind the house had so run down for want +of care that it looked more like a tangle of wild trees than like any +thing which had ever been an orchard. Yet the Roxbury Russets and Baldwins +of that orchard had once been Billy Jacobs's great pride, the one point of +hospitality which his miserliness never conquered. Long after it would +have broken his heart to set out a generous dinner for a neighbor, he +would feast him on choice apples, and send him away with a big basket full +in his hands. Now every passing school-boy helped himself to the wan, +withered, and scanty fruit; and nobody had thought it worth while to mend +the dilapidated fences which might have helped to shut them out.</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. White, with all her indifference to externals, rebelled at first +at the idea of going to live in the old Jacobs house.</p> + +<p>"I'll never go there, Stephen," she said petulantly. "I'm not going to +live in half a house with the mill people; and it's no better than a barn, +the hideous, old, faded, yellow thing!"</p> + +<p>If it crossed Stephen's mind that there was a touch of late retribution +in his mother's having come at last to a sense of suffering because she +must live in an unsightly house, he did not betray it.</p> + +<p>He replied very gently. He was never heard to speak other than gently to +his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and +dictatorial.</p> + +<p>"But, mother, I think we must. It is the only way that we can be sure of +the rent. And, if we live ourselves in one half of it, we shall find it +much easier to get good tenants for the other part. I promise you none of +the mill people shall ever live there again. Please do not make it hard +for me, mother. We must do it."</p> + +<p>When Stephen said "must," his mother never gainsaid him. He was only +twenty-five, but his will was stronger than hers,--as much stronger as his +temper was better. Persons judging hastily, by her violent assertions and +vehement statements of her determination, as contrasted with Stephen's +gentle, slow, almost hesitating utterance of his opinions or intentions, +might have assumed that she would always conquer; but it was not so. In +all little things, Stephen was her slave, because she was a suffering +invalid and his mother. But, in all important decisions, he was the +master; and she recognized it, and leaned upon it in a way which was +almost ludicrous in its alternation with her petulance and perpetual +dictating to him in trifles.</p> + +<p>And so they went to live in the old Jacobs house. They took the northern +half of it, the part in which the sea captain and his wife had lived. +This half of the house was not so pleasant as the other, had less sun, and +had no door upon the street; but it was smaller and better suited to their +needs, and moreover, Stephen said to his mother,--</p> + +<p>"We must live in the half we should find it hardest to rent to a desirable +tenant."</p> + +<p>For the first six months after they moved in, the "wing," as Mrs. White +persisted in calling it, though it was larger by two rooms than the part +she occupied herself, stood empty. There would have been plenty of +applicants for it, but it had been noised in the town that the Whites had +given out that none but people as good as they were themselves would be +allowed to rent the house. This made a mighty stir among the mill +operatives and the trades-people, and Stephen got many a sour look and +short answer, whose real source he never suspected.</p> + +<p>"Ahem! there he goes with his head in the clouds, damn him!" muttered +Barker the grocer, one day, as Stephen in a more than ordinarily +absent-minded fit had passed Mr. Barker's door without observing that Mr. +Barker stood in it, ready to bow and smile to the whole world. Mr. +Barker's sister had just married an overseer in the mill; and they had +been very anxious to set up housekeeping in the Jacobs house, but had been +prevented from applying for it by hearing of Mrs. White's determination to +have no mill people under the same roof with herself.</p> + +<p>"Mill people, indeed!" exclaimed Jane Barker, when her lover told her, in +no very guarded terms, the reason they could not have the house on which +she had set her heart.</p> + +<p>"Mill people, indeed! I'd like to know if they're not every whit's good's +an old shark of a lawyer like Hugh White was! I'll be bound, if poor old +granny Jacobs hadn't lost what little wit she ever had, it 'ud be very +soon seen whether Madam White's got the right to say who's to come and +who's to go in that house. It's a nasty old yaller shell anyhow, not to +say nothin' o' it's bein' haunted, 's like 's not. But there ain't no +other place so handy to the mill for us, an' I guess our money's good ez +any lawyer's money, o' the hull on 'em any day. Mill people, indeed! I'll +jest give Steve White a piece o' my mind, the first time I see him on the +street."</p> + +<p>Jane and her lover were sitting on the tops of two barrels just outside +the grocery door, when this conversation took place. Just as the last +words had left her lips, she looked up and saw Stephen approaching at a +very rapid pace. The unusual sight of two people perched on barrels on the +sidewalk roused Stephen from the deep reverie in which he habitually +walked. Lifting his hat as courteously as if he were addressing the most +distinguished of women, he bowed, and said smiling, "How do you do, Miss +Jane?" and "Good-morning, Mr. Lovejoy," and passed on; but not before Jane +Barker had had time to say in her gentlest tones, "Very well, thank you, +Mr. Stephen," while an ugly sneer spread over the face of Reuben Lovejoy.</p> + +<p>"Woman all over!" he muttered. "Never saw one on ye yet thet wasn't +caught by a bow from a palaverin' fool."</p> + +<p>Jane laughed nervously. She herself felt ashamed of having so soon given +the lie to her own words of bravado; but she was woman enough not to admit +her mortification.</p> + +<p>"I know he's a palaverin' fool's well's you do; but I reckon I've got some +manners o' my own, 's well's he. When a man bids me a pleasant +good-mornin', I ain't a-goin' to take that time to fly out at him, however +much I've got agin him."</p> + +<p>And Reuben was silenced. The under-current of ill-feeling against Stephen +and his mother went steadily on increasing. There is a wonderful force in +these slow under-currents of feeling, in small communities, for or against +individuals. After they have once become a steady tide, nothing can check +their force or turn their direction. Sometimes they can be traced back to +their spring, as a stream can: one lucky or unlucky word or deed, years +ago, made a friend or an enemy of one person, and that person's influence +has divided itself again and again, as brooks part off and divide into +countless rivulets, and water whole districts. But generally one finds it +impossible to trace the like or dislike to its beginning. A stranger, +asking the reason of it, is answered in an off-hand way,--"Oh, +everybody'll tell you the same thing. There isn't a soul in the town but +hates him;" or, "Well, he's just the most popular man in the town. You'll +never hear a word said against him,--never; not if you were to settle +right down here, and live."</p> + +<p>It was months before Stephen realized that there was slowly forming in the +town a dislike to him. He was slow in discovering it, because he had +always lived alone; had no intimate friends, not even when he was a boy. +His love of books and his passionate love of beauty combined with his +poverty to hedge him about more effectually than miles of desert could +have done. His father and mother had lived upon fairly good terms with all +their neighbors, but had formed no very close bonds with any. In the +ordinary New England town, neighborhood never means much: there is a +dismal lack of cohesion to the relations between people. The community is +loosely held together by a few accidental points of contact or common +interest. The individuality of individuals is, by a strange sort of +paradox, at once respected and ignored. This is indifference rather than +consideration, selfishness rather than generosity; it is an unsuspected +root of much of our national failure, is responsible for much of our +national disgrace. Some day there will come a time when it will have +crystallized into a national apathy, which will perhaps cure itself, or +have to be cured, as indurations in the body are, by sharp crises or by +surgical operations. In the mean time, our people are living, on the +whole, the dullest lives that are lived in the world, by the so-called +civilized; and the climax of this dulness of life is to be found in just +such a small New England town as Penfield, the one of which we are now +speaking.</p> + +<p>When it gradually became clear to Stephen that he and his mother were +unpopular people, his first feeling was one of resentment, his second of +calm acquiescence: acquiescence, first, because he recognized in a measure +the justice of it,--they really did not care for their neighbors; why +should their neighbors care for them? secondly, a diminished familiarity +of intercourse would have to him great compensations. There were few +people in the town, whose clothes, whose speech, whose behavior, did not +jar upon his nerves. On the whole, he would be better content alone; and +if his mother could only have a little more independence of nature, more +resource within herself, "The less we see of them, the better," said +Stephen, proudly.</p> + +<p>He had yet to learn the lesson which, sooner or later, the proudest, most +scornful, most self-centred of human souls must learn, or must die of +loneliness for the want of learning, that humanity is one and indivisible; +and the man who shuts himself apart from his fellows, above all, the man +who thus shuts himself apart because he thinks of his fellows with pitying +condescension as his inferiors, is a fool and a blasphemer,--a fool, +because he robs himself of that good-fellowship which is the leaven of +life; a blasphemer, because he virtually implies that God made men unfit +for him to associate with. Stephen White had this lesson yet to learn.</p> + +<p>The practical inconvenience of being unpopular, however, he began to feel +keenly, as month after month passed by, and nobody would rent the other +half of the house in which he and his mother lived. Small as the rent +was, it was a matter of great moment to them; for his earnings as clerk +and copyist were barely enough to give them food. He was still retained by +his father's partner in the same position which he had held during his +father's life. But old Mr. Williams was not wholly free from the general +prejudice against Stephen, as an aristocratic fellow, given to dreams and +fancies; and Stephen knew very well that he held the position only as it +were on a sort of sufferance, because Mr. Williams had loved his father. +Moreover, law business in Penfield was growing duller and duller. A +younger firm in the county town, only twelve miles away, was robbing them +of clients continually; and there were many long days during which Stephen +sat idle at his desk, looking out in a vague, dreamy way on the street +below, and wondering if the time were really coming when Mr. Williams +would need a clerk no longer; and, if it did come, what he could possibly +find to do in that town, by which he could earn money enough to support +his mother. At such times, he thought uneasily of the possibility of +foreclosing the mortgage on the old Jacobs house, selling the house, and +reinvesting the money in a more advantageous way. He always tried to put +the thought away from him as a dishonorable one; but it had a fatal +persistency. He could not banish it.</p> + +<p>"Poor, half-witted old woman! she might a great deal better be in the +poor-house."</p> + +<p>"There is no reason why we should lose our interest, for the sake of +keeping her along."</p> + +<p>"The mortgage was for too large a sum. I doubt if the old house could +sell to-day for enough to clear it, anyhow." These were some of the +suggestions which the devil kept whispering into Stephen's ear, in these +long hours of perplexity and misgiving. It was a question of casuistry +which might, perhaps, have puzzled a finer moral sense than Stephen's. Why +should he treat old Mrs. Jacobs with any more consideration than he would +show to a man under the same circumstances? To be sure, she was a helpless +old woman; but so was his own mother, and surely his first duty was to +make her as comfortable as possible.</p> + +<p>Luckily for old Mrs. Jacobs, a tenant appeared for the "south wing." A +friend of Stephen's, a young clergyman living in a seaport town on Cape +Cod, had written to him, asking about the house, which he knew Stephen was +anxious to rent. He made these inquiries on behalf of two women, +parishioners of his, who were obliged to move to some inland town on +account of the elder woman's failing health. They were mother and +daughter, but both widows. The younger woman's marriage had been a +tragically sad one, her husband having died suddenly, only a few days +after their marriage. She had returned at once to her mother's house, +widowed at eighteen; "heart-broken," the young clergyman wrote, "but the +most cheerful person in this town,--the most cheerful person I ever knew; +her smile is the sunniest and most pathetic thing I ever saw."</p> + +<p>Stephen welcomed most gladly the prospect of such tenants as these. The +negotiations were soon concluded; and at the time of the beginning of our +story the two women were daily expected.</p> + +<p>A strange feverishness of desire to have them arrive possessed Stephen's +mind. He longed for it, and yet he dreaded it. He liked the stillness of +the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these +satisfactions were to be interfered with now. But he had a singular +consciousness that some new element was coming into his life. He did not +define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a +bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his +reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, +"Stephen, man, what is this? What are these two women to you, that your +imagination is taking these wild and superfluous leaps into their +history?"</p> + +<p>There was hardly a possible speculation as to their past history, as to +their looks, as to their future life under his roof, that Stephen did not +indulge in, as he stood leaning with his folded arms on the gate, in the +gray November twilight, where we first found him. His thoughts, as was +natural, centred most around the younger woman.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing! That was a mighty hard fate. Only nineteen years old +now,--six years younger than I am; and how much more she must know of life +than I do. I suppose she can't be a lady, exactly,--being a sea captain's +wife. I wonder if she's pretty? I think Harley might have told me more +about her. He might know I'd be very curious.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if mother'll take to them? If she does, it will be a great +comfort to her. She 's so alone." And Stephen's face clouded, as he +reflected how very seldom the monotony of the invalid's life was broken +now by a friendly visit from a neighbor.</p> + +<p>"If they should turn out really social, neighborly people that we liked, +we might move away the old side-board from before the hall door, and go in +and out that way, as the Jacobses used to. It would be unlucky though, I +reckon, to use that door. I guess I'll plaster it up some day." Like all +people of deep sentiment, Stephen had in his nature a vein of something +which bordered on superstition.</p> + +<p>The twilight deepened into darkness, and a cold mist began to fall in +slow, drizzling drops. Still Stephen stood, absorbed in his reverie, and +unmindful of the chill.</p> + +<p>The hall door opened, and an old woman peered out. She held a lamp in one +hand; the blast of cold air made the flame flicker and flare, and, as she +put up one hand to shade it, the light was thrown sharply across her +features, making them stand out like the distorted features of a hideous +mask.</p> + +<p>"Steve! Steve!" she called, in a shrill voice. "Supper's been waitin' more +'n half an hour. Lor's sake, what's the boy thinkin' on now, I wonder?" +she muttered in an impatient lower tone, as Stephen turned his head +slowly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, Marty. Tell my mother I will be there in a moment," replied +Stephen, as he walked slowly toward the house; even then noting, with the +keen and relentless glance of a beauty-worshipper, how grotesquely ugly +the old woman's wrinkled face became, lighted up by the intense +cross-light. Old Marty's face had never looked other than lovingly into +Stephen's since he first lay in her arms, twenty-five years ago, when she +came, a smooth-cheeked, rosy country-woman of twenty-five, to nurse his +mother at the time of his birth. She had never left the home since. With a +faithfulness and devotion only to be accounted for by the existence of +rare springs of each in her own nature, surely not by any uncommon +lovableness in either Mr. or Mrs. White, or by any especial comforts in +her situation, she had stayed on a quarter of a century, in the hard +position of woman of all work in a poor family. She worshipped Stephen, +and, as I said, her face had never once looked other than lovingly into +his; but he could not remember the time when he had not thought her +hideous. She had a big brown mole on her chin, out of which grew a few +bristling hairs. It was an unsightly thing, no doubt, on a woman's chin; +and sometimes, when Marty was very angry, the hairs did actually seem to +bristle, as a cat's whiskers do. When Stephen could not speak plain, he +used to point his little dimpled finger at this mole and say, "Do doe +away,--doe away;" and to this day it was a torment to him. His eyes seemed +morbidly drawn toward it at times.. When he was ill, and poor Marty bent +over his bed, ministering to him as no one but a loving old nurse can, he +saw only the mole, and had to make an effort not to shrink from her. +To-night, as she lingered on the threshold, affectionately waiting to +light his path, he was thinking only of her ugliness. But when she +exclaimed, with the privileged irritability of an old servant,--</p> + +<p>"Jest look at your feet, Steve! they're wet through, an' your coat too, a +standin' out in that drizzle. Anybody 'ud think you hadn't common sense," +he replied with perfect good nature, and as heartily loving a tone as if +he had been feasting on her beauty, instead of writhing inwardly at her +ugliness,--</p> + +<p>"All right, Marty,--all right. I'm not so wet as I look. I'll change my +coat, and come in to supper in one minute. Don't you fidget about me so, +good Marty." Never was Stephen heard to speak discourteously or even +ungently to a human being. It would have offended his taste. It was not a +matter of principle with him,--not at all: he hardly ever thought of +things in that light. A rude or harsh word, a loud, angry tone, jarred on +his every sense like a discord in music, or an inharmonious color; so he +never used them. But as he ran upstairs, three steps at a time, after his +kind, off-hand words to Marty, he said to himself, "Good heavens! I do +believe Marty gets uglier every day. What a picture Rembrandt would have +made of her old face peering out into the darkness there to-night! She +would have done for the witch of Endor, watching to see if Samuel were +coming up." And as he went down more slowly, revolving in his mind what +plausible excuse he could give to his mother for his tardiness, he +thought, "Well, I do hope she'll be at least tolerably good-looking."</p> + +<p>Already the younger of the two women who were coming to live under his +roof was "she," in his thoughts.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-02"> +<h2>Chapter II.</h2> + + + +<p>In the mean time, the young widow, Mercy Philbrick, and her old and almost +childish mother, Mercy Carr, were coming by slow and tiring stage journeys +up the dreary length of Cape Cod. For thirty years the elder woman had +never gone out of sight of the village graveyard in which her husband and +four children were buried. To transplant her was like transplanting an old +weather-beaten tree, already dead at the top. Yet the physicians had said +that the only chance of prolonging her life was to take her away from the +fierce winds of the sea. She herself, while she loved them, shrank from +them. They seemed to pierce her lungs like arrows of ice-cold steel, at +once wounding and benumbing. Yet the habit and love of the seashore life +were so strong upon her that she would never have been able to tear +herself away from her old home, had it not been for her daughter's +determined will. Mercy Philbrick was a woman of slight frame, gentle, +laughing, brown eyes, a pale skin, pale ash-brown hair, a small nose; a +sweet and changeful mouth, the upper lip too short, the lower lip much too +full; little hands, little feet, little wrists. Not one indication of +great physical or great mental strength could you point out in Mercy +Philbrick; but she was rarely ill; and she had never been known to give +up a point, small or great, on which her will had been fully set. Even the +cheerfulness of which her minister, Harley Allen, had written to Stephen, +was very largely a matter of will with Mercy. She confronted grief as she +would confront an antagonist force of any sort: it was something to be +battled with, to be conquered. Fate should not worst her: come what might, +she would be the stronger of the two. When the doctor said to her,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, I fear that your mother cannot live through another +winter in this climate," Mercy looked at him for a moment with an +expression of terror. In an instant more, the expression had given place +to one of resolute and searching inquiry.</p> + +<p>"You think, then, that she might be well in a different climate?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not well, but she might live for years in a dryer, milder air. +There is as yet no actual disease in her lungs," the doctor replied.</p> + +<p>Mercy interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"You think she might live in comparative comfort? It would not be merely +prolonging her life as a suffering invalid?" she said; adding in an +undertone, as if to herself, "I would not subject her to that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, undoubtedly," said the doctor. "She need never die of +consumption at all, if she could breathe only inland air. She will never +be strong again, but she may live years without any especial liability to +suffering."</p> + +<p>"Then I will take her away immediately," replied Mercy, in as confident +and simple a manner as if she had been proposing only to move her from one +room into another. It would not seem so easy a matter for two lonely +women, in a little Cape Cod village, without a male relative to help them, +and with only a few thousand dollars in the world, to sell their house, +break up all their life-long associations, and go out into the world to +find a new home. Associations crystallize around people in lonely and out +of the way spots, where the days are all alike, and years follow years in +an undeviating monotony. Perhaps the process might be more aptly called +one of petrifaction. There are pieces of exquisite agate which were once +soft wood. Ages ago, the bit of wood fell into a stream, where the water +was largely impregnated with some chemical matter which had the power to +eat out the fibre of the wood, and in each spot thus left empty to deposit +itself in an exact image of the wood it had eaten away. Molecule by +molecule, in a mystery too small for human eye to detect, even had a +watchful human eye been lying in wait to observe, the marvellous process +went on; until, after the lapse of nobody knows how many centuries, the +wood was gone, and in its place lay its exact image in stone,--rings of +growth, individual peculiarities of structure, knots, broken slivers and +chips; color, shape, all perfect. Men call it agatized wood, by a feeble +effort to translate the mystery of its existence; but it is not wood, +except to the eye. To the touch, and in fact, it is stone,--hard, cold, +unalterable, eternal stone. The slow wear of monotonous life in a set +groove does very much such a thing as this to human beings. To the eye +they retain the semblance of other beings; but try them by touch, that is +by contact with people, with events outside their groove, and they are +stone,--agatized men and women. Carry them where you please, after they +have reached middle or old age, and they will not change. There is no +magic water, a drop of which will restore to them the vitality and +pliability of their youth. They last well, such people,--as well, almost, +as agatized wood on museum shelves; and the most you can do for them is to +keep them well dusted.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Carr belonged, in a degree, to this order of persons. Only the +coming of Mercy's young life into the feeble current of her own had saved +it from entire stagnation. But she was already past middle age when Mercy +was born; and the child with her wonderful joyousness, and the maiden with +her wondrous cheer, came too late to undo what the years had done. The +most they could do was to interrupt the process, to stay it at that point. +The consequence was that Mrs. Carr at sixty-five was a placid sort of +middle-aged old lady, very pleasant to talk with as you would talk with a +child, very easy to take care of as you would take care of a child, but, +for all purposes of practical management or efficient force, as helpless +as a baby.</p> + +<p>When Mercy told her what the doctor had said of her health, and that they +must sell the house and move away before the winter set in, she literally +opened her mouth too wide to speak for a minute, and then gasped out like +a frightened child,--</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, don't let's do it!"</p> + +<p>As Mercy went on explaining to her the necessity of the change, and the +arrangements she proposed to make, the poor old woman's face grew longer +and longer; but, some time before Mercy had come to the end of her +explanation, the childish soul had accepted the whole thing as fixed, had +begun already to project itself in childish imaginations of detail; and to +Mercy's infinite relief and half-sad amusement, when she ceased speaking, +her mother's first words were, eagerly,--</p> + +<p>"Well, Mercy, if we go 'n the stage, 'n' I s'pose we shall hev to, don't +ye think my old brown merino'll do to wear?"</p> + +<p>Fortune favored Mercy's desire to sell the house. Stephen's friend, the +young minister, had said to himself many times, as he walked up to its +door between the quaint, trim beds of old-fashioned pinks and ladies' +delights and sweet-williams which bordered the little path, "This is the +only house in this town I want to live in." As soon as he heard that it +was for sale, he put on his hat, and fairly ran to buy it. Out of breath, +he took Mercy's hands in his, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, do you really want to sell this house?"</p> + +<p>Very unworldly were this young man and this young woman, in the matter of +sale and purchase. Adepts in traffic would have laughed, had they +overheard the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Allen, I do. I must sell it; and I am afraid I shall +have to sell it for a great deal less than it is worth," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"No, you sha'n't, Mercy! I'll buy it myself. I've always wanted it. But +why in the world do you want to sell it? Where will you live yourself? +There isn't another house in the village you'd like half so well. Is it +too large for you?" continued Mr. Allen, hurriedly. Then Mercy told him +all her plans, and the sad necessity for her making the change. The young +minister did not speak for some moments. He seemed lost in thought. Then +he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"I do believe it's a kind of Providence!" and drew a letter from his +pocket, which he had only two days before received from Stephen White. +"Mercy," he went on, "I believe I've got the very thing you want right +here;" and he read her the concluding paragraph of the letter, in which +Stephen had said: "Meantime, I am waiting as patiently as I can for a +tenant for the other half of this house. It seems to be very hard to find +just the right sort of person. I cannot take in any of the mill +operatives. They are noisy and untidy; and the bare thought of their being +just the other side of the partition would drive my mother frantic. I wish +so much I could get some people in that would be real friends for her. She +is very lonely. She never leaves her bed; and I have to be away all day."</p> + +<p>Mercy's face lighted up. She liked the sound of each word that this +unknown man wrote. Very eagerly she questioned Mr. Allen about the town, +its situation, its healthfulness, and so forth. As he gave her detail +after detail, she nodded her head with increasing emphasis, and finally +exclaimed: "That is precisely such a spot as Dr. Wheeler said we ought to +go to. I think you're right, Mr. Allen. It's a Providence. And I'd be so +glad to be good to that poor old woman, too. What a companion she'd be for +mother! that is, if I could keep them from comparing notes for ever about +their diseases. That's the worst of putting invalid old women together," +laughed Mercy with a kindly, merry little laugh.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen had visited Penfield only once. When he and Stephen were boys at +school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's +house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of +their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to +boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced +intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten +the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the +western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it +commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a +most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent +any danger from its moisture. To the south and south-west rose a fine +range of mountains, bold and sharp-cut, though they were not very high, +and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this +range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way +through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the +geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and +well-regulated planet.</p> + +<p>The town, although, as I said, it lay on the western slope of a great +river terrace, held in its site three distinctly marked plateaus. From the +two highest of these, the views were grand. It was like living on a +mountain, and yet there was the rich beauty of coloring of the river +interval. Nowhere in all New England was there a fairer country than this +to look upon, nor a goodlier one in which to live.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen's enthusiasm in describing the beauties of the place, and +Mercy's enthusiasm in listening, were fast driving out of their minds the +thought of the sale, which had been mentioned in the beginning of their +conversation. Mercy was the first to recall it. She blushed and hesitated, +as she said,--</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Allen, we can't go, you know, until I have sold this house. Did +you really want to buy it? And how much do you think I ought to ask for +it?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed the young minister. "Dear me, what +children we are! Mercy, I don't honestly know what you ought to ask for +the house. I'll find out."</p> + +<p>"Deacon Jones said he thought, taking in the cranberry meadow, it was +worth three thousand dollars," said Mercy; "but that seems a great deal to +me: though not in a good cranberry year, perhaps," added she, ingenuously, +"for last year the cranberries brought us in seventy-five dollars, besides +paying for the picking."</p> + +<p>"And the meadow ought to go with the house, by all means," said Mr. Allen. +"I want it for color in the background, when I look at the house as I +come down from the meeting-house hill. I wouldn't like to have anybody +else own the canvas on which the picture of my home will be oftenest +painted for my eyes. I'll give you three thousand dollars for the house, +Mercy. I can only pay two thousand down, and pay you interest on the other +thousand for a year or two. I'll soon clear it off. Will that do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Allen. It will more than do," said poor +Mercy, who could not believe in such sudden good fortune; "but do you +think you ought to buy it so quick? Perhaps it wouldn't bring so much +money as that. I had not asked anybody except Deacon Jones."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen laughed. "If you don't look out for yourself sharper than this, +Mercy," he said, "in the new place 'where you're going to live, you'll +fare badly. Perhaps it may be true, as you say, that nobody else would +give you three thousand dollars for the house, because nobody might happen +to want to live in it. But Deacon Jones knows better than anybody else the +value of property here, and I am perfectly willing to give you the price +he set on the place. I had laid by this two thousand dollars towards my +house; and I could not build such a house as this, to-day, for three +thousand dollars. But really, Mercy, you must look 'out for yourself +better than this."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Mercy, looking out of the window, with an earnest +gaze, as if she were reading a writing a great way off,--"I don't know +about that. I doubt very much if looking out for one's self, as you call +it, is the best way to provide for one's self."</p> + +<p>That very night Mr. Allen wrote to Stephen; in two weeks, the whole matter +was settled, and Mercy and her mother had set out on their journey. They +carried with them but one small valise. The rest of their simple wardrobe +had gone in boxes, with the furniture, by sailing vessel, to a city which +was within three hours by rail of their new home. This was the feature of +the situation which poor Mrs. Carr could not accept. In the bottom of her +heart, she fully believed that they would never again see one of those +boxes. The contents of some which she had herself packed were of a most +motley description. In the beginning of the breaking up, while Mercy was +at her wits' end, with the unwonted perplexities of packing the whole +belongings of a house, her mother had tormented her incessantly by +bringing to her every few minutes some utterly incongruous and frequently +worthless article, and begging her to put it in at once, whatever she +might be packing. Any one who has ever packed for a long journey, with an +eager and excited child running up every minute with more and more +cumbrous toys, dogs, cats, Noah's arks, and so on, to be put in among +books and under-clothing, can imagine Mercy's despair at her mother's +restless activity.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, not in this box! Not in with the china!" would groan poor +Mercy, as her mother appeared with armfuls of ancient relics from the +garret, such as old umbrellas, bonnets, bundles of old newspapers, broken +spinning-wheels, andirons, and rolls of remains of old wall-paper, the +last of which had disappeared from the walls of the house, long before +Mercy was born. No old magpie was ever a more indiscriminate hoarder than +Mrs. Carr had been; and, among all her hoardings, there was none more +amusing than her hoarding of old wall-papers. A scrap a foot square seemed +to her too precious to throw away. "It might be jest the right size to +cover suthin' with," she would say; and, to do her justice, she did use in +the course of a year a most unexampled amount of such fragments. She had a +mania for papering and repapering and papering again every shelf, every +box, every corner she could get hold of. The paste and brush were like +toys to her; and she delighted in gay combinations, sticking on old bits +of borders in fantastic ways, in most inappropriate situations.</p> + +<p>"I do believe you'll paper the pigsty next, mother," said Mercy one day: +"there's nothing left you can paper except that." Mrs. Carr took the +suggestion in perfect good faith, and convulsed Mercy a few days later by +entering the kitchen with the following extraordinary remark,--</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's worth while to paper the pigsty. I've been looking +at it, and the boards they're so rough, the paper wouldn't lay smooth, +anyhow; and I couldn't well get at the inside o' the roof, while the pig's +in. It would look real neat, though. I'd like to do it."</p> + +<p>Mercy endured her mother's help in packing for one day. Then the +desperateness of the trouble suggested a remedy. Selecting a large, strong +box, she had it carried into the garret.</p> + +<p>"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old +lumber of all sorts which you want to carry. And, if this box isn't large +enough, you shall have two more. Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty +of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can +help you."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy went downstairs feeling half-guilty, as one does when one has +practised a subterfuge on a child.</p> + +<p>How many times that poor old woman packed and unpacked that box, nobody +could dream. All day long she trotted up and down, up and down; ransacking +closets, chests, barrels; sorting and resorting, and forgetting as fast as +she sorted. Now and then she would come across something which would rouse +an electric chain of memories in the dim chambers of her old, worn-out +brain, and she would sit motionless for a long time on the garret floor, +in a sort of trance. Once Mercy found her leaning back against a beam, +with her knees covered by a piece of faded blue Canton crape, on which her +eyes were fastened. She did not speak till Mercy touched her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my! how you scared me, child!" she exclaimed. "D'ye see this ere blue +stuff? I hed a gown o' thet once: it was drefful kind o' clingy stuff. I +never felt exzackly decent in it, somehow: it hung a good deal like a +night-gownd; but your father he bought it for the color. He traded off +some shells for it in some o' them furrin places. You wouldn't think it +now, but it used to be jest the color o' a robin's egg or a light-blue +'bachelor's button;' and your father he used to stick one o' them in my +belt whenever they was in blossom, when I hed the gownd on. He hed a heap +o' notions about things matchin'. He brought me that gownd the v'yage he +made jest afore Caleb was born; and I never hed a chance to wear it much, +the children come so fast. It warn't re'ly worn at all, 'n' I hed it dyed +black for veils arterwards."</p> + +<p>It was from this father who used to "stick" pale-blue flowers in his +wife's belt, and whose love of delicate fabrics and tints made him +courageous enough to lead her draped in Canton crape into the unpainted +Cape Cod meeting-house, where her fellow-women bristled in homespun, that +Mercy inherited all the artistic side of her nature. She knew this +instinctively, and all her tenderest sentiment centred around the vague +memory she retained of a tall, dark-bearded man, who, when she was only +three years old, lifted her in his arms, called her his "little Mercy," +and kissed her over and over again. She was most loyally affectionate to +her mother, but the sentiment was not a wholly filial one. There was too +much reversal of the natural order of the protector and the protected in +it; and her life was on too different a plane of thought, feeling, and +interest from the life of the uncultured, undeveloped, childish, old +woman. Yet no one who saw them together would have detected any trace of +this shortcoming in Mercy's feeling towards her mother. She had in her +nature a fine and lofty fibre of loyalty which could never condescend even +to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all +consciousness of the possibility of any other course. This is a sort of +organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower +of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death +itself. It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men +and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be +of a loving nature. The cheaper and less lasting types of love are so much +louder of voice and readier of phrase, as in cloths cheap fabrics, poor to +wear, are often found printed in gay colors and big patterns.</p> + +<p>The day before they left home, Mercy, becoming alarmed by a longer +interval than usual without any sound from the garret, where her mother +was still at work over her fantastic collections of old odds and ends, ran +up to see what it meant.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was on her knees before a barrel, which had held rags and +papers. The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor. She had +leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Mother! mother! what is the matter?" exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for +she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry. Without speaking, +Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory. It was of a creamy +yellow, and shone like satin: a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from +it. As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window, +and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left.</p> + +<p>"What a lovely bit of carving! What is it, mother? Why does it make you +cry?" asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory.</p> + +<p>"It's Caley's whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience +Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, +an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought +that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I +was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum +in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every +mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the +next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n +yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed +that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--"</p> + +<p>"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle +all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink +rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one +o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer +ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus +used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth +an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old. But by the time he +was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could. And his father he'd +just lay back 'n his chair, and laugh 'n' laugh, 'n' call out, 'Blow away, +my hearty!' Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago'n yesterday. I wish I'd +ha' known. I wa'n't never friends with Patience any more arter that. I +never misgave me but what she'd got the whistle. It was such a curious +cut thing, and cost a heap o' money. Your father wouldn't never tell what +he gin for 't. Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday," and the +old woman wiped her eyes on her apron, and struggling up on her feet took +the whistle again from Mercy's hands.</p> + +<p>"How old would my brother Caley be now, if he had lived, mother?" said +Mercy, anxious to bring her mother gently back to the present.</p> + +<p>"Well, let me see, child. Why, Caley--Caley, he'd be--How old am I, Mercy? +Dear me! hain't I lost my memory, sure enough, except about these ere old +things? They seem's clear's daylight."</p> + +<p>"Sixty-five last July, mother," said Mercy. "Don't you know I gave you +your new specs then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, child,--yes. Well, I'm sixty-five, be I? Then Caley,--Caley, +he'd be, let me see--you reckon it, Mercy. I wuz goin' on nineteen when +Caley was born."</p> + +<p>"Why, mother," exclaimed Mercy, "is it really so long ago? Then my brother +Caleb would be forty-six years old now!" and mercy took again in her hand +the yellow ivory whistle, and ran her fingers over the faded and frayed +pink ribbon, and looked at it with an indefinable sense of its being a +strange link between her and a distant past, which, though she had never +shared it, belonged to her by right. Hardly thinking what she did, she +raised the whistle to her lips, and blew a loud, shrill whistle on it. Her +mother started. "O Mercy, don't, don't!" she cried. "I can't bear to hear +it."</p> + +<p>"Now, mother, don't you be foolish," said Mercy, cheerily. "A whistle's a +whistle, old or young, and made to be whistled with. We'll keep this to +amuse children with: you carry it in your pocket. Perhaps we shall meet +some children on the journey; and it'll be so nice for you to pop this out +of your pocket, and give it to them to blow."</p> + +<p>"So it will, Mercy, I declare. That 'ud be real nice. You're a +master-piece for thinkin' o' things." And, easily diverted as a child, the +old woman dropped the whistle into her deep pocket, and, forgetting all +her tears, returned to her packing.</p> + +<p>Not so Mercy. Having attained her end of cheering her mother, her own +thoughts reverted again and again all day long, and many times in after +years, whenever she saw the ivory whistle, to the strange picture of the +lonely old woman in the garret coming upon her first-born child's first +toy, lost for forty years; the picture, too, of the history of the quaint +piece of carving itself; the day it was slowly cut and chiselled by a +patient and ill-paid toiler in some city of China; its voyage in the +keeping of the ardent young husband hastening home to welcome his first +child; its forty years of silence and darkness in the old garret; and then +its return to life and light and sound, in the hands and lips of new +generations of children.</p> + +<p>The journey which Mercy had so much dreaded was unexpectedly pleasant. +Mrs. Carr proved an admirable traveller with the exception of her +incessant and garrulous anxiety about the boxes which had been left behind +on the deck of the schooner "Maria Jane," and could not by any +possibility overtake them for three weeks to come. She was, in fact, so +much of a child that she was in a state of eager delight at every new +scene and person. Her childishness proved the best of claims upon every +one's courtesy. Everybody was ready to help "that poor sweet old woman;" +and she was so simply and touchingly grateful for the smallest kindness +that everybody who had helped her once wanted to help her again. More than +one of their fellow-travellers remembered for a long time the bright-faced +young woman with her childish mother, and wondered where they could have +been going, and what was to be their life.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, they +entered the beautiful river interval, through which the road to their new +home lay. Mercy sat with her face almost pressed against the panes of the +car-windows, eagerly scanning every feature of the landscape, to her so +new and wonderful. To the dweller by the sea, the first sight of mountains +is like the sight of a new heavens and a new earth. It is a revelation of +a new life. Mercy felt strangely stirred and overawed. She looked around +in astonishment at her fellow-passengers, not one of whom apparently +observed that on either hand were stretching away to the east and the west +fields that were, even in this late autumn, like carpets of gold and +green. Through these fertile meadows ran a majestic river, curving and +doubling as if loath to leave such fair shores. The wooded mountains +changed fast from green to purple, from purple to dark gray; and almost +before Mercy had comprehended the beauty of the region, it was lost from +her sight, veiled in the twilight's pale, indistinguishable tints. Her +mother was fast asleep in her seat. The train stopped every few moments at +some insignificant station, of which Mercy could see nothing but a narrow +platform, a dim lantern, and a sleepy-looking station-master. Slowly, one +or two at a time, the passengers disappeared, until she and her mother +were left alone in the car. The conductor and the brakeman, as they passed +through, looked at them with renewed interest: it was evident now that +they were going through to the terminus of the road.</p> + +<p>"Goin' through, be ye?" said the conductor. "It'll be dark when we get in; +an' it's beginnin' to rain. 'S anybody comin' to meet ye?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mercy, uneasily. "Will there not be carriages at the depot? We +are going to the hotel. I believe there is but one."</p> + +<p>"Well, there may be a kerridge down to-night, an' there may not: there's +no knowin'. Ef it don't rain too hard, I reckon Seth'll be down."</p> + +<p>Mercy's sense of humor never failed her. She laughed heartily, as she +said,--</p> + +<p>"Then Seth stays away, does he, on the nights when he would be sure of +passengers?"</p> + +<p>The conductor laughed too, as he replied,---</p> + +<p>"Well, 'tisn't quite so bad's that. Ye see this here road's only a piece +of a road. It's goin' up through to connect with the northern roads; but +they 've come to a stand-still for want o' funds, an' more 'n half the +time I don't carry nobody over this last ten miles. Most o' the people +from our town go the other way, on the river road. It's shorter, an' some +cheaper. There isn't much travellin' done by our folks, anyhow. We're a +mighty dead an' alive set up here. Goin' to stay a spell?" he continued, +with increasing interest, as he looked longer into Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>"Probably," said Mercy, in a grave tone, suddenly recollecting that she +ought not to talk with this man as if he were one of her own village +people. The conductor, sensitive as are most New England people, spite of +their apparent familiarity of address, to the least rebuff, felt the +change in Mercy's tone, and walked away, thinking half surlily, "She +needn't put on airs. A schoolma'am, I reckon. Wonder if it can be her +that's going to teach the Academy?"</p> + +<p>When they reached the station, it was, as the conductor had said, very +dark; and it was raining hard. For the first time, a sense of her +unprotected loneliness fell upon Mercy's heart. Her mother, but +half-awake, clung nervously to her, asking purposeless and incoherent +questions. The conductor, still surly from his fancied rebuff at Mercy's +hands, walked away, and took no notice of them. The station-master was +nowhere to be seen. The two women stood huddling together under one +umbrella, gazing blankly about them.</p> + +<p>"Is this Mrs. Philbrick?" came in clear, firm tones, out of the darkness +behind them; and, in a second more, Mercy had turned and looked up into +Stephen White's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good you were to come and meet us!" exclaimed Mercy. "You are Mr. +Allen's friend, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Stephen, curtly. "But I did not come to meet you. You must not +thank me. I had business here. However, I made the one carriage which the +town boasts, wait, in case you should be here. Here it is!" And, before +Mercy had time to analyze or even to realize the vague sense of +disappointment she felt at his words, she found herself and her mother +placed in the carriage, and the door shut.</p> + +<p>"Your trunks cannot go up until morning," he said, speaking through the +carriage window; "but, if you will give me your checks, I will see that +they are sent."</p> + +<p>"We have only one small valise," said Mercy: "that was under our seat. The +brakeman said he would take it out for us; but he forgot it, and so did +I."</p> + +<p>The train was already backing out of the station. Stephen smothered some +very unchivalrous words on his lips, as he ran out into the rain, overtook +the train, and swung himself on the last car, in search of the "one small +valise" belonging to his tenants. It was a very shabby valise: it had made +many a voyage with its first owner, Captain Carr. It was a very little +valise: it could not have held one gown of any of the modern fashions.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," thought Stephen, as he put it into the carriage at Mercy's +feet, "what sort of women are these I've taken under my roof! I expect +they'll be very unpleasing sights to my eyes. I did hope she'd be +good-looking." How many times in after years did Stephen recall with +laughter his first impressions of Mercy Philbrick, and wonder how he could +have argued so unhesitatingly that a woman who travelled with only one +small valise could not be good-looking.</p> + +<p>"Will you come to the house to-morrow?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," replied Mercy, "not for three or four weeks yet. Our furniture +will not be here under that time."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Stephen, "I had not thought of that. I will call on you at the +hotel, then, in a day or two."</p> + +<p>His adieus were civil, but only civil: that most depressing of all things +to a sensitive nature, a kindly indifference, was manifest in every word +he said, and in every tone of his voice.</p> + +<p>Mercy felt it to the quick; but she was ashamed of herself for the +feeling. "What business had I to expect that he was going to be our +friend?" she said in her heart. "We are only tenants to him."</p> + +<p>"What a kind-spoken young man he is, to be sure, Mercy!" said Mrs. Carr.</p> + +<p>So all-sufficient is bare kindliness of tone and speech to the unsensitive +nature.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother, he was very kind," said Mercy; "but I don't think we shall +ever know him very well."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy, why not?" exclaimed her mother. "I should say he was most +uncommon friendly for a stranger, running back after our valise in the +rain, and a goin' to call on you to oncet."</p> + +<p>Mercy made no reply. The carriage rolled along over the rough and muddy +road. It was too dark to see any thing except the shadowy black shapes of +houses, outlined on a still deeper blackness by the light streaming from +their windows. There is no sight in the world so hard for lonely, homeless +people to see, as the sight of the lighted windows of houses after +nightfall. Why houses should look so much more homelike, so much more +suggestive of shelter and cheer and companionship and love, when the +curtains are snug-drawn and the doors shut, and nobody can look in, though +the lights of fires and lamps shine out, than they do in broad daylight, +with open windows and people coming and going through open doors, and a +general air of comradeship and busy living, it is hard to see. But there +is not a lonely vagabond in the world who does not know that they do. One +may see on a dark night many a wistful face of lonely man or lonely woman, +hurrying resolutely past, and looking away from, the illumined houses +which mean nothing to them except the keen reminder of what they are +without. Oh, the homeless people there are in this world! Did anybody ever +think to count up the thousands there are in every great city, who live in +lodgings and not in homes; from the luxurious lodger who lodges in the +costliest rooms of the costliest hotel, down to the most poverty-stricken +lodger who lodges in a corner of the poorest tenement-house? Homeless all +of them; their common vagabondage is only a matter of degrees of decency. +All honor to the bravery of those who are homeless because they must be, +and who make the best of it. But only scorn and pity for those who are +homeless because they choose to be, and are foolish enough to like it.</p> + +<p>Mercy had never before felt the sensation of being a homeless wanderer. +She was utterly unprepared for it. All through the breaking up of their +home and the preparations for their journey, she had been buoyed up by +excitement and anticipation. Much as she had grieved to part from some of +the friends of her early life, and to leave the old home in which she was +born, there was still a certain sense of elation in the prospect of new +scenes and new people. She had felt, without realizing it, a most +unreasonable confidence that it was to be at once a change from one home +to another home. In her native town, she had had a position of importance. +Their house was the best house in the town; judged by the simple standards +of a Cape Cod village, they were well-to-do. Everybody knew, and everybody +spoke with respect and consideration, of "Old Mis' Carr," or, as she was +perhaps more often called, "Widder Carr." Mercy had not thought--in her +utter inexperience of change, it could not have occurred to her--what a +very different thing it was to be simply unknown and poor people in a +strange place. The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly, +as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night. +Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the +thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the +home-lights deepened her sense of desolation. Every gust of rain that beat +on the carriage roof and windows made her feel more and more like an +outcast. She never forgot these moments. She used to say that in them she +had lived the whole life of the loneliest outcast that was ever born. Long +years afterward, she wrote a poem, called "The Outcast," which was so +intense in its feeling one could have easily believed that it was written +by Ishmael. When she was asked once how and when she wrote this poem, she +replied, "I did not write it: I lived it one night in entering a strange +town." In vain she struggled against the strange and unexpected emotion. A +nervous terror of arriving at the hotel oppressed her more and more; +although, thanks to Harley Allen's thoughtfulness, she knew that their +rooms were already engaged for them. She felt as if she would rather drive +on and on, in all the darkness and rain, no matter where, all night long, +rather than enter the door of the strange and public house, in which she +must give her name and her mother's name on the threshold.</p> + +<p>When the carriage stopped, she moved so slowly to alight that her mother +exclaimed petulantly,--</p> + +<p>"Dear me, child, what's the matter with you? Ain't you goin' to git out? +Ain't this the tavern?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother, this is our place," said Mercy, in a low voice, unlike her +usual cheery, ringing tones, as she assisted her mother down the clumsy +steps from the old-fashioned, high vehicle. "They're expecting us: it is +all right." But her voice and face belied her words. She moved all +through the rest of the evening like one in a dream. She said little, but +busied herself in making her mother as comfortable as it was possible to +be in the dingy and unattractive little rooms; and, as soon as the tired +old woman had fallen asleep, Mercy sat down on the floor by the window, +and leaning her head on the sill cried hard.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-03"> +<h2>Chapter III.</h2> + + + +<p>The next morning the sun shone, and Mercy was herself again. Her +depression of the evening before seemed to her so causeless, so +inexplicable, that she recalled it almost with terror, as one might a +temporary insanity. She blushed to think of her unreasonable sensitiveness +to the words and tones of Stephen White. "As if it made any sort of +difference to mother and to me whether he were our friend or not. He can +do as he likes. I hope I'll be out when he calls," thought Mercy, as she +stood on the hotel piazza, after breakfast, scanning with a keen and eager +glance every feature of the scene. To her eyes, accustomed to the broad, +open, leisurely streets of the Cape Cod hamlet, its isolated little houses +with their trim flower-beds in front and their punctiliously kept fences +and gates, this somewhat untidy and huddled town looked unattractive. The +hotel stood on the top of one of the plateaus of which I spoke in the last +chapter. The ground fell away slowly to the east and to the south. A +poorly kept, oblong-shaped "common," some few acres in extent, lay just in +front of the hotel: it had once been fenced in; but the fences were sadly +out of repair, and two cows were grazing there this morning, as +composedly as if there were no town ordinance forbidding all running of +cattle in the streets. A few shabby old farm-wagons stood here and there +by these fences; the sleepy horses which had drawn them thither having +been taken out of the shafts, and tethered in some mysterious way to the +hinder part of the wagons. A court was in session; and these were the +wagons of lawyers and clients, alike humble in their style of equipage. On +the left-hand side of the hotel, down the eastern slope of the hill ran an +irregular block of brick buildings, no two of a height or size, The block +had burned down in spots several times, and each owner had rebuilt as much +or as little as he chose, which had resulted in as incoherent a bit of +architecture as is often seen. The general effect, however, was of a +tendency to a certain parallelism with the ground line: so that the block +itself seemed to be sliding down hill; the roof of the building farthest +east being not much above the level of the first story windows in the +building farthest west. To add to the queerness of this "Brick Row," as it +was called, the ingenuity of all the sign-painters of the region had been +called into requisition. Signs alphabetical, allegorical, and symbolic; +signs in black on white, in red on black, in rainbow colors on tin; signs +high up, and signs low down; signs swung, and signs posted,--made the +whole front of the Row look at a little distance like a wall of +advertisements of some travelling menagerie. There was a painted yellow +horse with a fiery red mane, which was the pride of the heart of Seth +Nims, the livery-stable keeper; and a big black dog's head with a gay +collar of scarlet and white morocco, which was supposed to draw the custom +of all owners of dogs to "John Locker, harness-maker." There was a +barber's pole, and an apothecary's shop with the conventional globes of +mysterious crimson and blue liquids in the window; and, to complete the +list of the decorations of this fantastic front, there had been painted +many years ago, high up on the wall, in large and irregular letters, the +sign stretching out over two-thirds of the row, "Miss Orra White's +Seminary for Young Ladies." Miss Orra White had been dead for several +years; and the hall in which she had taught her school, having passed +through many successive stages of degradation in its uses, had come at +last to be a lumber-room, from which had arisen many a waggish saying as +to the similarity between its first estate and its last.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the common, opposite the hotel, was a row of +dwelling-houses, which owing to the steep descent had a sunken look, as if +they were slipping into their own cellars. The grass was too green in +their yards, and the thick, matted plantain-leaves grew on both edges of +the sodden sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," thought Mercy to herself, "I am sure I hope our house is not +there." Then she stepped down from the high piazza, and stood for a moment +on the open space, looking up toward the north. She could only see for a +short distance up the winding road. A high, wood-crowned summit rose +beyond the houses, which seemed to be built higher and higher on the +slope, and to be much surrounded by trees. A street led off to the west +also: this was more thickly built up. To the south, there was again a +slight depression; and the houses, although of a better order than those +on the eastern side of the common, had somewhat of the same sunken air. +Mercy's heart turned to the north with a sudden and instinctive +recognition. "I am sure that is the right part of the town for mother," +she said. "If Mr. White's house is down in that hollow, we'll not live in +it long." She was so absorbed in her study of the place, and in her +conjectures as to their home, that she did not realize that she herself +was no ordinary sight in that street: a slight, almost girlish figure, in +a plain, straight, black gown like a nun's, with one narrow fold of +transparent white at her throat, tied carelessly by long floating ends of +black ribbon; her wavy brown hair blown about her eyes by the wind, her +cheeks flushed with the keen air, and her eyes bright with excitement. +Mercy could not be called even a pretty woman; but she had times and +seasons of looking beautiful, and this was one of them. The hostler, who +was rubbing down his horses in the door of the barn, came out +wide-mouthed, and exclaimed under his breath,--</p> + +<p>"Gosh! who's she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun +which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that +neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. +The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on +hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the +unconscious Mercy, and each, in their own way, paying tribute to her +appearance.</p> + +<p>"That's the gal thet comed last night with her mother. Darned sight +better-lookin' by daylight than she wuz then!" said the stable-boy.</p> + +<p>"Hm! boys an' men, ye 're all alike,--all for looks," said the cook, who +was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal +isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got +mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a lookin' for somebody +they're expectin'."</p> + +<p>"Steve White he was with 'em down to the depot," replied the stable-boy. +"Seth sed he handed on 'em into the kerridge, 's if they were regular +topknots, sure enough."</p> + +<p>"Hm! Seth Quin 's a fool, 'n' always wuz," replied the cook, with a +seemingly uncalled-for acerbity of tone. "I've allus observed that them +that hez the most to say about topknots hez the least idea of what +topknots really is. There ain't a touch o' topknot about that ere girl: +she's come o' real humbly people. Anybody with half an eye can see that. +Good gracious! I believe she's goin' to stand still, and let old man +Wheeler run over her. Look out there, look out, gal!" screamed the cook, +and pounded vigorously with her rolling-pin on the side of the door to +rouse Mercy's attention. Mercy turned just in time to confront a stout, +red-faced, old gentleman with a big cane, who was literally on the point +of walking over her. He was so near that, as she turned, he started back +as if she had hit him in the breast.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul, God bless my soul, miss!" he exclaimed, in his +excitement, striking his cane rapidly against the ground. "I beg your +pardon, beg pardon, miss. Bad habit of mine, very bad habit,--walk along +without looking. Walked on a dog the other day; hurt dog; tumbled down +myself, nearly broke my leg. Bad habit, miss,--bad habit; too old to +change, too old to change. Beg pardon, miss."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman mumbled these curt phrases in a series of inarticulate +jerks, as if his vocal apparatus were wound up and worked with a crank, +but had grown so rusty that every now and then a wheel would catch on a +cog. He did not stand still for a moment, but kept continually stepping, +stepping, without advancing or retreating, striking his heavy cane on the +ground at each step, as if beating time to his jerky syllables. He had +twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows, +and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and +white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable +Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied +that he was an ancient elf from the Hartz Mountains.</p> + +<p>Mercy could not refrain from laughing in his face, as she retreated a few +steps towards the piazza, and said,--</p> + +<p>"It is I who ought to beg your pardon. I had no business to be standing +stock-still in the middle of the highway like a post."</p> + +<p>"Sensible young woman! sensible young woman! God bless my soul! don't know +your face, don't know your face," said the old gentleman, peering out +from under the eaves of his eyebrows, and scrutinizing Mercy as a child +might scrutinize a new-comer into his father's house. One could not resent +it, any more than one could resent the gaze of a child. Mercy laughed +again.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, you don't know my face. I only came last night," she said.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Fine young woman! fine young woman! +glad to see you,--glad, glad. Girls good for nothing, nothing, nothing at +all, nowadays," jerked on the queer old gentleman, still shifting rapidly +from one foot to the other, and beating time continuously with his cane, +but looking into Mercy's face with so kindly a smile that she felt her +heart warm with affection towards him.</p> + +<p>"Your father come with you? Come to stay? I'd like to know ye, child. Like +your face,--good face, good face, very good face," continued the +inexplicable old man. "Don't like many people. People are wolves, wolves, +wolves. 'D like to know you, child. Good face, good face."</p> + +<p>"Can he be crazy?" thought Mercy. But the smile and the honest twinkle of +the clear blue eye were enough to counterbalance the incoherent talk: the +old man was not crazy, only eccentric to a rare degree. Mercy felt +instinctively that she had found a friend, and one whom she could trust +and lean on.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'm very glad you like my face. I like yours, +too,--you look so merry. I think I and my mother will be very glad to know +you. We have come to live here in half of Mr. Stephen White's house."</p> + +<p>"Merry, merry? Nobody calls me merry. That's a mistake, child,--mistake, +mistake. Mistake about the house, too,--mistake. Stephen White hasn't any +house,--no, no, hasn't any house. My name's Wheeler, Wheeler. Good enough +name. 'Old Man Wheeler' some think's better. I hear 'em: my cane don't +make so much noise but I hear 'em. Ha! ha! wolves, wolves, wolves! People +are all wolves, all alike, all alike. Got any money, child?" With this +last question, the whole expression of his face changed; the very features +seemed to shrink; his eyes grew dark and gleaming as they fastened on +Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>Even this did not rouse Mercy's distrust. There was something inexplicable +in the affectionate confidence she felt in this strange, old man.</p> + +<p>"Only a little, sir," she said. "We are not rich; we have only a little."</p> + +<p>"A little's a good deal, good deal, good deal. Take care of it, child. +People'll git it away from you. They're nothing but wolves, wolves, +wolves;" and, saying these words, the old man set off at a rapid pace down +the street, without bidding Mercy good-morning.</p> + +<p>As she stood watching him with an expression of ever-increasing +astonishment, he turned suddenly, planted his stick in the ground, and +called,--</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Bad habit, bad habit. Never do say +good-morning,--bad habit. Too old to change, too old to change. Bad habit, +bad habit." And with a nod to Mercy, but still not saying good-morning, +he walked away.</p> + +<p>Mercy ran into the house, breathless with amusement and wonder, and gave +her mother a most graphic account of this strange interview.</p> + +<p>"But, for all his queerness, I like him, and I believe he'll be a great +friend of ours," she said, as she finished her story.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was knitting a woollen stocking. She had been knitting woollen +stockings ever since Mercy could remember. She always kept several on hand +in different stages of incompletion: some that she could knit on in the +dark, without any counting of stitches; others that were in the process of +heeling or toeing, and required the closest attention. She had been +setting a heel while Mercy was speaking, and did not reply for a moment. +Then, pushing the stitches all into a compact bunch in the middle of one +needle, she let her work fall into her lap, and, rolling the disengaged +knitting-needle back and forth on her knee to brighten it, looked at Mercy +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said she, "queer people allers do take to each other. I don't +believe he's a bit queerer 'n you are, child." And Mrs. Carr laughed a +little laugh, half pride and half dissatisfaction. "You're jest like your +father: he'd make friends with a stranger, any day, on the street, in two +jiffeys, if he took a likin' to him; and there might be neighbors a livin' +right long 'side on us, for years an' years, thet he'd never any more 'n +jest pass the time o' day with, 'n' he wa'n't a bit stuck up, either. I +used ter ask him, often 'n' often, what made him so offish to sum folks, +when I knew he hadn't the least thing agin 'em; and he allers said, sez +he, 'Well, I can't tell ye nothin' about it, only jest this is the way 't +is: I can't talk to 'em; they sort o' shet me up, like. I don't feel +nateral, somehow, when they're round!'"</p> + +<p>"O mother!" exclaimed Mercy, "I think I must be just like father. That is +exactly the way I feel so often. When I get with some people, I feel just +as if I had been changed into somebody else. I can't bear to open my +mouth. It is like a bad dream, when you dream you can't move hand nor +foot, all the time they're in the room with me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I thank the Lord, I don't never take such notions about people," +said Mrs. Carr, settling herself back in her chair, and beginning to make +her needles fly. "Nobody don't never trouble me much, one way or the +other. For my part, I think folks is alike as peas. We shouldn't hardly +know 'em apart, if 't wa'n't for their faces."</p> + +<p>Mercy was about to reply, "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; +and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But +she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well +as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the +childish intellect to grasp.</p> + +<p>Mercy was impatient to go at once to see their new home; but she could not +induce her mother to leave the house.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy!" she exclaimed pathetically, "ef yer knew what a comfort 't was +to me jest to set still in a chair once more. It seems like heaven, arter +them pesky joltin' cars. I ain't in no hurry to see the house. It can't +run away, I reckon; and we're sure of it, ain't we? There ain't any thing +that's got to be done, is there?" she asked nervously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, mother. It is all sure. We have leased the house for one year; +and we can't move in until our furniture comes, of course. But I do long +to see what the place is like, don't you?" replied Mercy, pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"No, no, child. Time enough when we move in. 'T ain't going to make any +odds what it's like. We're goin' to live in it, anyhow. You jest go by +yourself, ef you want to so much, an' let me set right here. It don't seem +to me 's I'll ever want to git out o' this chair." At last, very +unwillingly, late in the afternoon, Mercy went, leaving her mother alone +in the hotel.</p> + +<p>Without asking a question of anybody, she turned resolutely to the north.</p> + +<p>"Even if our house is not on this street," she said to herself, "I am +going to see those lovely woods;" and she walked swiftly up the hill, with +her eyes fixed on the glowing dome of scarlet and yellow leaves which +crowned it. The trees were in their full autumnal splendor: maples, +crimson, scarlet, and yellow; chestnuts, pale green and yellow; beeches, +shining golden brown; and sumacs in fiery spikes, brighter than all the +rest. There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their +green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors. Mercy had +often read of the glories of autumn in New England's thickly wooded +regions; but she had never dreamed that it could be so beautiful as this. +Rows of young maples lined the street which led up to this wooded hill. +Each tree seemed a full sheaf of glittering color; and yet the path below +was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright. Mercy walked +lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed +brighter than all the rest. In a very short time, her hands were too full; +and in despair, like an over-laden child, she began to scatter them along +the way. She was so absorbed in her delight in the leaves that she hardly +looked at the houses on either hand, except to note with an unconscious +satisfaction that they were growing fewer and farther apart, and that +every thing looked more like country and less like town than it had done +in the neighborhood of the hotel.</p> + +<p>Presently she came to a stretch of stone wall, partly broken down, in +front of an old orchard whose trees were gnarled and moss-grown. +Blackberry-vines had flung themselves over this wall, in and out among the +stones. The leaves of these vines were almost as brilliant as the leaves +of the maple-trees. They were of all shades of red, up to the deepest +claret; they were of light green, shading into yellow, and curiously +mottled with tiny points of red; all these shades and colors sometimes +being seen upon one long runner. The effect of these wreaths and tangles +of color upon the old, gray stones was so fine that Mercy stood still and +involuntarily exclaimed aloud. Then she picked a few of the most +beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them +with the maple-leaves she had already gathered. She made a most +picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint +little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and +leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them, +her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them. She +looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and +coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange +fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them, +unaware that she was on a highway.</p> + +<p>This was the picture that Stephen White saw, as he came slowly up the road +on his way home after an unusually wearying day. He slackened his pace, +and, perceiving how entirely unconscious Mercy was of his approach, +deliberately studied her, feature, dress, attitude,--all, as +scrutinizingly as if she had been painted on canvas and hanging on a wall.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word," he said to himself, "she isn't bad-looking, after all. I'm +not sure that she isn't pretty. If she hadn't that inconceivable bonnet on +her head,--yes, she is very pretty. Her mouth is bewitching. I declare, I +believe she is beautiful," were Stephen's successive verdicts, as he drew +nearer and nearer to Mercy. Mercy was thinking of him at that very +moment,--was thinking of him with a return of the annoyance and +mortification which had stung her at intervals all day, whenever she +recalled their interview of the previous evening. Mercy combined, in a +very singular manner, some of the traits of an impulsive nature with those +of an unimpulsive one. She did things, said things, and felt things with +the instantaneous intensity of the poetic temperament; but she was quite +capable of looking at them afterward, and weighing them with the cool and +unbiassed judgment of the most phlegmatic realist. Hence she often had +most uncomfortable seasons, in which one side of her nature took the other +side to task, scorned it and berated it severely; holding up its actions +to its remorseful view, as an elder sister might chide a younger one, who +was incorrigibly perverse and wayward.</p> + +<p>"It was about as silly a thing as you ever did in your life. He must have +thought you a perfect fool to have supposed he had come down to meet you," +she was saying to herself at the very moment when the sound of Stephen's +footsteps first reached her ear, and caused her to look up. The sight of +his face at that particular moment was so startling and so unpleasant to +her that it deprived her of all self-possession. She gave a low cry, her +face was flooded with crimson, and she sprang from the wall so hastily +that her leaves and vines flew in every direction.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry I frightened you so, Mrs. Philbrick," said Stephen, quite +unconscious of the true source of her confusion. "I was just on the point +of speaking, when you heard me. I ought to have spoken before, but you +made so charming a picture sitting there among the leaves and vines that I +could not resist looking at you a little longer."</p> + +<p>Mercy Philbrick hated a compliment. This was partly the result of the +secluded life she had led; partly an instinctive antagonism in her +straightforward nature to any thing which could be even suspected of not +being true. The few direct compliments she had received had been from men +whom she neither respected nor trusted. These words, coming from Stephen +White, just at this moment, were most offensive to her.</p> + +<p>Her face flushed still deeper red, and saying curtly,--"You frightened me +very much, Mr. White; but it is not of the least consequence," she turned +to walk back to the village. Stephen unconsciously stretched out his hand +to detain her.</p> + +<p>"But, Mrs. Philbrick," he said eagerly, "pray tell me what you think of +the house. Do you think you can be contented in it?"</p> + +<p>"I have not seen it," replied Mercy, in the same curt tone, still moving +on.</p> + +<p>"Not seen it!" exclaimed Stephen, in a tone which was of such intense +astonishment that it effectually roused Mercy's attention. "Not seen it! +Why, did you not know you were on your own stone wall? There is the +house;" and Mercy, following the gesture of his hand, saw, not more than +twenty rods beyond the spot where she had been sitting, a shabby, faded, +yellow wooden house, standing in a yard which looked almost as neglected +as the orchard, from which it was only in part separated by a tumbling +stone wall.</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Stephen watched her face in silence for a moment; +then he laughed constrainedly, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Philbrick, to say outright that it is the +dismallest old barn you ever saw. That's just what I had said about it +hundreds of times, and wondered how anybody could possibly live in it. But +necessity drove us into it, and I suppose necessity has brought you to it, +too," added Stephen, sadly.</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Very deliberately her eyes scanned the building. An +expression of scorn slowly gathered on her face.</p> + +<p>"It is not so forlorn inside as it is out," said Stephen. "Some of the +rooms are quite pleasant. The south rooms in your part of the house are +very cheerful."</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Stephen went on, beginning to be half-angry with this +little, unknown woman from Cape Cod, who looked with the contemptuous +glance of a princess upon the house in which he and his mother dwelt,--</p> + +<p>"You are quite at liberty to throw up your lease, Mrs. Philbrick, if you +choose. It was, perhaps, hardly fair to have let you hire the house +without seeing it."</p> + +<p>Mercy started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. White. I should not think of such a +thing as giving up the lease. I am very sorry you saw how ugly I think the +house. I do think it is the very ugliest house I ever saw," she continued, +speaking with emphatic deliberation; "but, then, I have not seen many +houses. In our village at home, all the houses are low and broad and +comfortable-looking. They look as if they had sat down and leaned back +to take their ease; and they are all neat and clean-looking, and have rows +of flower-beds from the gate to the front door. I never saw a house built +with such a steep angle to its roof as this has," said Mercy, looking up +with the instinctive dislike of a natural artist's eye at the ridgepole of +the old house.</p> + +<p>"We have to have our roofs at a sharp pitch, to let the snow slide off in +winter," said Stephen, apologetically, "we have such heavy snows here; but +that doesn't make the angle any less ugly to look at."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mercy; and her eyes still roved up and down and over the house, +with not a shadow of relenting in their expression. It was Stephen's turn +to be silent now. He watched her, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>Mercy's face was not merely a record of her thoughts: it was a photograph +of them. As plainly as on a written page held in his hand, Stephen White +read the successive phases of thought and struggle which passed through +Mercy's mind for the next five minutes; and he was not in the least +surprised when, turning suddenly towards him with a very sweet smile, she +said in a resolute tone,--</p> + +<p>"There! that's done with. I hope you will forgive my rudeness, Mr. White; +but the truth is I was awfully shocked at the first sight of the house. It +isn't your house, you know, so it isn't quite so bad for me to say so; and +I'm so glad you hate it as much as I do. Now I am never going to think +about it again,--never."</p> + +<p>"Why, can you help it, Mrs. Philbrick?" asked Stephen, in a wondering +tone. "I can't. I hate it more and more, I verily believe, each time I +come home; and I think that, if my mother weren't in it, I should burn it +down some night."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him with a certain shade of the same contempt with which +she had looked at the house; and Stephen winced, as she said coolly,--</p> + +<p>"Why, of course I can help it. I should be very much ashamed of myself if +I couldn't. I never allow myself to be distressed by things which I can't +help,--at least, that sort of thing," added Mercy, her face clouding with +the sudden recollection of a grief that she had not been able to rise +above. "Of course, I don't mean real troubles, like grief about any one +you love. One can't wholly conquer such troubles as that; but one can do a +great deal more even with these than people usually suppose. I am not sure +that it is right to let ourselves be unhappy about any thing, even the +worst of troubles. But I must hurry home now. It is growing late."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick," exclaimed Stephen, earnestly: "please come into the +house, and speak to my mother a moment. You don't know how she has been +looking forward to your coming."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I cannot possibly do that," replied Mercy. "There is no reason +why I should call on your mother, merely because we are going to live in +the same house."</p> + +<p>"But I assure you," persisted Stephen, "that it will give her the greatest +pleasure. She is a helpless cripple, and never leaves her bed. She has +probably been watching us from the window. She always watches for me. She +will wonder if I do not bring you in to see her. Please come," he said +with a tone which it was impossible to resist; and Mercy went.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White had indeed been watching them from the window; but Stephen had +reckoned without his host, or rather without his hostess, when he assured +Mercy that his mother would be so glad to see her. The wisest and the +tenderest of men are continually making blunders in their relations with +women; especially if they are so unfortunate as to occupy in any sense a +position involving a relation to two women at once. The relation may be +ever so rightful and honest to each woman; the women may be good women, +and in their right places; but the man will find himself perpetually +getting into most unexpected hot water, as many a man could testify +pathetically, if he were called upon.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White had been watching her son through the whole of his conversation +with Mercy. She could see only dimly at such a distance; but she had +discerned that it was a woman with whom he stood talking so long. It was +nearly half an hour past supper-time, and supper was Mrs. White's one +festivity in the course of the day. Their breakfast and their mid-day +dinner were too hurried meals for enjoyment, because Stephen was obliged +to make haste to the office; but with supper there was nothing to +interfere. Stephen's work for the day was done: he took great pains to +tell her at this time every thing which he had seen or heard which could +give her the least amusement. She looked forward all through her long +lonely days to the evenings, as a child looks forward to Saturday +afternoons. Like all invalids whose life has been forced into grooves, she +was impatient and unreasonable when anybody or any thing interfered with +her routine. A five minutes' delay was to her a serious annoyance, and +demanded an accurate explanation. Stephen so thoroughly understood this +exactingness on her part that he adjusted his life to it, as a +conscientious school-boy adjusts his to bells and signals, and never +trespassed knowingly. If he had dreamed that it was past tea-time, on this +unlucky night, he would never have thought of asking Mercy to go in and +see his mother. But he did not; and it was with a bright and eager face +that he threw open the door, and said in the most cordial tone,--</p> + +<p>"Mother, I have brought Mrs. Philbrick to see you."</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mrs. Philbrick?" was the rejoinder, in a tone and with a +look so chilling that poor Mercy's heart sank within her. She had all +along had an ideal in her own mind of the invalid old lady, Mr. White's +mother, to whom she was to be very good, and who was to be her mother's +companion. She pictured her as her own mother would be, a good deal older +and feebler, in a gentle, receptive, patient old age. Of so repellent, +aggressive, unlovely an old woman as this she had had no conception. It +would be hard to do justice in words to Mrs. White's capacity to be +disagreeable when she chose. She had gray eyes, which, though they had a +very deceptive trick of suffusing with tears as of great sensibility on +occasion, were capable of resting upon a person with a positively unhuman +coldness; her voice also had at these times a distinctly unhuman quality +in its tones. She had apparently no conception of any necessity of +controlling her feelings, or the expression of them. If she were pleased, +if all things went precisely as she liked, if all persons ministered to +her pleasure, well and good,--she would be graciously pleased to smile, +and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not +consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person +who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who was +responsible for her annoyance.</p> + +<p>As soon as Stephen's eyes fell on her face, on this occasion, he felt with +a sense of almost terror that he had made a fatal mistake, and he knew +instantly that it must be much later than he had supposed; but he plunged +bravely in, like a man taking a header into a pool he fears he may drown +in, and began to give a voluble account of how he had found Mrs. Philbrick +sitting on their stone wall, so absorbed in looking at the bright leaves +that she had not even seen the house. He ran on in this strain for some +minutes, hoping that his mother's mood might soften, but in vain. She +listened with the same stony, unresponsive look on her face, never taking +the stony, unresponsive eyes from his face; and, as soon as he stopped +speaking, she said in an equally stony voice,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, will you be so good as to take off your bonnet and take +tea with us? It is already long past our tea-hour!"</p> + +<p>Mercy sprang to her feet, and said impulsively, "Oh, no, I thank you. I +did not dream that it was so late. My mother will be anxious about me. I +must go. I am very sorry I came in. Good-evening."</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mrs. Philbrick," in the same slow and stony syllables, came +from Mrs. White's lips, and she turned her head away immediately.</p> + +<p>Stephen, with his face crimson with mortification, followed Mercy to the +door. In a low voice, he said, "I hope you will be able to make allowances +for my mother's manner. It is all my fault. I know that she can never bear +to have me late at meals, and I ought never to allow myself to forget the +hour. It is all my fault"</p> + +<p>Mercy's indignation at her reception was too great for her sense of +courtesy.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it was your fault at all, Mr. White," she exclaimed. +"Good-night," and she was out of sight before Stephen could think of a +word to say.</p> + +<p>Very slowly he walked back into the sitting-room. He had seldom been so +angry with his mother; but his countenance betrayed no sign of it, and he +took his seat opposite her in silence. Silence, absolute, unconquerable +silence, was the armor which Stephen White wore. It was like those +invisible networks of fine chains worn next the skin, in which many men in +the olden time passed unscathed through years of battles, and won the +reputation of having charmed lives. No one suspected the secret. To the +ordinary beholder, the man seemed accoutred in the ordinary fashion of +soldiers; but, whenever a bullet struck him, it glanced off harmlessly as +if turned back by a spell. It was so with Stephen White's silence: in +ordinary intercourse, he was social genial; he talked more than average +men talk; he took or seemed to take, more interest than men usually take +in the common small talk of average people; but the instant there was a +manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched +himself in silence. This was especially the case when he was reproached or +aroused by his mother. It was often more provoking to her than any amount +of retort or recrimination could have been. She had in her nature a +certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small +offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its +details; all the while making it out a matter of personal unkindness or +indifference to her that it should have happened. When she was in these +moods, Stephen's silence sometimes provoked her past endurance.</p> + +<p>"Can't you speak, Stephen?" she would exclaim.</p> + +<p>"What would be the use, mother?" he would say sadly. "If you do not know +that the great aim of my life is to make you happy, it is of no use for me +to keep on saying it. If it would make you any happier to keep on +discussing and discussing this question indefinitely, I would endure even +that; but it would not."</p> + +<p>To do Mrs. White justice, she was generally ashamed of these ebullitions +of unreasonable ill-temper, and endeavored to atone for them afterward by +being more than ordinarily affectionate and loving in her manner towards +Stephen. But her shame was short-lived, and never made her any the less +unreasonable or exacting when the next occasion occurred; so that, +although Stephen received her affectionate epithets and caresses with +filial responsiveness, he was never in the slightest degree deluded by +them. He took them for what they were worth, and held himself no whit +freer from constraint, no whit less ready for the next storm. By the very +fact of the greater fineness of his organization, this tyrannical woman +held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it +had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which +compelled respect. He had accepted this burden as the one great duty of +his life; and, whatever became of him, whatever became of his life, the +burden should be carried. This helpless woman, who stood to him in the +relation of mother, should be made happy. From the moment of his father's +death, he had assumed this obligation as a sacrament; and, if it lasted +his life out, he would never dream of evading or lessening it. In this +fine fibre of loyalty, Stephen White and Mercy Philbrick were alike: +though it was in him more an exalted sentiment; in her, simply an organic +necessity. In him, it would always have been in danger of taking morbid +shapes and phases; of being over-ridden and distorted at any time by +selfishness or wickedness in its object, as it had been by his selfish +mother. In Mercy, it was on a higher and healthier plane. Without being a +shade less loyal, she would be far clearer-sighted; would render, but not +surrender; would give a lifetime of service, but not a moment of +subjection. There was a shade of something feminine in Stephen's loyalty, +of something perhaps masculine in Mercy's; but Mercy's was the best, the +truest.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't allow my mother to treat a stranger like that," she thought +indignantly, as she walked away after Mrs. White's inhospitable invitation +to tea. "I wouldn't allow her. I would make her see the shamefulness of +it. What a weak man Mr. White must be!"</p> + +<p>Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have +seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression +of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of +ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had +strength, however much she might have undervalued its type.</p> + +<p>"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen, +than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward +to, all day long. You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did +you not know how late it was?"</p> + +<p>"No, mother. If I had, I should have come in."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd like to know what excuse there is for a man's not knowing what +time it is, when he has a watch in his pocket? And then you must needs +bring her in here, of all things,--when you know I hate to see people +near my meal-times, and you must have known it was near supper-time. At +any rate, watch or no watch, I suppose you didn't think you'd started to +come home in the middle of the afternoon, did you? And what did you want +her to come in for, anyhow? I'd like to know that. Answer me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Simply because I thought that it would give you pleasure to see some one, +mother. You often complain of being so lonely, of no one's coming in," +replied Stephen, in a tone which was pathetic, almost shrill, from its +effort to be patient and calm.</p> + +<p>"I wish, if you can't speak in your own voice, you wouldn't speak at all," +said the angry woman. "What makes you change your voice so?"</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. He knew very well this strange tone which sometimes +came into his voice, when his patience was tried almost beyond endurance. +He would have liked to avoid it; he was instinctively conscious that it +often betrayed to other people what he suffered. But it was beyond his +control: it seemed as if all the organs of speech involuntarily clenched +themselves, as the hand unconsciously clenches itself when a man is +enraged.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White persisted. "Your voice, when you're angry, 's enough to drive +anybody wild. I never heard any thing like it. And I'm sure I don't see +what you have to be angry at now. I should think I was the one to be +angry. You're all I've got in the world, Stephen; and you know what a life +I lead. It isn't as if I could go about, like other women; then I +shouldn't care where you spent your time, if you didn't want to spend it +with me." And tears, partly of ill-temper, partly of real grief, rolled +down the hard, unlovely, old face.</p> + +<p>This was only one evening. There are three hundred and sixty-five in a +year. Was not the burden too heavy for mortal man to carry?</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-04"> +<h2>Chapter IV.</h2> + + + +<p>Mercy said nothing to her mother of Mrs. White's rudeness. She merely +mentioned the fact of her having met Mr. White near the house, and having +gone with him, at his request, to speak to his mother.</p> + +<p>"What's she like, Mercy?" asked Mrs. Carr, eagerly. "Is she goin' to be +company for me?"</p> + +<p>"I could not tell, mother," replied Mercy, indifferently; "for it was just +their tea-hour, and I did not stay a minute,--only just to say, How d'ye +do, and Good-evening. But Mr. White says she is very lonely; people don't +go to see her much: so I should think she would be very glad of somebody +her own age in the house, to come and sit with her. She looks very ill, +poor soul. She hasn't been out of her bed, except when she was lifted, for +eight years."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I hope I'll never be that +way. What'u'd you ever do child, if I'd get to be like that?"</p> + +<p>"No danger, mother dear, of your ever being like Mrs. White," said Mercy, +with an incautious emphasis, which, however, escaped Mrs. Carr's +recognition.</p> + +<p>"Why, how can you be so sure I mightn't ever get into jest so bad a way, +child? There's none of us can say what diseases we're likely to hev or +not to hev. Now there's never been a case o' lung trouble in our family +afore mine, not 's fur back 's anybody kin trace it out; 'n' there's been +two cancers to my own knowledge; 'n' I allus hed a most awful dread o' +gettin' a cancer. There ain't no death like thet. There wuz my mother's +half-sister, Keziah,--she that married Elder Swift for her second husband. +She died o' cancer; an' her oldest boy by her first husband he hed it in +his face awful. But he held on ter life 's ef he couldn't say die, nohow; +and I tell yer, Mercy, it wuz a sight nobody'd ever forget, to see him +goin' round the street with one side o' his face all bound up, and his +well eye a rolling round, a-doin' the work o' two. He got so he couldn't +see at all out o' either eye afore he died, 'n' you could hear his +screeches way to our house. There wouldn't no laudalum stop the pain a +mite."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother! don't! don't!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is too dreadful to talk +about. I can't bear to think that any human being has ever suffered so. +Please don't ever speak of cancers again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr looked puzzled and a little vexed, as she answered, "Well, I +reckon they've got to be talked about a good deal, fust and last, 's long +'s there's so many dies on 'em. But I don't know 's you 'n' I've got any +call to dwell on 'em much. You've got dreadful quick feelin's, Mercy, +ain't you? You allus was orful feelin' for everybody when you wuz little, +'n' I don't see 's you've outgrowed it a bit. But I expect it's thet makes +you sech friends with folks, an' makes you such a good gal to your poor +old mother. Kiss me, child," and Mrs. Carr lifted up her face to be +kissed, as a child lifts up its face to its mother. She did this many +times a day; and, whenever Mercy bent down to kiss her, she put her hands +on the old woman's shoulders, and said, "Dear little mother!" in a tone +which made her mother's heart warm with happiness.</p> + +<p>It is a very beautiful thing to see just this sort of relation between an +aged parent and a child, the exact reversal of the bond, and the bond so +absolutely fulfilled. It seems to give a new and deeper sense to the word +"filial," and a new and deeper significance to the joy of motherhood or +fatherhood. Alas, that so few sons and daughters are capable of it! so few +helpless old people know the blessedness of it! No little child six years +old ever rested more entirely and confidingly in the love and kindness and +shelter and direction of its mother than did Mrs. Carr in the love and +kindness and shelter and direction of her daughter Mercy. It had begun to +be so, while Mercy was yet a little girl. Before she was fifteen years +old, she felt a responsibility for her mother's happiness, a watchfulness +over her mother's health, and even a care of her mother's clothes. With +each year, the sense of these responsibilities grew deeper; and after her +marriage, as she was denied the blessing of children, all the deep +maternal instincts of her strong nature flowed back and centred anew +around this comparatively helpless, aged child whom she called mother, and +treated with never-failing respect.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Carr first saw the house they were to live in, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"O Lor', Mercy! Is thet the house?" Then, stepping back a few steps, +shoving her spectacles high on her nose, and with her head well thrown +back, she took a survey of the building in silence. Then she turned slowly +around, and, facing Mercy, said in a droll, dry way, not uncommon with +her,--</p> + +<p>"'Bijah Jenkins's barn!"</p> + +<p>Mercy laughed outright.</p> + +<p>"So it is, mother. I hadn't thought of it. It looks just like that old +barn of Deacon Jenkins's."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Carr. "That's it, exzackly. Well, I never thought o' +offerin' to hire a barn to live in afore, but I s'pose 't'll do till we +can look about. Mebbe we can do better."</p> + +<p>"But we've taken it for a year, mother," said Mercy, a little dismayed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hev we? Well, well, I daresay it's comfortable enough; so the sun +shines in mornin's, thet's the most I care for. You'll make any kind o' +house pooty to look at inside, an' I reckon we needn't roost on the fences +outside, a-lookin' at it, any more'n we choose to. It does look, for all +the world though, like 'Bijah Jenkins's old yaller barn; 'n' thet there +jog's jest the way he jined on his cow-shed. I declare it's too +redicklus." And the old lady laughed till she had to wipe her spectacles.</p> + +<p>"It could be made very pretty, I think," said Mercy, "for all it is so +hideous now. I know just what I'd do to it, if it were mine. I'd throw +out a big bay window in that corner where the jog is, and another on the +middle of the north side, and then run a piazza across the west side, and +carry the platform round both the bay windows. I saw a picture of a house +in a book Mr. Allen had, which looked very much as this would look then. +Oh, but I'd like to do it!" Mercy's imagination was so fired with the +picture she had made to herself of the house thus altered and improved, +that she could not easily relinquish it.</p> + +<p>"But, Mercy, you don't know the lay o' the rooms, child. You don' 'no' +where that ere jog comes. Your bay window mightn't come so's't would be of +any use. Yer wouldn't build one jest to look at, would you?" said her +mother.</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure I wouldn't, if I had plenty of money," replied Mercy, +laughing. "But I have no idea of building bay windows on other people's +houses. I was only amusing myself by planning it. I'd rather have that +house, old and horrid as it is, than any house in the town. I like the +situation so much, and the woods are so beautiful. Perhaps I'll earn a lot +of money some day, and buy the place, and make it just as we like it."</p> + +<p>"You earn money, child!" said Mrs. Carr, in a tone of unqualified wonder. +"How could you earn money, I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, make bonnets or gowns, dear little mother, or teach school," said +Mercy, coloring. "Mr. Allen said I was quite well enough fitted to teach +our school at home, if I liked."</p> + +<p>"But, Mercy, child, you'd never go to do any such thing's thet, would yer +now?" said her mother, piteously. "Don't ye hev all ye want, Mercy? Ain't +there money enough for our clothes? I'm sure I don't need much; an' I +could do with a good deal less, if there was any thing you wanted, dear. +Your father he 'd never rest in his grave, ef he thought his little Mercy +was a havin' to arn money for her livin'. You didn't mean it, child, did +yer? Say yer didn't mean it, Mercy," and tears stood in the poor old +woman's eyes.</p> + +<p>It is strange what a tenacious pride there was in the hearts of our old +sea-faring men of a half century ago. They had the same feeling that kings +and emperors might have in regard to their wives and daughters, that it +was a disgrace for them to be obliged to earn money. It would be an +interesting thing to analyze this sentiment, to trace it to its roots: it +was so universal among successful sea-faring men that it must have had its +origin in some trait distinctively peculiar to their profession. All the +other women in the town or the village might eke out the family incomes by +whatever devices they pleased; but the captains' wives were to be ladies. +They were to wear silk gowns brought from many a land; they were to have +ornaments of quaint fashion, picked up here and there; they were to have +money enough in the bank to live on in quiet comfort during the intervals +when the husbands sailed away to make more. So strong was this feeling +that it crystallized into a traditionary custom of life, which even +poverty finds it hard to overcome. You shall find to-day, in any one of +the seaport cities or towns of New England, widows and daughters of +sea-captains, living, or rather seeming to live, upon the most beggarly +incomes, but still keeping up a certain pathetic sham of appearance of +being at ease. If they are really face to face with probable starvation, +they may go to some charitable institution where fine needlework is given +out, and earn a few dollars in that way. But they will fetch and carry +their work by night, and no neighbor will ever by any chance surprise them +with it in their hands. Most beautifully is this surreptitious sewing +done; there is no work in this country like it. The tiny stitches bear the +very aroma of sad and lonely leisure in them; a certain fine pride, too, +as if the poverty-constrained lady would in no wise condescend to depart +from her own standard in the matter of a single loop or stitch, no matter +to what plebeian uses the garment might come after it should leave her +hands.</p> + +<p>Mercy's deep blush when she replied to her mother's astonished inquiry, +how she could possibly earn any money, sprung from her consciousness of a +secret,--a secret so harmless in itself, that she was ashamed of having +any feeling of guilt in keeping it a secret; and yet, her fine and +fastidious honesty so hated even the semblance of concealment, that the +mere withholding of a fact, simply because she disliked to mention it, +seemed to her akin to a denial of it. If there is such a thing in a human +being as organic honesty,--an honesty which makes a lie not difficult, but +impossible, just as it is impossible for men to walk on ceilings like +flies, or to breathe in water like fishes,--Mercy Philbrick had it. The +least approach to an equivocation was abhorrent to her: not that she +reasoned about it, and submitting it to her conscience found it wicked, +and therefore hateful; but that she disliked it instinctively,--as +instinctively as she disliked pain. Her moral nerves shrank from it, just +as nerves of the body shrink from suffering; and she recoiled from the +suggestion of such a thing with the same involuntary quickness with which +we put up the hand to ward off a falling blow, or drop the eyelid to +protect an endangered eye. Physicians tell us that there are in men and +women such enormous differences in this matter of sensitiveness to +physical pain that one person may die of a pain which would be +comparatively slight to another; and this is a fact which has to be taken +very carefully into account, in all dealing with disease in people of the +greatest capacity for suffering. May there not be equally great +differences in souls, in the matter of sensitiveness to moral +hurt?--differences for which the soul is not responsible, any more than +the body is responsible for its skin's having been made thin or thick. +Will-power has nothing whatever to do with determining the latter +conditions. Let us be careful how far we take it to task for failing to +control the others. Perhaps we shall learn, in some other stage of +existence, that there is in this world a great deal of moral color +blindness, congenital, incurable; and that God has much more pity than we +suppose for poor things who have stumbled a good many times while they +were groping in darkness.</p> + +<p>People who see clearly themselves are almost always intolerant of those +who do not. We often see this ludicrously exemplified, even in the trivial +matter of near-sightedness. We are almost always a little vexed, when we +point out a distant object to a friend, and hear him reply,-- + +"No, I do not see it at all. I am near-sighted."</p> + +<p>"What! can't you see that far?" is the frequent retort, and in the pity is +a dash of impatience.</p> + +<p>There is a great deal of intolerance in the world, which is closely akin +to this; and not a whit more reasonable or righteous, though it makes +great pretensions to being both. Mercy Philbrick was full of such +intolerance, on this one point of honesty. She was intolerant not only to +others, she was intolerant to herself. She had seasons of fierce and +hopeless debating with herself, on the most trivial matters, or what would +seem so to nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand. During +such seasons as these, her treatment of her friends and acquaintances had +odd alternations of frank friendliness and reticent coolness. A sudden +misgiving whether she might not be appearing to like her friend more than +she really did would seize her at most inopportune moments, and make her +absent-minded and irresponsive. She would leave sentences abruptly +unfinished,--invitations, perhaps, or the acceptances of invitations, the +mere words of which spring readily to one's lips, and are thoughtlessly +spoken. But, in Mercy's times of conflict with herself, even these were +exaggerated in her view to monstrous deceits. She had again and again +held long conversations with Mr. Allen on this subject, but he failed to +help her. He was a good man, of average conscientiousness and average +perception: he literally could not see many of the points which Mercy's +keener analysis ferreted out, and sharpened into weapons for her own pain. +He thought her simply morbid.</p> + +<p>"Now, child," he would say,--for, although he was only a few years Mercy's +senior, he had taught her like a child for three years,--"now, child, +leave off worrying yourself by these fancies. There is not the least +danger of your ever being any thing but truthful. Nature and grace are +both too strong in you. There is no lie in saying to a person who has come +to see you in your own house, 'I am glad to see you,' for you are glad; +and, if not, you can make yourself glad, when you think how much pleasure +you can give the person by talking with him. You are glad, always, to give +pleasure to any human being, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Mercy would reply unhesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Very well. To the person who comes to see you, you give pleasure: +therefore, you are glad to see him."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Allen," would persist poor Mercy, "that is not what the person +thinks I mean. Very often some one comes to see me, who bores me so that I +can hardly keep awake. He would not be pleased if he knew that all my +cordial welcome really meant was,--'I'm glad to see you, because I'm a +benevolent person, and am willing to make my fellow-creatures happy at any +sacrifice, even at the frightful one of entertaining such a bore as you +are!' He would never come near me again, if he knew I thought that; and +yet, if I do think so, and make him think I do not, is not that the +biggest sort of a lie? Why, Mr. Allen, many a time when I have seen +tiresome or disagreeable people coming to our house, I have run away and +hid myself, so as not to be found; not in the least because I could not +bear the being bored by them, but because I could not bear the thought of +the lies I should speak, or at least act, if I saw them."</p> + +<p>"The interpretation a visitor chooses to put upon our kind cordiality of +manner to him is his own affair, not ours, Mercy. It is a Christian duty +to be cordial and kindly of manner to every human being: any thing less +gives pain, repels people from us, and hinders our being able to do them +good. There is no more doubt of this than of any other first principle of +Christian conduct; and I am very sorry that these morbid notions have +taken such hold of you. If you yield to them, you will make yourself soon +disliked and feared, and give a great deal of needless pain to your +neighbors."</p> + +<p>It was hard for Mr. Allen to be severe with Mercy, for he loved her as if +she were his younger sister; but he honestly thought her to be in great +danger of falling into a chronic morbidness on this subject, and he +believed that stern words were most likely to convince her of her mistake. +It was a sort of battle, however,--this battle which Mercy was forced to +fight,--in which no human being can help another, unless he has first been +through the same battle himself. All that Mr. Allen said seemed to Mercy +specious and, to a certain extent, trivial: it failed to influence her, +simply because it did not so much as recognize the point where her +difficulty lay.</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Allen tries till he dies, he will never convinc me that it is not +deceiving people to make them think you're glad to see them when you're +not," Mercy said to herself often, as, with flushed cheeks and tears in +her eyes, she walked home after these conversations. "He may make me think +that it is right to deceive them rather than to make them unhappy. It +almost seems as if it must be; yet, if we once admitted that, where +should we ever stop? It seems to me that would be a very dangerous +doctrine. A lie's a lie, let whoever will call it fine names, and pass it +off as a Christian duty The Bible does not say, 'Thou shalt not lie, +except when it is necessary to lie, to avoid hurting thy neighbor's +feelings,' It says, 'Thou shalt not lie.' Oh, what a horrible word 'lie' +is! It stings like a short, sharp stroke with a lash." And Mercy would +turn away from the thought with a shudder, and resolutely force hersef to +think of something else. Sometimes she would escape from the perplexity +for weeks: chance would so favor her, that no opportunity for what she +felt to be deceit would occur; but, in these intervals of relief, her +tortured conscience seemed only to renew its voices, and spring upon her +all the more fiercely on the next occasion. The effect, of all these +indecisive conflicts upon Mercy's character had not been good. They had +left her morally bruised, and therefore abnormally sensitive to the least +touch. She was in danger of becoming either a fanatic for truth, or +indifferent to it. Paradoxcal as it may seem, she was in almost as much +danger of the one as of the other. But always, when our hurts are fast +healing without help, the help comes. It is probable that there is to-day +on the earth a cure, either in herb or stone or spring, for every ill +which men's bodies can know. Ignorance and accident may hinder us long +from them, but sooner or later the race shall come to possess them all. So +with souls. There is the ready truth, the living voice, the warm hand, or +the final experience, waiting for each soul's need. We do not die till we +have found them. There were yet to enter into Mercy Philbrick's life a new +light and a new force, by the help of which she would see clearly and +stand firm. + +The secret which she had now for nearly a year kept from her mother was a +very harmless one. To people of the world, it would appear so trivial a +thing, that the conscience which could feel itself wounded by reticence on +such a point would seem hardly worth a sneer. Mr. Allen, who had been +Mercy's teacher for three years, had early seen in her a strong poetic +impulse, and had fostered and stimulated it by every means in his power. +He believed that in the exercise of this talent she would find the best +possible help for her loneliness and comfort for her sorrow. He recognized +clearly that, to so exceptional a nature as Mercy's, a certain amount of +isolation was inevitable, all through her life, however fortunate she +might be in entering into new and wider relations. The loneliness of +intense individuality is the loneliest loneliness in the world,--a +loneliness which crowds only aggravate, and which even the closest and +happiest companionship can only in part cure. The creative faculty is the +most inalienable and uncontrollable of individualities. It is at once its +own reward and its own penalty: until it has conquered the freedom of its +own city, in which it must for ever dwell, more or less apart, it is only +a prisoner in the cities of others. All this Mr. Allen felt for Mercy, +recognized in Mercy. He felt and recognized it by the instinct of love, +rather than by any intellectual perception. Intellectually, he was, in +spite of his superior culture, far Mercy's inferior. He had been brave +enough and manly enough to recognize this, and also to recognize what it +took still more manliness to recognize,--that she could never love a man +of his temperament. It would have been very easy for him to love Mercy. He +was not a man of a passionate nature; but he felt himself strangely +stirred whenever he looked into her sensitive, orchid-like face. He felt +in every fibre of him that to have the whole love of such a woman would be +bewildering joy; yet never for one moment did he allow himself to think of +seeking it. "I might make her think she loved me, perhaps," he said to +himself. "She is so lonely and sad, and has seen so few men; but it would +be base. She needs a nature totally different from mine, a life unlike the +life I shall lead. I will never try to make her love me. And he never did. +He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly, +and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to +her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife. No +doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged +bond. It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence +and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month +by month. Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely +together a year or two longer. The change could have been in but one +direction. They loved each other too much to ever love less: they might +have loved more; and Mercy's life had been more peaceful, her heart had +known a truer content, if she had never felt any stronger emotion than +that which Harley Allen's love would have roused in her bosom. But his +resolution was inexorable. His instinct was too keen, his will too strong: +he compelled all his home-seeking, wife-loving thoughts to turn away from +Mercy; and, six months after her departure, he had loyally and lovingly +promised to be the husband of another. In Mercy's future he felt an +intense interest; he would never cease to watch over her, if she would let +him; he would guide, mould, and direct her, until the time came--he knew +it would come--when she had outgrown his help, and ascended to a plane +where he could no longer guide her. His greatest fear was lest, from her +overflowing vitality and keen sensuous delight in all the surface +activities and pleasures of life, the intellectual side of her nature +should be kept in the background and not properly nourished. He had +compelled her to study, to think, to write. Who would do this for her in +the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he, +while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one. +He was too dreamy and pleasure-loving himself to be a spur to others. A +vague wonder, almost like a presentiment, haunted his thoughts continually +as to the nature of the relation which would exist between Stephen and +Mercy. One day he wrote a long letter to Stephen, telling him all about +Mercy,--her history; her peculiarities, mental and moral; her great need +of mental training; her wonderful natural gifts. He closed his letter in +these words:--</p> + +<p>"There is the making of a glorious woman and, I think, a true poet in this +girl; but whether she ever makes either will depend entirely upon the +hands she falls into. She has a capacity for involuntary adaptation of +herself to any surroundings, and for an unconscious and indomitable +loyalty to the every-day needs of every-day life, which rarely go with the +poetic temperament. She would contentedly make bread and do nothing else, +till the day of her death, if that seemed to be the nearest and most +demanded duty. She would be heartily faithful and joyous every day, in +intercourse with only common and uncultivated people, if fate sets her +among them. She seems to me sometimes to be more literally a child of God, +in the true and complete sense of the word 'child,' than any one I ever +knew. She takes every thing which comes to her just as a happy and good +little child takes every thing that is given to him, and is pleased with +all; yet she is not at all a religious person. I am often distressed by +her lack of impulse to worship. I think she has no strong sense of a +personal God; yet her conscience is in many ways morbidly sensitive. She +is a most interesting and absorbing person,--one entirely unique in my +experience. Living with her, as you will, it will be impossible for you +not to influence her strongly, one way or the other; and I want to enlist +your help to carry on the work I have begun. She owes it to herself and to +the world not to let her mind be inactive. I am very much mistaken if she +has not within her the power to write poems, which shall take place among +the work that lasts."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen read this letter over several times, and then, with a gesture of +impatience, tore the sheets down the middle, and threw them into the fire, +exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! as if there were any use in sending a man a portrait of a woman he +is to see every day. If Stephen is the person to amount to any thing in +her life, he will recognize her. If he is not, all my descriptions of her +will be thrown away. It is best to let things take their own course."</p> + +<p>After some deliberation, he decided to take a step, which he would never +have taken, had Mercy not been going away from his influence,--a step +which he had again and again said to himself he would hot risk, lest the +effect might be to hinder her intellectual growth. He sent two of her +poems to a friend of his, who was the editor of one of the leading +magazines in the country. The welcome they met exceeded even his +anticipations. By the very next mail, he received a note from his friend, +enclosing a check, which to Harley Allen's inexperience of such matters +seemed disproportionately large. "Your little Cape Cod girl is a wonder, +indeed," wrote the editor. "If she can keep on writing such verse as this, +she will make a name for herself. Send us some more: we'll pay her well +for it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen was perplexed. He had not once thought of the verses being paid +for. He had thought that to see her poems in print might give Mercy a new +incentive to work, might rouse in her an ambition, which would in part +take the place of the stimulus which his teachings had given her. He very +much disliked to tell her what he had done, and to give to her the money +she had unwittingly earned. He feared that she would resent it; he feared +that she would be too elated by it; he feared a dozen different things in +as many minutes, as he sat turning the check over and over in his hands. +But his fears were all unfounded. Mercy had too genuine an artistic nature +to be elated, too much simplicity to be offended. Her first emotion was +one of incredulity; her second, of unaffected and humble wonder that any +verses of hers should have been so well spoken of; and her next, of +childlike glee at the possibility of her earning any money. She had not a +trace of the false pride which had crystallized in her mother's nature +into such a barrier against the idea of a paid industry.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed, "is it really possible? Do you think the +verses were really worth it? Are you quite sure the editor did not send +the money because the verses were written by a friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>Harley Allen laughed.</p> + +<p>"Editors are not at all likely, Mercy," he said, "to pay any more for +things than the things are worth. I think you will some day laugh +heartily, as you look back upon the misgivings with which you received the +first money earned by your pen. If you will only work faithfully and +painstakingly, you can do work which will be much better paid than this."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"Oh! oh! Then I can have books and pictures, and take journeys," she said +in a tone of such ecstasy that Mr. Allen was surprised.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy," he replied, "I did not know you were such a discontented +girl. Have you always longed for all these things?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not discontented, Mr. Allen," answered Mercy, a little proudly. "I +never had a discontented moment in my life. I'm not so silly. I have never +yet seen the day which did not seem to me brimful and running over with +joys and delights; that is, except when I was for a little while bowed +down by a grief nobody could bear up under," she added, with a sudden +drooping of every feature in her expressive face, as she recalled the one +sharp grief of her life. "I don't see why a distinct longing for all sorts +of beautiful things need be in the least inconsistent with absolute +content. In fact, I know it isn't; for I have both."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen was not enough of an idealist to understand this. He looked +puzzled, and Mercy went on,--</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Allen, I should like to have our home perfectly beautiful, just +like the most beautiful houses I have read about in books. I should like +to have the walls hung full of pictures, and the rooms filled full of +books; and I should like to have great greenhouses full of all the rare +and exquisite flowers of the whole world. I'd like one house like the +house you told me of, full of all the orchids, and another full of only +palms and ferns. I should like to wear always the costliest of silks, very +plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and +laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should +like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people +around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care +just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures, +and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure +that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr. +Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became +suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look +she had never seen on his face before.</p> + +<p>"Of your future life, Mercy,--of your future life. I am wondering what it +will be, and if the dear Lord will carry you safe through all the +temptations which the world must offer to one so sensitive as you are to +all its beauties," replied Mr. Allen, sadly. Mercy was displeased. She was +always intolerant of this class of references to the Lord. Her sense of +honesty took alarm at them. In a curt and half-petulant tone, she +answered,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose ministers have to say such things, Mr. Allen; but I wish you +wouldn't say them to me. I do not think that the Lord made the beautiful +things in this world for temptations; and I believe he expects us to keep +ourselves out of mischief, and not throw the responsibility on to him!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy, Mercy! don't say such things! They sound irreverent: they +shock me!" exclaimed Mr. Allen, deeply pained by Mercy's tone and words.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry to shock you, Mr. Allen," replied Mercy, in a gentler +tone. "Pray forgive me. I do not think, however, there is half as much +real irreverence in saying that the Lord expects us to look out for +ourselves and keep out of mischief as there is in teaching that he made a +whole world full of people so weak and miserable that they couldn't look +after themselves, and had to be lifted along all the time."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen shook his head, and sighed. When Mercy was in this frame of +mind, it was of no use to argue with her. He returned to the subject of +her poetry.</p> + +<p>"If you will keep on reading and studying, Mercy, and will compel yourself +to write and rewrite carefully, there is no reason why you should not have +a genuine success as a writer, and put yourself in a position to earn +money enough to buy a great many comforts and pleasures for yourself, and +your mother also," he said.</p> + +<p>At the mention of her mother, Mercy started, and exclaimed irrelevantly,--</p> + +<p>"Dear me! I never once thought of mother."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen looked, as well he might, mystified. "Never once thought of her! +What do you mean, Mercy?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean I never once thought about telling her about the money. She +wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"Why not? I should think she would not only like the money, but be very +proud of your being able to earn it in such a way."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that might make a difference," said Mercy, reflectively: "it +would seem quite different to her from taking in sewing, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should think so," laughed Mr. Allen. "Very different, indeed."</p> + +<p>"But it's earning money, working for money, all the same," continued +Mercy; "and you haven't the least idea how mother feels about that. Father +must have been full of queer notions. She got it all from him. But I can't +see that there is any difference between a woman's taking money for what +she can do, and a man's taking money for what he can do. I can do sewing, +and you can preach; and of the two, if people must go without one or the +other, they could do without sermons better than without clothes,--eh, Mr. +Allen?" and Mercy laughed mischievously. "But once when I told mother I +believed I would turn dressmaker for the town, I knew I could earn ever so +much money, besides doing a philanthropy in getting some decent gowns into +the community, she was so horrified and unhappy at the bare idea that I +never have forgotten it. It is just so with ever so many women here. They +would rather half-starve than do any thing to earn money. For my part, I +think it is nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mercy,--certainly it is," replied Mr. Allen, anxious lest this +new barrier should come between Mercy and her work. "It is only a +prejudice. And you need never let your mother know any thing about it. +She is so old and feeble it would not be worth while to worry her."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes grew dark and stern as she fixed them on Mr. Allen. "I wonder +I believe any thing you say, Mr. Allen. How many things do you keep back +from me, or state differently from what they are, to save my feelings? or +to adapt the truth to my feebleness, which is not like the feebleness of +old age, to be sure, but is feebleness in comparison with your knowledge +and strength? I hate, hate, hate, your theories about deceiving people. I +shall certainly tell my mother, if I keep on writing, and am paid for it," +she said impetuously.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Of course, if you think it wrong to leave her in ignorance +about it, you must tell her. I myself see no reason for your mentioning +the fact, unless you choose to. You are a mature and independent woman: +she is old and childish. The relation between you is really reversed. You +are the mother, and she the child. Suppose she had become a writer when +you were a little girl: would it have been her duty to tell you of it?" +replied Mr. Allen.</p> + +<p>"I don't care! I shall tell her! I never have kept the least thing from +her yet, and I don't believe I ever will," said Mercy. "You'll never make +me think it's right, Mr. Allen. What a good Jesuit you'd have made, +wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen colored. "Oh, child, how unjust you are!" he exclaimed. "But it +must be all my stupid way of putting things. One of these days, you'll see +it all differently."</p> + +<p>And she did. Firm as were her resolutions to tell her mother every thing, +she could not find courage to tell her about the verses and the price paid +for them. Again and again she had approached the subject, and had been +frightened back,--sometimes by her own unconquerable dislike to speaking +of her poetry; sometimes, as in the instance above, by an outbreak on her +mother's part of indignation at the bare suggestion of her earning money. +After that conversation, Mercy resolved within herself to postpone the day +of the revelation, until there should be more to tell and more to show.</p> + +<p>"If ever I have a hundred dollars, I'll tell her then," she thought. "So +much money as that would make it seem better to her. And I will have a +good many verses by that time to read to her." And so the secret grew +bigger and heavier, and yet Mercy grew more used to carrying it, until she +herself began to doubt whether Mr. Allen were not right, after all; and if +it would not be a pity to trouble the feeble old heart with a needless +perplexity and pain.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-05"> +<h2>Chapter V.</h2> + + + +<p>When Stephen White saw his new tenants' first preparations for moving into +his house, he was conscious of a strangely mingled feeling, half +irritation, and half delight. Four weeks had passed since the unlucky +evening on which he had taken Mercy to his mother's room, and he had not +seen her face again. He had called at the hotel twice, but had found only +Mrs. Carr at home. Mercy had sent a messenger with only a verbal message, +when she wished the key of the house.</p> + +<p>She had an undefined feeling that she would not come into any relation +with Stephen White, if it could be avoided. She was heartily glad that she +had not been in the house when he called. And yet, had she been in the +habit of watching her own mental states, she would have discovered that +Stephen White was very much in her thoughts; that she had come to +wondering why she never met him in her walks; and, what was still more +significant, to mistaking other men for him, at a distance. This is one of +the oddest tricks of a brain preoccupied with the image of one human +being. One would think that it would make the eye clearer-sighted, +well-nigh infallible, in the recognition of the loved form. Not at all. +Waiting for her lover to appear, a woman will stand wearily watching at a +window, and think fifty times in sixty minutes that she sees him coming. +Tall men, short men, dark men, light men; men with Spanish cloaks, and men +in surtouts,--all wear, at a little distance, a tantalizing likeness to +the one whom they in no wise resemble.</p> + +<p>After such a watching as this, the very eye becomes disordered, as after +looking at a bright color it sees a spectrum of a totally different tint; +and, when the long looked-for person appears, he himself looks unnatural +at first, and strange. How well many women know this curious fact in +love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly +enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon. +Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks +quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never +doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes +were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he +and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an +important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of +unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a +myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are +constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have +the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings. +Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the +ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected.</p> + +<p>When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at +his mother's window. It was just at dusk.</p> + +<p>"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowly towards her son, and spoke in the +measured syllables and unvibrating tone which always marked her utterance +when she was displeased.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you are under any obligation to do that? Suppose they had +hired a house of you in some other part of the town: would you have felt +called upon to pay them that attention? I do not know what the usual +duties of a landlord are. You know best."</p> + +<p>Stephen colored. This was the worst of his mother's many bad traits,--an +instinctive, unreasoning, and unreasonable jealousy of any mark of +attention or consideration shown to any other person than herself, even if +it did not in the smallest way interfere with her comfort; and this cold, +sarcastic manner of speaking was, of all the forms of her ill-nature, the +one he found most unbearable. He made no reply, but stood still at the +window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she +helped her mother out of, and down from, the antiquated old carriage, and +carried parcel after parcel and laid them on the doorstep.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White continued in the same sarcastic tone,--</p> + +<p>"Pray go and help move all their baggage in, Stephen, if it would give you +any pleasure. It is nothing to me, I am sure, if you choose to be all the +time doing all sorts of things for everybody. I don't see the least +occasion for it, that's all."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me only common neighborliness and friendly courtesy, mother," +replied Stephen, gently. "But you know you and I never agree upon such +points. Our views are radically different, and it is best not to discuss +them."</p> + +<p>"Views!" ejaculated Mrs. White, in a voice more like the low growl of some +animal than like any sound possible to human organs. "I don't want to hear +any thing about 'views' about such a trifle. Why don't you go, if you want +to, and be done with it?"</p> + +<p>"It is too late now," answered Stephen, in the same unruffled tone. "They +have gone in, and the carriage is driving off."</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps they would like to have you put down their carpets for +them, or open their boxes," sneered Mrs. White, still with the same +intolerable sarcastic manner. "I don't doubt they could find some use for +your services."</p> + +<p>"O mother, don't!" pleaded Stephen, "please don't. I do not wish to go +near them or ever see them, if it will make you any less happy. Do let us +talk of something else."</p> + +<p>"Who ever said a word about your not going near them, I'd like to know? +Have I ever tried to shut you up, or keep you from going anywhere you +wanted to? Answer me that, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, mother," answered Stephen, "you never have. But I wish I could make +you happier."</p> + +<p>"You do make me very happy, Steve," said Mrs. White, mollified by the +gentle answer. "You're a good boy, and always was; but it does vex me to +see you always so ready to be at everybody's beck and call; and, where +it's a woman, it naturally vexes me more. You wouldn't want to run any +risk of being misunderstood, or making a woman care about you more than +she ought."</p> + +<p>Stephen stared. This was a new field. Had his mother gone already thus far +in her thoughts about Mercy Philbrick? And was her only thought of the +possibility of the young woman's caring for him, and not in the least of +his caring for her?</p> + +<p>And what would ever become of the peace of their daily life, if this kind +of jealousy--the most exacting, most insatiable jealousy in the +world--were to grow up in her heart? Stephen was dumb with despair. The +apparent confidential friendliness and assumption of a tacit understanding +and agreement between him and her on the matter, with which his mother had +said, "You wouldn't want to be misunderstood, or make a woman care more +for you than she ought," struck terror to his very soul. The apparent +amicableness of her remark at the present moment did not in the least +blind him to the enormous possibilities of future misery involved in such +a train of feeling and thought on her part. He foresaw himself involved in +a perfect network of espionage and cross-questioning and suspicion, in +comparison with which all he had hitherto borne at his mother's hands +would seem trivial. All this flashed through his mind in the brief +instant that he hesitated before he replied in an off-hand tone, which for +once really blinded his mother,--</p> + +<p>"Goodness, mother! whatever put such ideas into your head? Of course I +should never run any such risk as that."</p> + +<p>"A man can't possibly be too careful," remarked Mrs. White, sententiously. +"The world's full of gossiping people, and women are very impressionable, +especially such high-strung women as that young widow. A man can't +possibly be too careful. Read me the paper now, Stephen."</p> + +<p>Stephen was only too thankful to take refuge in and behind the newspaper. +A newspaper had so often been to him a shelter from his mother's eyes, a +protection from his mother's tongue, that, whenever he saw a storm or a +siege of embarrassing questioning about to begin, he looked around for a +newspaper as involuntarily as a soldier feels in his belt for his pistol. +He had more than once smiled bitterly to himself at the consciousness of +the flimsy bulwark; but he found it invaluable. Sometimes, it is true, her +impatient instinct made a keen thrust at the truth, and she would say +angrily,--</p> + +<p>"Put down that paper! I want to see your face when I speak to you;" but +his reply, "Why, mother, I am reading. I was just going to read something +aloud to you," would usually disarm and divert her. It was one of her +great pleasures to have him read aloud to her. It mattered little what he +read: she was equally interested in the paragraphs of small local news, +and in the telegraphic summaries of foreign affairs. A revolt in a +distant European province, of which she had never heard even the name, was +neither more nor less exciting to her than the running away of a heifer +from the premises of an unknown townsman.</p> + +<p>All through the evening, the sounds of moving of furniture, and brisk +going up and down stairs, came through the partition, and interrupted +Stephen's thoughts as much as they did his mother's. They had lived so +long alone in the house in absolute quiet, save for the semi-occasional +stir of Marty's desultory house-cleaning, that these sounds were +disturbing, and not pleasant to hear. Stephen did not like them much +better than his mother did; and he gave her great pleasure by remarking, +as he bade her good-night,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose those people next door will get settled in a day or two, and +then we can have a quiet evening again."</p> + +<p>"I should hope so," replied his mother. "I should think that a caravan of +camels needn't have made so much noise. It's astonishing to me that folks +can't do things without making a racket; but I think some people feel +themselves of more consequence when they're making a great noise."</p> + +<p>The next morning, as Stephen was bidding his mother good-morning, he +accidentally glanced out of the window, and saw Mercy walking slowly away +from the house with a little basket on her arm.</p> + +<p>"She'll go to market every morning," he thought to himself. "I shall see +her then."</p> + +<p>Not the slightest glance of Stephen's eye ever escaped his mother's +notice.</p> + +<p>"Ah! there goes the lady," she said. "I wonder if she is always going down +town at this hour? You will have to manage to go either earlier or later, +or else people will begin to talk about you."</p> + +<p>Stephen White had one rule of conduct: when he was uncertain what to do, +not to do any thing. He broke it in this instance, and had reason to +regret it long. He spoke impulsively on the instant, and revealed to +mother his dawning interest in Mercy, and planted then and there an +ineffaceable germ of distrust in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Now, mother," he said, "what's the use of you beginning to set up this +new worry? Mrs. Philbrick is a widow, and very sad and lonely. She is the +friend of my friend, Harley Allen; and I am in duty bound to show her some +attention, and help her if I can. She is also a bright, interesting +person; and I do not know so many such that I should turn my back on one +under my own roof. I have not so many social pleasures that I should give +up this one, just on account of a possible gossip about it."</p> + +<p>Silence would have been wiser. Mrs. White did not speak for a moment or +two; then she said, in a slow and deliberate manner, as if reflecting on a +problem,--"You enjoy Mrs. Philbrick's society, then, do you, Stephen? How +much have you seen of her?"</p> + +<p>Still injudicious and unlike himself, Stephen answered, "Yes, I think I +shall enjoy it very much, and I think you will enjoy it more than I shall; +for you may see great deal of her. I have only seen her once, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose she will care any thing about me," replied Mrs. White, +with an emphasis on the last personal pronoun which spoke volumes. "Very +few people do."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. It had just dawned on his consciousness that he had +been blundering frightfully, and his mind stood still for a moment, as a +man halts suddenly, when he finds himself in a totally wrong road. To turn +short about is not always the best way of getting off a wrong road, though +it may be the quickest way. Stephen turned short about, and exclaimed with +a forced laugh, "Well, mother, I don't suppose it will make any great +difference to you, if she doesn't. It is not a matter of any moment, +anyhow, whether we see any thing of either of them or not. I thought she +seemed a bright, cheery sort of body, that's all. Good-by," and he ran out +of the house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White lay for a long time with her eyes fixed on the wall. The +expression of her face was of mingled perplexity and displeasure. After a +time, these gave place to a more composed and defiant look. She had taken +her resolve, had marked out her line of conduct.</p> + +<p>"I won't say another word to Stephen about her," she thought. "I'll just +watch and see how things go. Nothing can happen in this house without my +knowing it."</p> + +<p>The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last +clause of her soliloquy.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own +little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of +Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma. +Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail +a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a +complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high, +old-fashioned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their +sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her +father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him.</p> + +<p>"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, +as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It +looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such +clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a +jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized +the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all +were,--cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the +doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch +outline.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp, +jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk. +She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who +was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot +to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're +ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you, +if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People +are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your +face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin' +at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash, +trash! People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the +muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on +the way."</p> + +<p>"Broken? Clock broken? Mend it, mend it, child. I'll show you a good man, +not this feller in here,--he's only good for outsides. Holler sham, holler +sham! What kind o' clock was it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the worst of it. It was an old clock my grandfather brought +from Holland. It reached up to the ceiling, and had beautiful carved work +on it. But it's in five hundred pieces, I do believe. A heavy box crushed +it. Even the brass work inside is all jammed and twisted. Our things came +by sea," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Come on, come on! I'll show you," exclaimed +the eccentric old man, starting off at a quick pace. Mercy did not stir. +Presently, he looked back, wheeled, and came again so near that he nearly +trod on her gown.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Didn't tell her,--bad habit, bad habit. Never do make +people understand. Come on, child,--come on! I've got a clock like yours. +Don't want it. Never use it. Run down twenty years ago. Guess we can find +it. Come on, come on!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Wheeler," said Mercy, half-frightened at his manner, yet +trusting him in spite of herself, "do you really want to sell the clock? +If you have no use for it, I'd be very glad to buy it of you, if it looks +even a little like our old one. I will bring my mother to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Fine young woman! fine young woman! Good face. Never mistaken in a face +yet. Don't sell clocks: never sold a clock yet. I'll give yer the clock, +if yer like it. Come on, child,--come on!" and he laid his hand on Mercy's +arm and drew her along.</p> + +<p>Mercy held back. "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "You're very kind. +But I think my mother would not like to have you give us a clock. I will +buy it of you; but I really cannot go with you now. Tell me where the +clock is, and I will come with my mother to see it."</p> + +<p>The old man stamped his foot and his cane both with impatience. "Pshaw! +pshaw!" he said: "women all alike, all alike." Then with an evident effort +to control his vexation, and speak more slowly, he said, "Can't you see +I'm an old man, child? Don't pester me now. Come, on, come on! I tell you +I want to show yer that clock. Give it to you 's well 's not. Stood in the +lumber-room twenty years. Come on, come on! It's right up here, ten +steps." And again he took Mercy by the arm. Reluctantly she followed him, +thinking to herself, "Oh, what a rash thing this is to do! How do I know +but he really is crazy?"</p> + +<p>He led the way up an outside staircase at the end of the Brick Row, and, +after fumbling a long time in several deep pockets, produced a huge rusty +iron key, and unlocked the door at the head of the stairs. A very strange +life that key had led in pockets. For many years it had slept under Miss +Orra White's maidenly black alpacas, and had been the token of confinement +and of release to scores of Miss Orra's unruly pupils; then it had had an +interval of dignified leisure, lifted to the level of the Odd Fellows +regalia, and only used by them on rare occasions. For the last ten years, +however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's +lumber-room. If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and +speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in +keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might +have indulged in fine conjectures, and have passed its lifetime in a state +of chronic bewilderment. Each time that the door of this old storehouse +opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing +no relation to any thing that had preceded it. "Old Man Wheeler" added to +all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts. +He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody. He drove hard +bargains, and was inexorable as to dates. When a debtor came, pleading for +a short delay on a payment, the old man had but one reply,--</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! What yer got? what yer got? Gie me somethin', gie me +somethin'. Settle, settle, settle! Gie me any thin' yer got. Settle, +settle, settle!" The consequences of twenty years' such traffic as this +can more easily be imagined than described. The room was piled from floor +to roof with its miscellaneous collections: junk-shops, pawnbrokers' +cellars, and old women's garrets seemed all to have disgorged themselves +here. A huge stack of calico comforters, their tufts gray with dust and +cobwebs, lay on top of two old ploughs, in one corner: kegs of nails, +boxes of soap, rolls of leather, harnesses stiff and cracking with age, +piles of books, chairs, bedsteads, andirons, tubs, stone ware, crockery +ware, carpets, files of old newspapers, casks, feather-beds, jars of +druggists' medicines, old signboards, rakes, spades, school-desks,--in +short, all things that mortal man ever bought or sold,--were here, packed +in piles and layers, and covered with dust as with a gray coverlid. At +each foot-fall on the loose boards of the floor, clouds of stifling dust +arose, and strange sounds were heard in and behind the piles of rubbish, +as if all sorts of small animals might be skurrying about, and giving +alarms to each other.</p> + +<p>Mercy stood still on the threshold, her face full of astonishment. The +dust made her cough; and at first she could hardly see which way to step. +The old man threw down his cane, and ran swiftly from corner to corner, +and pile to pile, peering around, pulling out first one thing and then +another. He darted from spot to spot, bending lower and lower, as he grew +more impatient in his search, till he looked like a sort of human weasel +gliding about in quest of prey.</p> + +<p>"Trash, trash, nothin' but trash!" he muttered to himself as he ran. "Burn +it up some day. Trash, trash!"</p> + +<p>"How did you get all these queer things together, Mr. Wheeler?" Mercy +ventured to say at last "Did you keep a store?"</p> + +<p>The old man did not reply. He was tugging away at a high stack of rolls of +undressed leather, which reached to the ceiling in one corner. He pulled +them too hastily, and the whole stack tumbled forward, and rolled heavily +in all directions, raising a suffocating dust, through which the old man's +figure seemed to loom up as through a fog, as he skipped to the right and +left to escape the rolling bales.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Wheeler!" cried Mercy, "are you hurt?"</p> + +<p>He laughed a choked laugh, more like a chuckle than like a laugh.</p> + +<p>"He! he! child. Dust don't hurt me. Goin' to return to 't presently. Made +on 't! made on 't! Don't see why folks need be so 'fraid on 't! He! he! 'T +is pretty choky, though." And he sat down on one of the leather rolls, and +held his sides through a hard coughing fit. As the dust slowly subsided, +Mercy saw standing far back in the corner, where the bales of leather had +hidden it, an old-fashioned clock, so like her own that she gave a low cry +of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that the clock you meant, Mr. Wheeler?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, that's it. Nice old clock. Took it for debt. Cost me more'n +'t's wuth. As fur that matter, 'tain't wuth nothin' to me. Wouldn't hev it +in the house 'n' more than I'd git the town 'us tower in for a clock. D'ye +like it, child? Ye can hev it's well's not. I'd like to give it to ye."</p> + +<p>"I should like it very much, very much indeed," replied Mercy. "But I +really cannot think of taking it, unless you let us pay for it."</p> + +<p>The old man sprung to his feet with such impatience that the leather bale +rolled away from him, and he nearly lost his balance. Mercy sprang forward +and caught him.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Don't pester me, child! Don't you see I'm +an old man? I tell ye I'll give ye the clock, an' I won't sell it ter +ye,--won't, won't, won't," and he picked up his cane, and stood leaning +upon it with both his hands clasped on it, and his head bent forward, +eagerly scanning Mercy's face. She hesitated still, and began to speak +again.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Wheeler,"--</p> + +<p>"Don't 'but' me. There ain't any buts about it. There's the clock. Take +it, child,--take it, take it, take it, or else leave it, just's you like. +I ain't a-goin' to saddle ye with it; but I think ye'd be very silly not +to take it,--silly, silly."</p> + +<p>Mercy began to think so too. The clock was its own advocate, almost as +strong as the old man's pleading.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "I will take the clock, though I don't +know what my mother will say. It is a most valuable present. I hope we +can do something for you some day."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the old man. "Just like all the rest o' the +world. Got no faith,--can't believe in gettin' somethin' for nothin'. +You're right, child,--right, right. 'S a general thing, people are cheats, +cheats, cheats. Get all your money away,--wolves, wolves, wolves! Stay +here, child, a minute. I'll get two men to carry it." And, before Mercy +realized his intention, he had shut the door, locked it, and left her +alone in the warehouse. Her first sensation was of sharp terror; but she +ran to the one window which was accessible, and, seeing that it looked out +on the busiest thoroughfare of the town, she sat down by it to await the +old man's return. In a very few moments, she heard the sounds of steps on +the stairs, the door was thrown open, and the old man, still talking to +himself in muttered tones, pushed into the room two ragged vagabonds whom +he had picked up on the street.</p> + +<p>They looked as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With +gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Come in, come in! What 're ye 'bout? Earn yer money, earn yer money!" +exclaimed the old man, pointing to the clock, and bidding them take it up +and carry it out.</p> + +<p>"Now mind! Quarter a piece, quarter a piece,--not a cent more. Do ye +understand? Hark 'e! do ye understand? Not a cent more," he said, +following them out of the door. Then turning to Mercy, he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Forgot you, child. Come on, come on! I'll +go with you, else those rascals will cheat you. Men are wolves, wolves, +wolves. They're to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece. +But I'll come on with you. Got half a dollar?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," laughed Mercy, much pleased that the old man was willing she +should pay the porters. "Oh, yes, I have my portemonnaie here," holding it +up. "This is the cheapest clock ever sold, I think; and you are very good +to let me pay the men."</p> + +<p>The old man looked at her with a keen, suspicious glance.</p> + +<p>"Good? eh! good? Why, ye didn't think I was goin' to give ye money, did +ye? Oh, no, no, no! Not money. Never give money."</p> + +<p>This was very true. It would probably have cost him a severer pang to give +away fifty cents than to have parted with the entire contents of the +storehouse. Mercy laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Wheeler," she said, "you have given me just the same as money. +Such a clock as this must have cost a good deal, I am sure."</p> + +<p>"No, no, child! It's very different, different. Clock wasn't any use to +me, wasn't wuth any thin'. Money's of use, use, use. Can't have enough +on't. People get it all away from you. They're wolves, wolves, wolves," +replied the old man, running along in advance of Mercy, and rapping one of +the men who were carrying the clock, sharply on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Keep your end up there! keep it up! I won't pay you, if you don't carry +your half," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>It was a droll procession, and everybody turned to look at it: the two +ragged men carrying the quaint-fashioned old clock, from which the dust +shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it: +following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and +excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in +an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or +chastise the bearers of the clock. The eccentric old fellow used his cane +as freely as if it had been a hand. There were few boys in town who had +not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances knew the touch of +it far better than they knew the grip of his fingers. It "saved steps," he +used to say; though of steps the old man seemed any thing but chary, as he +was in the habit of taking them perpetually, without advancing or +retreating, changing from one foot to the other, as uneasily as a goose +does.</p> + +<p>Stephen White happened to be looking out of the window, when this unique +procession of the clock passed his office. He could not believe what he +saw. He threw up the window and leaned out, to assure himself that he was +not mistaken. Mercy heard the sound, looked up, and met Stephen's eye. She +colored violently, bowed, and involuntarily quickened her pace. Her +companion halted, and looked up to see what had arrested her attention. +When he saw Stephen's face, he said,--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" and turned again to look at Mercy. The bright color had not yet +left her cheek. The old man gazed at her angrily for a moment, then +stopped short, planted his cane on the ground, and said in a loud tone, +all the while peering into her face as if he would read her very +thoughts,--</p> + +<p>"Don't you know that Steve White isn't good for any thin'? Poor stock, +poor stock! Father before him poor stock, too. Don't you go to lettin' him +handle your money, child. Mind now! I'll be a good friend to you, if +you'll do 's I say; but, if Steve White gets hold on you, I'll have +nothin' to do with you. Mind that, eh? eh?"</p> + +<p>Mercy had a swift sense of angry resentment at these words; but she +repelled it, as she would have resisted the impulse to be angry with a +little child.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wheeler," she said with a gentle dignity of tone, which was not +thrown away on the old man, "I do not know why you should speak so to me +about Mr. White. He is almost an entire stranger to me as yet. We live in +his house; but we do not know him or his mother yet, except in the most +formal way. He seems to be a very agreeable man," she added with a little +tinge of perversity.</p> + +<p>"Hm! hm!" was all the old man's reply; and he did not speak again till +they reached Mercy's gate. Here the clock-carriers were about to set their +burden down. Mr. Wheeler ran towards them with his cane outstretched.</p> + +<p>"Here! here! you lazy rascals! Into the house! into the house, else you +don't get any quarter!</p> + +<p>"Well I came along, child,--well I came along. They'd ha' left it right +out doors here. Cheats! People are all cheats, cheats, cheats," he +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Into the house, without a pause, without a knock, into poor bewildered +Mrs. Carr's presence he strode, the men following fast on his steps, and +Mercy unable to pass them.</p> + +<p>"Where'll you have it? Where'll you have it, child? Bless my soul! where's +that girl!" he exclaimed, looking back at Mercy, who stood on the front +doorstep, vainly trying to hurry in to explain the strange scene to her +mother. Mrs. Carr was, as usual, knitting. She rose up suddenly, confused +at the strange apparitions before her, and let her knitting fall on the +floor. The ball rolled swiftly towards Mr. Wheeler, and tangled the yarn +around his feet. He jumped up and down, all the while brandishing his +cane, and muttering, "Pshaw! pshaw! Damn knitting! Always did hate the +sight on't." But, kicking out to the right and the left vigorously, he +soon snapped the yarn, and stood free.</p> + +<p>"Mother! mother!" called Mercy from behind, "this is the gentleman I told +you of,--Mr. Wheeler. He has very kindly given us this beautiful clock, +almost exactly like ours."</p> + +<p>The sound of Mercy's voice reassured the poor bewildered old woman, and, +dropping her old-fashioned courtesy, she said timidly,--</p> + +<p>"Pleased to see you, sir. Pray take a chair."</p> + +<p>"Chair? chair? No, no! Never do sit down in houses,--never, never. +Where'll you have it, mum? Where'll you have it?</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare put that down! Wait till you are told to, you lazy +rascals!" he exclaimed, lifting his cane, and threatening the men who were +on the point of setting the clock down, very naturally thinking they might +be permitted at last to rest a moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Wheeler!" said Mercy, "let them put it down anywhere, please, for +the present. I never can tell at first where I want a thing to stand. I +shall have to try it in different corners before I am sure," and Mercy +took out her portemonnaie, and came forward to pay the bearers. As she +opened it, the old man stepped nearer to her, and peered curiously into +her hand. The money in the portemonnaie was neatly folded and assorted, +each kind by itself, in a separate compartment. The old man nodded, and +muttered to himself, "Fine young woman! fine young woman! Business, +business!--Who taught you, child, to sort your money that way?" he +suddenly asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, no one taught me," replied Mercy. "I found that it saved time not to +have to fumble all through a portemonnaie for a ten-cent piece. It looks +neater, too, than to have it all in a crumpled mass," she added, smiling +and looking up in the old man's face. "I don't like disorder. Such a place +as your store-room would drive me crazy."</p> + +<p>The old man was not listening. He was looking about the room with a +dissatisfied expression of countenance. In a few moments, he said +abruptly,--</p> + +<p>"'S this all the furniture you've got?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr colored, and looked appealingly at Mercy; but Mercy laughed, +and replied as she would have answered her own grandfather,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not all we have! We have five more rooms furnished. It is all we +have for this room, however. These rooms are all larger than our rooms +were at home, and so the things look scanty. But I shall get more by +degrees."</p> + +<p>"Hm! hm! Want any thing out o' my lumber-room? Have it's well's not. +Things no good to anybody."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Wheeler. We have all we need. I could not think of +taking any thing more from you. We are under great obligation to you now +for the clock," said Mercy; and Mrs. Carr bewilderedly ejaculated, "Oh, +no, sir,--no, sir! There isn't any call for you to give us any thin'."</p> + +<p>While they were speaking, the old man was rapidly going out of the house; +with quick, short steps like a child, and tapping his cane on the floor at +every step. In the doorway he halted a moment, and, without looking back, +said, "Well, well, let me know, if you do want any thing. Have it's well's +not," and he was gone.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy! he's crazy, sure's you're alive. You'll get took up for hevin' +this clock. Whatever made you take it, child?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, +walking round and round the clock, and dusting it here and there with a +corner of her apron.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, I am sure I don't know. I couldn't seem to help it: he was +so determined, and the clock was such a beauty. I don't think he is crazy. +I think he is simply very queer; and he is ever, ever so rich. The clock +isn't really of any value to him; that is, he'd never do any thing with +it. He has a huge room half as big as this house, just crammed with +things, all sorts of things, that he took for debts; and this clock was +among them. I think it gave the old man a real pleasure to have me take +it; so that is one more reason for doing it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know best, Mercy," said Mrs. Carr, a little sadly; "but I can't +quite see it's you do. It seems to me amazin' like a charity. I wish he +hadn't never found you out."</p> + +<p>"I don't, mother. I believe he is going to be my best crony here," said +Mercy, laughing; "and I'm sure nobody can say any thing ill-natured about +such a crony as he would be. He must be seventy years old, at least."</p> + +<p>When Stephen came home that night, he received from his mother a most +graphic account of the arrival of the clock. She had watched the +procession from her window, and had heard the confused sounds of talking +and moving of furniture in the house afterward. Marty also had supplied +some details, she having been surreptitiously overlooking the whole +affair.</p> + +<p>"I must say," remarked Mrs. White, "that it looks very queer. Where did +she pick up Old Man Wheeler? Who ever heard of his being seen walking with +a woman before? Even as a young man, he never would have any thing to do +with them; and it was always a marvel how he got married. I used to know +him very well."</p> + +<p>"But, mother," urged Stephen, "for all we know, they may be relations or +old friends of his. You forget that we know literally nothing about these +people. So far from being queer, it may be the most natural thing in the +world that he should be helping her fit up her house."</p> + +<p>But in his heart Stephen thought, as his mother did, that it was very +queer.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-06"> +<h2>Chapter VI.</h2> + + + +<p>The beautiful white New England winter had set in. As far as the eye could +reach, nothing but white could be seen. The boundary, lines of stone walls +and fences were gone, or were indicated only by raised and rounded lines +of the same soft white. On one side of these were faintly pencilled dark +shadows in the morning and in the afternoon; but at high noon the fields +were as unbroken a white as ever Arctic explorer saw, and the roads shone +in the sun like white satin ribbons flung out in all directions. The +groves of maple and hickory and beech were bare. Their delicate gray tints +spread in masses over the hillsides like a transparent, gray veil, through +which every outline of the hills was clear, but softened. The massive +pines and spruces looked almost black against the white of the snow, and +the whole landscape was at once shining and sombre; an effect which is +peculiar to the New England winter in the hill country, and is always +either very depressing or very stimulating to the soul. Dreamy and inert +and phlegmatic people shiver and huddle, see only the sombreness, and find +the winter one long imprisonment in the dark. But to a joyous, brisk, +sanguine soul, the clear, crisp, cold air is like wine; and the whiteness +and sparkle and shine of the snow are like martial music, a constant +excitement and spell.</p> + +<p>Mercy's soul thrilled within her with new delight and impulse each day. +The winter had always oppressed her before. On the seashore, winter means +raw cold, a pale, gray, angry ocean, fierce winds, and scanty wet snows. +This brilliant, frosty air, so still and dry that it never seemed cold, +this luxuriance of snow piled soft and high as if it meant shelter and +warmth,--as indeed it does,--were very wonderful to Mercy. She would have +liked to be out of doors all day long: it seemed to her a fairer than +summer-time. She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters +far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in +sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of +the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns +and shining clumps of the hepatica. It was a startling sight on a December +day, when the snow was lying many inches deep, to come suddenly on Mercy +walking in the middle of the road, her hands filled with green ferns and +mosses and vines. There were three different species of ground-pine in +these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of +laurel. What wealth for a lover of wild, out-door things! Each day Mercy +bore home new treasures, until the house was almost as green and fragrant +as a summer wood. Day after day, Mrs. White, from her point of observation +at her window, watched the lithe young figure coming down the road, +bearing her sheaves of boughs and vines, sometimes on her shoulder, as +lightly and gracefully as a peasant girl of Italy might bear her poised +basket of grapes. Gradually a deep wonder took possession of the lonely +old woman's soul.</p> + +<p>"Whatever can she do with all that green stuff?" she thought. "She's +carried in enough to trim the 'Piscopal church twice over."</p> + +<p>At last she shared her perplexity with Marty.</p> + +<p>"Marty," said she one day, "have you ever seen Mrs. Philbrick come into +the house without somethin' green in her hands? What do you suppose she's +goin' to do with it all?"</p> + +<p>"Lord knows," answered Marty. "I've been a speckkerlatin' about that very +thing myself. They can't be a brewin' beer this time o' year; but I see +her yesterday with her hands full o' pyroly."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would make an errand in there, Marty," said Mrs. White, "and +see if you can any way find out what it's all for. She's carried in pretty +near a grove of pine-trees, I should say."</p> + +<p>The willing Marty went, and returned with a most surprising tale. Every +room was wreathed with green vines. There were evergreen trees in boxes; +the window-seats were filled with pots of green things growing; waving +masses of ferns hung down from brackets on the walls.</p> + +<p>"I jest stood like a dumb critter the minnit I got in," said Marty. "I +didn't know whether I wuz in the house or out in the woods, the whole +place smelled o' hemlock so, an' looked so kind o' sunny and shady all ter +oncet.--I jest wished Steve could see it. He'd go wild," added the +unconsciously injudicious Marty.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White's face darkened instantly.</p> + +<p>"It must be very unwholesome to have rooms made so dark and damp," she +said. "I should think people might have more sense."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wa'n't dark a mite!" interrupted Marty, eagerly. "There wuz a +blazin' fire on the hearth in the settin'-room, an' the sun a-streamin' +into both the south winders. It made shadders on the floor, jest as it +does in the woods. I'd jest ha' liked to set down there a spell, and not +do nothin' but watch 'em."</p> + +<p>At this moment, a low knock at the door interrupted the conversation. +Marty opened the door, and there stood Mercy herself, holding in her hands +some wreaths of laurel and pine, and a large earthen dish with ferns +growing in it. It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy +all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung +cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, +lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and +wondered if she would have any Christmas evergreens to brighten her room.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose a man would ever think of such things," thought Mercy. +"I've a great mind to carry her in some. I'll never muster courage to go +in there, unless I go to carry her something; and I may as well do it +first as last. Perhaps she doesn't care any thing about things from the +woods; but I think they may do her good without her knowing it. Besides, I +promised to go." It was now ten days since Stephen, meeting Mercy in the +town one day, had stopped, and said to her, in a half-sad tone which had +touched her,--</p> + +<p>"Do you really never mean to come again to see my mother? I do assure you +it would be a great kindness."</p> + +<p>His tone conveyed a great deal,--his tone and his eyes. They said as +plainly as words could have said,--</p> + +<p>"I know that my mother treated you abominably, I know she is very +disagreeable; but, after all, she is helpless and alone, and if you could +only once get her to like you, and would come and see her now and then, it +would be a kindness to her, and a great help to me; and I do yearn to know +you better; and I never can, unless you will begin the acquaintance by +being on good terms with my mother."</p> + +<p>All this Stephen's voice and eyes had said to Mercy's eyes and heart, +while his lips, pronounced the few commonplace words which were addressed +to her ear. All this Mercy was revolving in her thoughts, as she deftly +and with almost a magic touch laid the soft mosses in the earthen dish, +and planted them thick with ferns and hepatica and partridge-berry vines +and wintergreen. But all she was conscious of saying to herself was, "Mr. +White asked me to go; and it really is not civil not to do it, and I may +as well have it over with."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. White's eyes first fell on Mercy in the doorway, they rested on +her with the same cold gaze which had so repelled her on their first +interview. But no sooner did she see the dish of mosses than her face +lighted up, and exclaiming, "Oh, where did you get those partridge-berry +vines?" she involuntarily stretched out her hands. The ice was broken. +Mercy felt at home at once, and at once conceived a true sentiment of +pity for Mrs. White, which never wholly died out of her heart. Kneeling on +the floor by her bed, she said eagerly,--</p> + +<p>"I am so glad you like them, Mrs. White. Let me hold them down low, where +you can look at them."</p> + +<p>Some subtle spell must have linked itself in Mrs. White's brain with the +dainty red partridge berries. Her eyes filled with tears, as she lifted +the vines gently in her fingers, and looked at them. Mercy watched her +with great surprise; but with the quick instinct of a poet's temperament +she thought, "She hasn't seen them very likely since she was a little +girl."</p> + +<p>"Did you use to like them when you were a child, Mrs. White?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I used to pick them when I was young," replied Mrs. White, +dreamily,--"when I was young: not when I was a child, though. May I have +one of them to keep?" she asked presently, still holding an end of one of +the vines in her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I brought them in for you, for Christmas," exclaimed Mercy. "They are +all for you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White was genuinely astonished. No one had ever done this kind of +thing for her before. Stephen always gave her on her birthday and on +Christmas a dutiful and somewhat appropriate gift, though very sorely he +was often puzzled to select a thing which should not jar either on his own +taste or his mother's sense of utility. But a gift of this kind, a simple +little tribute to her supposed womanly love of the beautiful, a thoughtful +arrangement to give her something pleasant to look upon for a time, no +one had ever before made. It gave her an emotion of real gratitude, such +as she had seldom felt.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, indeed,--very," she said with emphasis, and in a +gentler tone than Mercy had before heard from her lips. "I shall have a +great deal of comfort out of it."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy set the dish on a small table, and hung up the wreaths in the +windows. As she moved about the room lightly, now and then speaking in her +gay, light-hearted voice, Mrs. White thought to herself,--</p> + +<p>"Steve was right. She is a wonderful cheery body." And, long after Mercy +had gone, she continued to think happily of the pleasant incident of the +fresh bright face and the sweet voice. For the time being, her jealous +distrust of the possible effect of these upon her son slumbered.</p> + +<p>When Stephen entered his mother's room that night, his heart gave a sudden +bound at the sight of the green wreaths and the dish of ferns. He saw them +on fhe first instant after opening the door; he knew in the same instant +that the hands of Mercy Philbrick must have placed them there; but, also, +in that same brief instant came to him an involuntary impulse to pretend +that he did not observe them; to wait till his mother should have spoken +of them first, that he might know whether she were pleased or not by the +gift. So infinitely small are the first beginnings of the course of deceit +into which tyranny always drives its victim. It could not be called a +deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed +in a room. No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit: for when +Mrs. White said, "Why, Stephen, you haven't noticed the greens! Look in +the windows!" his exclamation of apparent surprise, "Why, how lovely! +Where did they come from?" was a lie. It did not seem so, however, to +Stephen. It seemed to him simply a politic suppression of a truth, to save +his mother's feelings, to avoid a possibility of a war of words. Mercy +Philbrick, under the same circumstances, would have replied,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I saw them as soon as I came in. I was waiting for you to tell +me about them," and even then would have been tortured by her conscience, +because she did not say why she was waiting.</p> + +<p>While his mother was telling him of Mercy's call, and of the report Marty +had brought back of the decorations of the rooms, Stephen stood with his +face bent over the ferns, apparently absorbed in studying each leaf +minutely; then he walked to the windows and examined the wreaths. He felt +himself so suddenly gladdened by these tokens of Mercy's presence, and by +his mother's evident change of feeling towards her, that he feared his +face would betray too much pleasure; he feared to speak, lest his voice +should do the same thing. He was forced to make a great effort to speak in +a judiciously indifferent tone, as he said,--</p> + +<p>"Indeed, they are very pretty. I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; +and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas +Eve. I wish we had something to send in to them, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've been thinking," said his mother, "that we might ask them to +come in and take dinner with us to-morrow. Marty's made some capital +mince-pies, and is going to roast a turkey. I don't believe they'll be +goin' to have any thing better, do you, Stephen?"</p> + +<p>Stephen walked very suddenly to the fire, and made a feint of rearranging +it, that he might turn his face entirely away from his mother's sight. He +was almost dumb with astonishment. A certain fear mingled with it. What +meant this sudden change? Did it portend good or evil? It seemed too +sudden, too inexplicable, to be genuine. Stephen had yet to learn the +magic power which Mercy Philbrick had to compel the liking even of people +who did not choose to like her.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, mother," he said, "that would be very nice. It is a long time +since we had anybody to Christmas dinner."</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose you run in after tea and ask them," replied Mrs. White, in +the friendliest of tones.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll go," answered Stephen, feeling as if he were a man talking in a +dream. "I have been meaning to go in ever since they came."</p> + +<p>After tea, Stephen sat counting the minutes till he should go. To all +appearances, he was buried in his newspaper, occasionally reading a +paragraph aloud to his mother. He thought it better that she should remind +him of his intention to go; that the call should be purely at her +suggestion. The patience and silence with which he sat waiting for her to +remember and speak of it were the very essence of deceit again,--twice in +this one hour an acted lie, of which his dulled conscience took no note +or heed. Fine and impalpable as the meshes of the spider's-web are the +bands and bonds of a habit of concealment; swift-growing, too, and in +ever-widening circles, like the same glittering net woven for death.</p> + +<p>At last Mrs. White said, "Steve, I think it's getting near nine o'clock. +You'd better go in next door before it's any later."</p> + +<p>Stephen pulled out his watch. By his own sensations, he would have said +that it must be midnight.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is half-past eight. I suppose I had better go now," he said, and +bade his mother good-night.</p> + +<p>He went out into the night with a sense of ecstasy of relief and joy. He +was bewildered at himself. How this strong sentiment towards Mercy +Philbrick had taken possession of him he could not tell. He walked up and +down in the snowy path in front of the house for some minutes, questioning +himself, sounding with a delicious dread the depths of this strange sea in +which he suddenly found himself drifting. He went back to the day when +Harley Allen's letter first told him of the two women who might become his +tenants. He felt then a presentiment that a new element was to be +introduced into his life; a vague, prophetic sense of some change at hand. +Then came the first interview, and his sudden disappointment, which he now +blushed to recollect. It seemed to him as if some magician must have laid +a spell upon his eyes, that he did not see even in that darkness how +lovely a face Mercy had, did not feel even through all the embarrassment +and strangeness the fascination of her personal presence. Then he dwelt +lingeringly on the picture, which had never faded from his brain, of his +next sight of her, as she sat on the old stone wall, with the gay +maple-leaves and blackberry-vines in her lap. From that day to the +present, he had seen her only a half dozen times, and only for a chance +greeting as they had passed each other in the street; but it seemed to him +that she had never been really absent from him, so conscious was he of her +all the time. So absorbed was he in these thoughts that a half-hour was +gone before he realized it, and the village bells were ringing for nine o' +clock when he knocked on the door of the wing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr had rolled up her knitting, and was just on the point of going +upstairs. Their little maid of all work had already gone to bed, when +Stephen's loud knock startled them all.</p> + +<p>"Gracious alive! Mercy, what's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, all sorts of +formless terrors springing upon her at once. Mercy herself was astonished, +and ran hastily to open the door. When she saw Stephen standing there, her +astonishment was increased, and she looked it so undisguisedly that he +said,--</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Philbrick. I know it is late, but my mother sent +me in with a message." ...</p> + +<p>"Pray come in, Mr. White," interrupted Mercy. "It is not really late, only +we keep such absurdly early hours, and are so quiet, as we know nobody +here, that a knock at the door in the evening makes us all jump. Pray +come in," and she threw open the door into the sitting-room, where the +lamps had already been put out, and the light of a blazing hickory log +made long flickering shadows on the crimson carpet. In this dancing light, +the room looked still more like a grove than it had to Marty at high noon. +Stephen's eyes fastened hungrily on the sight.</p> + +<p>"Your room is almost too much to resist," he said; "but I will not come in +now. I did not know it was so late. My mother wishes to know if you and +your mother will not come in and eat a Christmas dinner with us to-morrow. +We live in the plainest way, and cannot entertain in the ordinary +acceptation of the term. We only ask you to our ordinary home-dinner," he +added, with a sudden sense of the incongruity between the atmosphere of +refined elegance which pervaded Mercy's simple, little room, and the +expression which all his efforts had never been able to banish from his +mother's parlor.</p> + +<p>"Oh thank you, Mr. White. You are very good. I think we should like to +come very much. Mother and I were just saying that it would be the first +Christmas dinner we ever ate alone. But you must come in, Mr. White,--I +insist upon it," replied Mercy, stretching out one hand towards him, as if +to draw him in.</p> + +<p>Stephen went. On the threshold of the sitting-room he paused and stood +silent for some minutes. Mercy was relighting the lamps.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick!" he exclaimed, "won't you please not light the lamps. +This firelight on these evergreens is the loveliest thing I ever saw."</p> + +<p>Too unconventional to think of any reasons why she should not sit with +Stephen White alone by firelight in her own house, Mercy blew out the lamp +she had lighted, and drawing a chair close up to the hearth sat down, and +clasping her hands in her lap looked eagerly into Stephen's face, and said +as simply as a child,--</p> + +<p>"I like firelight, too, a great deal better than any other light. Some +evenings we do not light the lamps at all. Mother can knit just as well +without much light, and I can think better."</p> + +<p>Mercy was sitting in a chair so low that, to look at Stephen, she had to +lift her face. It was the position in which her face was sweetest. Some +lines, which were a shade too strong and positive when her face fully +confronted you, disappeared entirely when it was thrown back and her eyes +were lifted. It was then as ingenuous and tender and trustful a face as if +she had been but eight instead of eighteen.</p> + +<p>Stephen forgot himself, forgot the fact that Mercy was comparatively a +stranger, forgot every thing, except the one intense consciousness of this +sweet woman-face looking up into his. Bending towards her, he said +suddenly,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, your face is the very loveliest face I have ever seen in +my life. Do not be angry with me. Oh, do not!" he continued, seeing the +color deepen in Mercy's cheeks, and a stern expression gathering in her +eyes, as she looked steadily at him with unutterable surprise. "Do not be +angry with me. I could not help saying it; but I do not say it as men +generally say such things. I am not like other men: I have lived alone +all my life with my mother. You need not mind my saying your face is +lovely, any more than my saying that the ferns on the walls are lovely."</p> + +<p>If Stephen had known Mercy from her childhood, he could not have framed +his words more wisely. Every fibre of her artistic nature recognized the +possibility of a subtle truth in what he said, and his calm, dreamy tone +and look heightened this impression. Moreover, as Stephen's soul had been +during all the past four weeks slowly growing into the feeling which made +it inevitable that he should say these words on first looking closely and +intimately into Mercy's face, so had her soul been slowly growing into the +feeling which made it seem not really foreign or unnatural to her that he +should say them.</p> + +<p>She answered him with hesitating syllables, quite unlike her usual fluent +speech.</p> + +<p>"I think you must mean what you say, Mr. White; and you do not say it as +other men have said it. But will you please to remember not to say it +again? We cannot be friends, if you do."</p> + +<p>"Never again, Mrs. Philbrick?" he said,--he could almost have said +"Mercy,"--and looked at her with a gaze of whose intentness he was hardly +aware.</p> + +<p>Mercy felt a strange terror of this man; a few minutes ago a stranger, now +already asking at her hands she hardly knew what, and compelling her in +spite of herself. But she replied very quietly, with a slight smile,--</p> + +<p>"Never, Mr. White. Now talk of something else, please. Your mother seemed +very much pleased with the ferns I carried her to-day. Did she love the +woods, when she was well?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know. I never heard her say," answered Stephen, absently, still +gazing into Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>"But you would have known, surely, if she had cared for them," said Mercy, +laughing; for she perceived that Stephen had spoken at random.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, certainly,--certainly. I should have known," said Stephen, still +with a preoccupied air, and rising to go. "I thank you for letting me come +into this beautiful room with you. I shall always think of your face +framed in evergreens, and with flickering firelight on it."</p> + +<p>"You are not going away, are you, Mr. White?" asked Mercy, mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, certainly not. I never go away. How could I go away? Why did you +ask?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed Mercy, "because you spoke as if you never expected to see my +face after to-night. That's all."</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled. "I am afraid I seem a very absent-minded person," he said. +"I did not mean that at all. I hope to see you very often, if I may. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Mr. White. We shall be very glad to see you as often as you +like to come. You may be sure of that; but you must come earlier, or you +will find us all asleep. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Stephen spent another half-hour pacing up and down in the snowy path in +front of the house. He did not wish to go in until his mother was asleep. +Very well he knew that it would be better that she did not see his face +that night. When he went in, the house was dark and still. As he passed +his mother's door, she called, "Steve!"</p> + +<p>"All right, mother. They'll come," he replied, and ran swiftly up to his +own room.</p> + +<p>During this half-hour, Mercy had been sitting in her low chair by the +fire, looking steadily into the leaping blaze, and communing very sternly +with her own heart on the subject of Stephen White. Her pitiless honesty +of nature was just as inexorable in its dealing with her own soul as with +others; she never paltered with, nor evaded an accusation of, her +consciousness. At this moment, she was indignantly admitting to herself +that her conduct and her feeling towards Stephen were both deserving of +condemnation. But, when she asked herself for their reason, no answer came +framed in words, no explanation suggested itself, only Stephen's face rose +up before her, vivid, pleading, as he had looked when he said, "Never +again, Mrs. Philbrick?" and as she looked again into the dark blue eyes, +and heard the low tones over again, she sank into a deeper and deeper +reverie, from which gradually all self-accusation, all perplexity, faded +away, leaving behind them only a vague happiness, a dreamy sense of joy. +If lovers could look back on the first quickening of love in their souls, +how precious would be the memories; but the unawakened heart never knows +the precise instant of the quickening. It is wrapped in a half-conscious +wonder and anticipation; and, by the time the full revelation comes, the +impress of the first moments has been wiped out by intenser experiences. +How many lovers have longed to trace the sweet stream back to its very +source, to the hidden spring which no man saw, but have lost themselves +presently in the broad greenness, undisturbed and fertile, through which, +like a hidden stream through an emerald meadow, the love had been flowing +undiscovered.</p> + +<p>Months after, when Mercy's thoughts reverted to this evening, all she +could recollect was that on the night of Stephen's first call she had been +much puzzled by his manner and his words, had thought it very strange that +he should seem to care-so much for her, and perhaps still more strange +that she herself found it not unpleasing that he did so. Stephen's +reminiscences were at once more distinct and more indistinct,--more +distinct of his emotions, more indistinct of the incidents. He could not +recollect one word which had been said: only his own vivid consciousness +of Mercy's beauty; her face "framed in evergreens, with the firelight +flickering on it," as he had told her he should always think of it.</p> + +<p>Christmas morning came, clear, cold, shining bright. A slight thaw the day +before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a +moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, +which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun. The beauty of the scene +was almost solemn. The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did +not melt these ice-sheaths; and, under the flood of the full mid-day +light, the whole landscape seemed one blaze of jewels. When Mercy and her +mother entered Mrs. White's room, half an hour before the dinner-hour, +they found her sitting with the curtains drawn, because the light had hurt +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. White!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is cruel you should not see this +glorious spectacle! If you had the window open, the light would not hurt +your eyes. It is the glare of it coming through the glass. Let us wrap you +up, and draw you close to the window, and open it wide, so that you can +see the colors for a few minutes. It is just like fairy-land."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White looked bewildered. Such a plan as this of getting out-door air +she had never thought of.</p> + +<p>"Won't it make the room too cold?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy; "and no matter if it does. We can soon warm it +up again. Please let me ask Marty to come?" And, hardly waiting for +permission, she ran to call Marty. Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was +then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look +of almost perplexed delight on her face. When Stephen came in, Mercy stood +behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out +eagerly every point of beauty in the view. A high bush of sweet-brier, +with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window. +Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs: they were all +finely encrusted with frost. As the wind faintly stirred the branches, +every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays +looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and +diamonds. Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her +fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, look at it against the blue sky!" she cried. "Isn't it enough to make +one cry just to see it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can mother help loving her?" thought Stephen. "She is the +sweetest woman that ever drew breath."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and +antagonism. She followed Mercy's movements with eyes not much less eager +and pleased than Stephen's. It was like a great burst of sunlight into a +dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the +old woman's narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life. She +had never seen a person of Mercy's temperament. The clear, decided, +incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her +liking. Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love of the +beautiful; but his love of the beautiful was an indolent, and one might +almost say a-haughty, demand in his nature. Mercy's was a bounding and +delighted acceptance. She was cheery: he was only placid. She was full of +delight; he, only of satisfaction. In her, joy was of the spirit, +spiritual. Keen as were her senses, it was her soul which marshalled them +all. In him, though the soul's forces were not feeble, the senses foreran +them,--compelled them, sometimes conquered them. It would have been +impossible to put Mercy in any circumstances, in any situation, out of +which, or in spite of which, she would not find joy. But in Stephen +circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness. His +enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness +as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring. The waters of each may +leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has +fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the +spring is full, free, and glad as ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived. Long before +the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding +manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have +been. The reason was manifest. She read in every glance of Stephen's eyes, +in every tone of his voice, the depth and the warmth of his feeling +towards Mercy. The jealous distrust which she had felt at first, and which +had slept for a brief time under the spell of Mercy's kindliness towards +herself, sprang into fiercer life than ever. Stephen and Mercy, in utter +unconsciousness of the change which was gradually taking place, talked and +laughed together in an evident gay delight, which made matters worse every +moment. A short and surly reply from Mrs. White to an innocent question of +Mrs. Carr's fell suddenly on Mercy's ear. Keenly alive to the smallest +slight to her mother, she turned quickly towards Mrs. White, and, to her +consternation, met the same steady, pitiless, aggressive look which she +had seen on her face in their first interview. Mercy's first emotion was +one of great indignation: her second was a quick flash of comprehension of +the whole thing. A great wave of rosy color swept over her face; and, +without knowing what she was doing, she looked appealingly at Stephen. +Already there was between them so subtle a bond that each understood the +other without words. Stephen knew all that Mercy thought in that instant, +and an answering flush mounted to his forehead. Mrs. White saw both these +flushes, and compressed her lips still more closely in a grimmer silence +than before. Poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Carr kept on and on with her +meaningless and childish remarks and inquiries; and Mercy and Stephen were +both very grateful for them. The dinner came to an untimely end; and +almost immediately Mercy, with a nervous and embarrassed air, totally +foreign to her, said to her mother,--</p> + +<p>"We must go home now. I have letters to write."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was disappointed. She had anticipated a long afternoon of chatty +gossip with her neighbor; but she saw that Mercy had some strong reason +for hurrying home, and she acquiesced unhesitatingly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White did not urge them to remain. To all Mrs. White's faults it must +be confessed that she added the virtue of absolute sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Carr," and "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Philbrick," fell +from her lips in the same measured syllables and the same cold, unhuman +voice which had so startled Mercy once before.</p> + +<p>"What a perfectly horrid old woman!" exclaimed Mercy, as soon as they had +crossed the threshold of their own door. "I'll never go near her again as +long as I live!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy Carr!" exclaimed her mother, "what do you mean? I don't think +so. She got very tired before dinner was over. I could see that, poor +thing! She's drefful weak, an' it stan's to reason she'd be kind o' +snappish sometimes."</p> + +<p>Mercy opened her lips to reply, but changed her mind and said nothing.</p> + +<p>"It's just as well for mother to keep on good terms with her, if she can," +she thought. "Maybe it'll help divert a little of Mrs. White's temper from +him, poor fellow!"</p> + +<p>Stephen had followed them to the door, saying little; but at the last +moment, when Mercy said "good-by," he had suddenly held out his hand, and, +clasping hers tightly, had looked at her sadly, with a world of regret and +appeal and affection and almost despair in the look.</p> + +<p>"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go +wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he +shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more +and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his +talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he +doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she <i>is</i> his mother. If ever I +know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her +tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never +saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look +are enough to freeze your blood."</p> + +<p>While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his +mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were +having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy +than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,--</p> + +<p>"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing +with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way."</p> + +<p>The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew +deeper still. He made no reply. Mrs. White continued,--</p> + +<p>"I wish you could see your face. It is almost purple now."</p> + +<p>"It is enough to make the blood mount to any man's face, mother, to be +accused so," replied Stephen, with a spirit unusual for him.</p> + +<p>"I don't accuse you of any thing," she retorted. "I am only speaking of +what I observe. You needn't think you can deceive me about the least +thing, ever. Your face is a perfect tell-tale of your thoughts, always."</p> + +<p>Poor Stephen groaned inwardly. Too well he knew his inability to control +his unfortunate face.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" he exclaimed with almost vehemence of tone, "mother! do not +carry this thing too far. I do not in the least understand what you are +driving at about Mrs. Philbrick, nor why you show these capricious changes +of feeling towards her. I think you have treated her so to-day that she +will never darken your doors again. I never should, if I were in her +place."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I hope she never will, if her presence is to produce such an +effect on you. It is enough to turn her head to see that she has such +power over a man like you. She is a very vain woman, anyway,--vain of her +power over people, I think."</p> + +<p>Stephen could bear no more. With a half-smothered ejaculation of "O +mother!" he left the room.</p> + +<p>And thus the old year went out and the new year came in for Mercy +Philbrick and Stephen White,--the old year in which they had been nothing, +and the new year in which they were to be every thing to each other.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-07"> +<h2>Chapter VII.</h2> + + + +<p>The next morning, while Stephen was dressing, he slowly reviewed the +events of the previous day, and took several resolutions. If Mrs. White +could have had the faintest conception of what was passing in her son's +mind, while he sat opposite to her at breakfast, so unusually cheerful and +talkative, she would have been very unhappy. But she, too, had had a +season of reflection this morning, and was much absorbed in her own plans. +She heartily regretted having shown so much ill-feeling in regard to +Mercy; and she had resolved to atone for it in some way, if she could. +Above all, she had resolved, if possible, to banish from Stephen's mind +the idea that she was jealous of Mercy or hostile towards her. She had +common sense enough to see that to allow him to recognize this feeling on +her part was to drive him at once into a course of manoeuvring and +concealment. She flattered herself that it was with a wholly natural and +easy air that she began her plan of operations by remarking,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick seems to be very fond of her mother, does she not, +Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very," answered Stephen, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Carr is quite an old woman. She must have been old when Mrs. +Philbrick was born. I don't think Mrs. Philbrick can be more than twenty, +do you?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure I don't know. I never thought anything about her age," replied +Stephen, still more indifferently. "I'm no judge of women's ages."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sure she isn't more than twenty, if she is that," said Mrs. +White; "and she really is a very pretty woman, Steve. I'll grant you +that."</p> + +<p>"Grant me that, mother?" laughed Stephen, lightly. "I never said she was +pretty, did I? The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly +plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice. I don't think, +however, she would usually be thought pretty."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so +that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, +"I'm real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn't treat her well yesterday. I +didn't mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a +woman's head turned by a man's taking a little notice of her; and I know +very well, Stephy, that women like you. It wouldn't take much to make Mrs. +Philbrick fancy you were in love with her."</p> + +<p>Stephen also was gratified by his mother's apparent softening of mood, and +instinctively met her more than half way, replying,--</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed +so plainly that you didn't want them to stay. Perhaps she didn't notice +it, only thought you were tired. It isn't any great matter, any way. We'd +better keep on good terms with them, if they're to live under the same +roof with us, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. White. "Much better to be on neighborly terms. The +old mother is a childish old thing, though. She'd bore me to death, if she +came in often."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough," said Stephen; "but she's so +simple, and so much like a child you can't help pitying her."</p> + +<p>They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; +but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to shield +from discovery. When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he +fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict. One +of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this +morning on a street he knew she must pass on her way to market. He did not +define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to +see her face. He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words +he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her +face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this +plan, "Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother +never know any thing about it."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour +or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often +though before on similar occasions, "Well, she won't overtake Stephen +this time. I dare say she planned to." Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was +walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and +shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before. +She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not +observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen's +voice saying, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick." It was the second time that +he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject. +This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color +which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,--undisguised and +honest gladness.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. White," she exclaimed, "I never thought of seeing you. I thought +you were always in your office at this time."</p> + +<p>"I waited to see you this morning," replied Stephen, in a tone as simply +honest as her own. "I wanted to speak to you."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak. Stephen smiled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not for any particular thing," he said: "only for the pleasure of +it."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other's faces with a joy +which neither attempted to disguise. Stephen took Mercy's basket from her +arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so +full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were +walking by each other's side. The few words they did speak were of the +purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so +universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,--a +sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language. When +they parted at the door of Stephen's office, he said,--</p> + +<p>"I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do +you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, always," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you," said +Stephen.</p> + +<p>"I like it very much, Mr. White," answered Mercy, eagerly. "I used to walk +a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly."</p> + +<p>A jealous pang shot through Stephen's heart. He had been blind. This was +the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs. +Philbrick and her mother. He remembered now that he had thought at the +time some of the expressions in his friend's letter argued an unusual +interest in the young widow. Of course no man could know Mercy without +loving her. Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene +and smiling face with which he bade Mercy "Good-by," and ran up his +office-stairs three steps at a time.</p> + +<p>All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and +cheer. It was not a conscious anticipation of the morrow: she did not say +to herself "To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour." Love +knows the secret of true joy better than that. Love throws open wider +doors,--lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life +is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a +round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are +perpetually descending to the dreamer below.</p> + +<p>The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than +usual. Her first thought was one of blank disappointment. "Why, I thought +he meant to walk down with me," she said to herself. Her second thought +was a perplexed instinct of the truth: "I wonder if he can be afraid to +have his mother see him with me?" At this thought, Mercy's face burned, +and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time +her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter +had become quite clear in her mind.</p> + +<p>"I shall see him at the corner where he was yesterday," she said.</p> + +<p>But no Stephen was there. Spite of herself, Mercy lingered and looked +back. She was grieved and she was vexed.</p> + +<p>"Why did he say he wanted to walk with me, and then the very first morning +not come?" she said, as she walked slowly into the village.</p> + +<p>It was a cloudy day, and the clouds seemed to harmonize with Mercy's mood. +She did her errands in a half-listless way; and more than one of the +tradespeople, who had come to know her voice and smile, wondered what had +gone wrong with the cheery young lady. All the way home she looked vainly +for Stephen at every cross-street. She fancied she heard his step behind +her; she fancied she saw his tall figure in the distance. After she +reached home and the expectation was over for that day, she took herself +angrily to task for her folly. She reminded herself that Stephen had said +"sometimes," not "always;" and that nothing could have been more unlikely +than that he should have joined her the very next day. Nevertheless, she +was full of uneasy wonder how soon he would come again; and, when the next +morning dawned clear and bright, her first thought as she sprang up was,--</p> + +<p>"This is such a lovely day for a walk! He will surely come to-day."</p> + +<p>Again she was disappointed. Stephen left the house at a very early hour, +and walked briskly away without looking back. Mercy forced herself to go +through her usual routine of morning work. She was systematic almost to a +fault in the arrangement of her time, and any interference with her hours +was usually a severe trial of her patience. But to-day it was only by a +great effort of her will that she refrained from setting out earlier than +usual for the village. She walked rapidly until she approached the street +where Stephen had joined her before. Then she slackened her pace, and +fixed her eyes on the street. No person was to be seen in it. She walked +slower and slower: she could not believe that he was not there. Then she +began to fear that she had come a little too early. She turned to retrace +her steps; but a sudden sense of shame withheld her, and she turned back +again almost immediately, and continued her course towards the village, +walking very slowly, and now and then halting and looking back. Still no +Stephen. Street after street she passed: no Stephen. A sort of indignant +grief swelled up in Mercy's bosom; she was indignant with herself, with +him, with circumstances, with everybody; she was unreasoning and +unreasonable; she longed so to see Stephen's face that she could not think +clearly of any thing else. And yet she was ashamed of this longing. All +these struggling emotions together were too much for her; tears came into +her eyes; then vexation at the tears made them come all the faster; and, +for the first time in her life, Mercy Philbrick pulled her veil over her +face to hide that she was crying. Almost in the very moment that she had +done this, she heard a quick step behind her, and Stephen's voice +calling,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick! Mrs. Philbrick! do not walk so fast. I am trying to +overtake you."</p> + +<p>Feeling as guilty as a child detected in some forbidden spot, Mercy stood +still, vainly hoping her black veil was thick enough to hide her red eyes; +vainly trying to regain her composure enough to speak in her natural +voice, and smile her usual smile. Vainly, indeed! What crape could blind a +lover's eyes, or what forced tone deceive a lover's ears?</p> + +<p>At his first sight of her face, Stephen started; at the first sound of her +voice, he stood still, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, you have been crying!" There was no gainsaying it, even +if Mercy had not been too honest to make the attempt. She looked up +mischievously at him, and tried to say lightly,-- + +"What then, Mr. White? Didn't you know all women cried?"</p> + +<p>The voice was too tremulous. Stephen could not bear it. Forgetting that +they were on a public street, forgetting every thing but that Mercy was +crying, he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, what is it? Do let me help you! Can't I?"</p> + +<p>She did not even observe that he called her "Mercy." It seemed only +natural. Without realizing the full meaning of her words, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, you have helped me now," and threw up her veil, showing a face where +smiles were already triumphant. Instinct told Stephen in the same second +what she had meant, and yet had not meant to say. He dropped her hand, and +said in a low voice,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, did you really have tears in your eyes because I did not come? +Bless you, darling! I don't dare to speak to you here. Oh, pray come down +this little by-street with me."</p> + +<p>It was a narrow little lane behind the Brick Row into which Stephen and +Mercy turned. Although it was so near the centre of the town, it had never +been properly graded, but had been left like a wild bit of uneven field. +One side of it was walled by the Brick Row; on the other side were only a +few poverty-stricken houses, in which colored people lived. The snow lay +piled in drifts here all winter, and in spring it was an almost impassable +slough of mud. There was now no trodden path, only the track made by +sleighs in the middle of the lane. Into this strode Stephen, in his +excitement walking so fast that Mercy could hardly keep up with him. They +were too much absorbed in their own sensations and in each other to +realize the oddity of their appearance, floundering in the deep snow, +looking eagerly in each other's faces, and talking in a breathless and +disjointed way.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said Stephen, "I have been walking up and down waiting for you +ever since I came out; but a man whom I could not get away from stopped +me, and I had to stand still helpless and see you walk by the street, and +I was afraid I could not overtake you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, was that it?" said Mercy, looking up timidly in his face. "I felt +sure you would be there this morning, because"--</p> + +<p>"Because what?" said Stephen, gently.</p> + +<p>"Because you said you would come sometimes, and I knew very well that that +need not have meant this particular morning nor any particular morning; +and that was what vexed me so, that I should have been silly and set my +heart on it. That was what made me cry, Mr. White, I was so vexed with +myself," stoutly asserted Mercy, beginning to feel braver and more like +herself.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked her full in the face without speaking for a moment. Then,--</p> + +<p>"May I call you Mercy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied.</p> + +<p>"May I say to you exactly what I am thinking?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied again, a little more hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Then, Mercy, this is what I want to say to you," said Stephen, earnestly. +"There is no reason why you and I should try to deceive each other or +ourselves. I care very, very much for you, and you care very much for me. +We have come very close to each other, and neither of our lives can ever +be the same again. What is in store for us in all this we cannot now see; +but it is certain we are very much to each other."</p> + +<p>He spoke more and more slowly and earnestly; his eyes fixed on the distant +horizon instead of on Mercy's face. A deep sadness gradually gathered on +his countenance, and his last words were spoken more in the tone of one +who felt a new exaltation of suffering than of one who felt the new +ecstasy of a lover. Looking down into Mercy's face, with a tenderness +which made her very heart thrill, he said,--</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Mercy, is it not so? Are we not very much to each other?"</p> + +<p>The strange reticence of his tone, even more reticent than his words, had +affected Mercy inexplicably: it was as if a chill wind had suddenly blown +at noonday, and made her shiver in spite of full sunlight. Her tone was +almost as reticent and sad as his, as she said, without raising her +eyes,--</p> + +<p>"I think it is true."</p> + +<p>"Please look up at me, Mercy," said Stephen. "I want to feel sure that you +are not sorry I care so much for you."</p> + +<p>"How could I be sorry?" exclaimed Mercy, lifting her eyes suddenly, and +looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her +glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry."</p> + +<p>"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you. +You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and +now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought +not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking +here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of +the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his +hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily +loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped +you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone.</p> + +<p>Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of +bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow. +She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled +from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see +us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores +of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her +conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being +engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was +hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than +this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened +on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to +decide what would be right under such circumstances.</p> + +<p>The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, +remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy +which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her +died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a +grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with +an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door.</p> + +<p>He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, +exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very +gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it.</p> + +<p>Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was +habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so +irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features. Without +speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly +into the fire. Some minutes passed in silence. Mercy felt the tears coming +again into her eyes. What was this intangible but inexorable thing which +stood between this man's soul and hers? She could not doubt that he loved +her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of +which she had never before had even a conception. It seemed to her that +the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond +between them which nothing could hinder or harm. Why should they sit thus +silent by each other's side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full +of joy and gladness? Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on +Stephen's lips? Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert. She saw +clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was +in the dark. She could not even grope her way in this mystery. At last +Stephen spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," he said, "perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for +you. You said yesterday you never would be."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed! I am not," said Mercy. "I am very glad you care so much +for me."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you have discovered that you do not care so much for me as you +yesterday thought you did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" replied poor Mercy, in a low tone.</p> + +<p>Again Stephen was silent for a long time. Then he said,--</p> + +<p>"Ever since I can remember, I have longed for a perfect and absorbing +friendship. The peculiar relations of my life have prevented my even +hoping for it. My father's and my mother's friends never could be my +friends. I have lived the loneliest life a mortal man ever lived. Until I +saw you, Mercy, I had never even looked on the face of a woman whom it +seemed possible to me that any man could love. Perhaps, when I tell you +that, you can imagine what it was to me to look on the face of a woman +whom it seems to me no man could help loving. I suppose many men have +loved you, Mercy, and many more men will. I do not think any man has ever +felt for you, or ever will feel for you, as I feel. My love for you +includes every love the heart can know,--the love of father, brother, +friend, lover. Young as I am, you seem to me like my child, to be taken +care of; and you seem like my sister, to be trusted and loved; and like my +friend, to be leaned upon. You see what my life is. You see the burden +which I must carry, and which none can share. Do you think that the +friendship I can give you can be worth what it would ask? I feel withheld +and ashamed as I speak to you. I know how little I can do, how little I +can offer. To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, +Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love +you, if it is only till to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, +flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could +give the faintest indications which way safety might lie. If she had +listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her +native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair. But every +instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was +disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded +by her profound sympathy for his suffering.</p> + +<p>She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very +thoughts of his heart.</p> + +<p>"Do you understand me, Mercy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I think I do," she replied in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued. "I have not +a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it +would be wrong for me to put into words. I stand where I stand; and no +mortal can help me, except you. You can help me infinitely. Already the +joy of seeing you, hearing you, knowing that you are near, makes all my +life seem changed. It is not very much for you to give me, Mercy, after +all, out of the illimitable riches of your beauty, your brightness, your +spirit, your strength,--just a few words, just a few smiles, just a little +love,--for the few days, or it may be years, that fate sets us by each +other's side? And you, too, need a friend, Mercy. Your duty to another has +brought you where you are singularly alone, for the time being, just as my +duty to another has placed me where I must be singularly alone. Is it not +a strange chance which has thus brought us together?"</p> + +<p>"I do not believe any thing is chance," murmured Mercy. "I must have been +sent here for something."</p> + +<p>"I believe you were, dear," said Stephen, "sent here for my salvation. I +was thinking last night that, no matter if my life should end without my +ever knowing what other men call happiness, if I must live lonely and +alone to the end, I should still have the memory of you,--of your face, +of your hand, and the voice in which you said you cared for me. O Mercy, +Mercy! you have not the least conception of what you are to me!" And +Stephen stretched out both his arms to her, with unspeakable love in the +gesture.</p> + +<p>So swiftly that he had not the least warning of her intention, Mercy +threw herself into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. Shame +filled her soul, and burned in her cheeks, when Stephen, lifting her as he +would a child, and kissing her forehead gently, placed her again in her +chair, and said,--</p> + +<p>"My darling, I cannot let you do that. I will never ask from you any thing +that you can by any possibility come to regret at some future time. I +ought perhaps to be unselfish enough not to ask from you any thing at all. +I did not mean to; but I could not help it, and it is too late now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is too late now," said Mercy,--"too late now." And she buried her +face in her hands.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," exclaimed Stephen, in a voice of anguish, "you will break my +heart: you will make me wish myself dead, if you show such suffering as +this. I thought that you, too, could find joy, and perhaps help, in my +love, as I could in yours. If it is to give you pain and not happiness, it +were better for you never to see me again. I will never voluntarily look +on your face after to-night, if you wish it,--if you would be happier so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy. Then, overwhelmed with the sudden realization +of the pain she was giving to a man whom she so loved that at that moment +she would have died to shield him from pain, she lifted her face, shook +back the hair from her forehead, and, looking bravely into his eyes, +repeated,--</p> + +<p>"No, no! I am very selfish to feel like this. I do understand you. I +understand it all; and I will help you, and comfort you all I can. And I +do love you very dearly," she added in a lower voice, with a tone of such +incomparable sweetness that it took almost superhuman control on Stephen's +part to refrain from clasping her to his heart. But he did not betray the +impulse, even by a gesture. Looking at her with an expression of great +thankfulness, he said,--</p> + +<p>"I believe that peace will come to us, Mercy. I believe I can do something +to make you happy. To know that I love you as I do will be a great deal to +you, I think." He paused.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mercy, "a great deal." He went on,--</p> + +<p>"And to know that you are perpetually helping and cheering me will be +still more to you, I think. We shall know some joys, Mercy, which joyous +lovers never know. Happy people do not need each other as sad people do. O +Mercy, do try and remember all the time that you are the one bright thing +in my life,--in my whole life."</p> + +<p>"I will, Stephen, I will," said Mercy, resolutely, her whole face glowing +with the new purposes forming in her heart. It was marvellous how clear +the relation between herself and Stephen began to seem to her. It was +rather by her magnetic consciousness of all that he was thinking and +feeling than by the literal acceptance of any thing or all things which he +said. She seemed to herself to be already one with him in all his trials, +burdens, perplexities; in his renunciation; in his self-sacrifice; in his +loyalty of reticence; in his humility of uncomplainingness.</p> + +<p>When she bade him "good-night," her face was not only serene: it was +serene with a certain exaltation added, as the face of one who had entered +into a great steadfastness of joy. Stephen wondered greatly at this +transition from the excitement and grief she had at first shown. He had +yet to learn what wellsprings of strength lie in the poetic temperament.</p> + +<p>As he stood lingering on the threshold, finding it almost impossible to +turn away while the sweet face held him by the honest gaze of the loving +eyes, he said,</p> + +<p>"There will be many times, dear, when things will have to be very hard, +when I shall not be able to do as you would like to have me, when you may +even be pained by my conduct. Shall you trust me through it all?"</p> + +<p>"I shall trust you till the day of my death," said Mercy, impetuously. +"One can't take trust back. It isn't a gift: it is a necessity."</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled,--a smile of sorrow rather than gladness.</p> + +<p>"But if you thought me other than you had believed?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I could never think you other than you are," replied Mercy, proudly. "It +is not that I 'believe' you. I know you. I shall trust you to the day of +my death."</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the difference between Mercy +Philbrick's nature and Stephen White's, between her love for him and his +for her, than the fact that, after this conversation, she lay awake far +into the early hours of the morning, living over every word that he had +spoken, looking resolutely and even joyously into the strange future which +was opening before her, and scanning with loving intentness every chance +that it could possibly hold for her ministrations to him. He, on the other +hand, laid his head on his pillow with a sense of dreamy happiness, and +sank at once into sleep, murmuring,--</p> + +<p>"The darling! how she does love me! She shall never regret it,--never. We +can have a great deal of happiness together as it is; and if the time ever +should come," ...</p> + +<p>Here his thoughts halted, and refused to be clothed in explicit phrase. +Never once had Stephen White permitted himself to think in words, even in +his most secret meditations, "When my mother dies, I shall be free." His +fine fastidiousness would shrink from it, as from the particular kind of +brutality and bad taste involved in a murder. If the whole truth could +have been known of Stephen's feeling about all crimes and sins, it would +have been found to be far more a matter of taste than of principle, of +instinct than of conviction.</p> + +<p>Surely never in this world did love link together two souls more +diametrically opposite than Mercy Philbrick's and Stephen White's. It +needed no long study or especial insight into character to know which of +the two would receive the more and suffer the less, in the abnormal and +unfortunate relation on which they had entered. But no presentiment warned +Mercy of what lay before her. She was like a traveller going into a +country whose language he has never heard, and whose currency he does not +understand. However eloquent he may be in his own land, he is dumb and +helpless here; and of the fortune with which he was rich at home he is +robbed at every turn by false exchanges which impose on his ignorance. +Poor Mercy! Vaguely she felt that life was cruel to Stephen and to her; +but she accepted its cruelty to her as an inevitable part of her oneness +with him. Whatever he had to bear she must bear too, especially if he were +helped by her sharing the burden. And her heart glowed with happiness, +recalling the expression with which he had said,--</p> + +<p>"Remember, Mercy, you are the one bright thing in my life."</p> + +<p>She understood, or thought she understood, precisely the position in which +he was placed.</p> + +<p>"Very possibly he has even promised his mother," she said to herself, +"even promised her he would never be married. It would be just like her to +exact such a promise from him, and never think any thing of it. And, even +if he has not, it is all the same. He knows very well no human being could +live in the house with her, to say nothing of his being so terribly poor. +Poor, dear Stephen! to think of our little rent being more than half his +income! Oh, if there were only some way in which I could contrive to give +him money without his knowing it."</p> + +<p>If any one had said to Mercy at this time: "It was not honorable in this +man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his +love, and to allow you to show him yours for him. He is putting you in a +false position, and may be blighting your whole life," Mercy would have +repelled the accusation most indignantly. She would have said: "He has +never asked me for any such love as that. He told me most honestly in the +very beginning just how it was. He always said he would never fetter me by +a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into +his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put +me away from him almost with a reproof. No, indeed! he is the very soul of +honor. It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my +strength. Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being +his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her? It is just as sacred and +just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more +unselfish. If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father, +for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of +being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards +him?"</p> + +<p>It looked very plain to Mercy in these first days. It looked right, and it +seemed very full of joy. Her life seemed now rounded and complete. It had +a ruling motive, without which no life is satisfying; and that motive was +the highest motive known to the heart,--the desire to make another human +being perfectly happy. All hindrances and difficulties, all drawbacks and +sacrifices, seemed less than nothing to her. When she saw Stephen, she was +happy because she saw him; and when she did not see him, she was happy +because she had seen him, and would soon see him again. Past, present, +and future all melt into one great harmonious whole under the spell of +love in a nature like Mercy's. They are like so many rooms in one great +house; and in one or the other the loved being is always to be found, +always at home, can never depart! Could one be lonely for a moment in such +a house?</p> + +<p>Mercy's perpetual and abiding joy at times terrified Stephen. It was a +thing so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to him hardly natural. +Calm acquiescence he could understand,--serene endurance: he himself never +chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But +there were many days when his sense of deprivation made him sad, subdued, +and quiet. When, in these moods, he came into Mercy's presence, and found +her radiant, buoyant, mirthful even, he wondered; and sometimes he +questioned. He strove to find out the secret of her joy. There seemed to +him no legitimate reason for it.</p> + +<p>"Why, to see that I make you glad, Stephen," she would say. "Is not that +enough? Or even, when I cannot make you glad, just to love you is enough."</p> + +<p>"Mercy, how did you ever come to love me?" he said once, stung by a sense +of his own unworthiness. "How do you know you love me, after all?"</p> + +<p>"How do I know I love you!" she exclaimed. "Can any one ever tell that, I +wonder? I know it by this: that every thing in the whole world, even down +to the smallest grass-blade, seems to me different because you are alive." +She said these words with a passionate vehemence, and tears in her eyes. +Then, changing in a second to a mischievous, laughing mood, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes: you make all that odds to me. But let us not talk about loving each +other, Stephen. That's the way children do with their flower-seeds,--keep +pulling them up, to see how they grow."</p> + +<p>That night, Mercy gave Stephen this sonnet,--the first words she had +written out of the great wellspring of her love:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>"How Was It?"</h3> + +<p> Why ask, dear one? I think I cannot tell,<br /> +More than I know how clouds so sudden lift<br /> +From mountains, or how snowflakes float and drift,<br /> +Or springs leave hills. One secret and one spell<br /> +All true things have. No sunlight ever fell<br /> +With sound to bid flowers open. Still and swift<br /> +Come sweetest things on earth.<br /> + So comes true gift<br /> +Of Love, and so we know that it is well.<br /> +Sure tokens also, like the cloud, the snow,<br /> +And silent flowing of the mountain-springs,<br /> +The new gift of true loving always brings.<br /> +In clearer light, in purer paths, we go:<br /> +New currents of deep joy in common things<br /> +We find. These are the tokens, dear, we know!</p></blockquote> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-08"> +<h2>Chapter VIII.</h2> + + + +<p>As the months went on, Mercy began to make friends. One person after +another observed her bright face, asked who she was, and came to seek her +out. "Who is that girl with fair hair and blue eyes, who, whenever you +meet her in the street, always looks as if she had just heard some good +news?" was asked one day. It was a noteworthy thing that this description +was so instantly recognized by the person inquired of, that he had no +hesitancy in replying,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is a young widow from Cape Cod, a Mrs. Philbrick. She came last +winter with her mother, who is an invalid. They live in the old Jacobs +house with the Whites."</p> + +<p>Among the friends whom Mercy thus met was a man who was destined to +exercise almost as powerful an influence as Stephen White over her life. +This was Parson Dorrance.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance had in his youth been settled as a Congregationalist +minister. But his love of literature and of science was even stronger than +his love of preaching the gospel; and, after a very few years, he accepted +a position as professor in a small college, in a town only four miles +distant from the village in which Mercy had come to live. This was +twenty-five years ago. Parson Dorrance was now fifty-five years old. For a +quarter of a century, his name had been the pride, and his hand had been +the stay, of the college. It had had presidents of renown and professors +of brilliant attainments; but Parson Dorrance held a position more +enviable than all. Few lives of such simple and steadfast heroism have +ever been lived. Few lives have ever so stamped the mark of their +influence on a community. In the second year of his ministry, Mr. Dorrance +had married a very beautiful and brilliant woman. Probably no two young +people ever began married life with a fairer future before them than +these. Mrs. Dorrance was as exceptionally clever and cultured a person as +her husband; and she added to these rare endowments a personal beauty +which is said by all who knew her in her girlhood to have been marvellous. +But, as is so often the case among New England women of culture, the body +had paid the cost of the mind's estate; and, after the birth of her first +child, she sank at once into a hopeless invalidism,--an invalidism all the +more difficult to bear, and to be borne with, that it took the shape of +distressing nervous maladies which no medical skill could alleviate. The +brilliant mind became almost a wreck, and yet retained a preternatural +restlessness and activity. Many regarded her condition as insanity, and +believed that Mr. Dorrance erred in not giving her up to the care of those +making mental disorders a specialty. But his love and patience were +untiring. When her mental depression and suffering reached such a stage +that she could not safely see a human face but his, he shut himself up +with her in her darkened room till the crisis had passed. There were times +when she could not close her eyes in sleep unless he sat by her side, +holding her hand in his, and gently stroking it. He spent weeks of nights +by her bedside in this way. At any hour of the day, a summons might come +from her; and, whatever might be his engagement, it was instantly laid +aside,--laid aside, too, with cheerfulness and alacrity. At times, all his +college duties would be suspended on her account; and his own specialties +of scientific research, in which he was beginning to win recognition even +from the great masters of science in Europe, were very early laid aside +for ever. It must have been a great pang to him,--this relinquishment of +fame, and of what is dearer to the true scientific man than all fame, the +joys of discovery; but no man ever heard from his lips an allusion to the +sacrifice. The great telescope, with which he had so many nights swept the +heavens, still stood in his garden observatory; but it was little used +except for recreation, and for the pleasure and instruction of his boy. +Yet no one would have dreamed, from the hearty joy with which he used it +for these purposes, that it had ever been to him the token and the +instrument of the great hope of his heart. The resolute cheer of this +man's life pervaded the whole atmosphere of his house. Spite of the +perpetual shadow of the invalid's darkened room, spite of the inevitable +circumscribing of narrow means, Parson Dorrance's cottage was the +pleasantest house in the place, was the house to which all the +townspeople took strangers with pride, and was the house which strangers +never forgot. There was always a new book, or a new print, or a new +flower, or a new thought which the untiring mind had just been shaping; +and there were always and ever the welcome and the sympathy of a man who +loved men because he loved God, and who loved God with an affection as +personal in its nature as the affection with which he loved a man.</p> + +<p>Year after year, classes of young men went away from this college, having +for four years looked on the light of this goodness. Said I not well that +few lives have ever been lived which have left such a stamp on a +community? No man could be so gross that he would utterly fail to feel its +purity, no man so stupid that he could not see its grandeur of +self-sacrifice; and to souls of a fibre fine enough to be touched to the +quick by its exaltation, it was-a kindling fire for ever.</p> + +<p>In the twenty-seventh year of her married life, and near the end of the +twenty-fifth year of her confinement to her room, Mrs. Dorrance died. For +a few months after her death, her husband seemed like a man suddenly +struck blind in the midst of familiar objects. He seemed to be groping his +way, to have lost all plan of daily life, so tremendous was the change +involved in the withdrawal of this perpetual burden. Just as he was +beginning to recover the natural tone of his mind, and to resume his old +habits of work, his son sickened and died. The young man had never been +strong: he had inherited his mother's delicacy of constitution, and her +nervous excitability as well; but he had rare qualities of mind, and gave +great promise as a scholar. The news of his death was a blow to every +heart that loved his father. "This will kill the Parson," was said by +sorrowing voices far and near. On the contrary, it seemed to be the very +thing which cleared the atmosphere of his whole life, and renewed his +vigor and energy. He rose up from the terrible grief more majestic than +ever, as some grand old tree, whose young shoots and branches have been +torn away by fierce storms, seems to lift its head higher than before, and +to tower in its stripped loneliness above all its fellows. All the loving +fatherhood of his nature was spent now on the young people of his town; +and, by young people, I mean all between the ages of four and twenty. +There was hardly a baby that did not know Parson Dorrance, and stretch out +its arms to him; there was hardly a young man or a young woman who did not +go to him with troubles or perplexities. You met him, one day, drawing a +huge sledful of children on the snow; another day, walking in the centre +of a group of young men and maidens, teaching them as he walked. They all +loved him as a comrade, and reverenced him as a teacher. They wanted him +at their picnics; and, whenever he preached, they flocked to hear him. It +was a significant thing that his title of Professor was never heard. From +first to last, he was always called "Parson Dorrance;" and there were few +Sundays on which he did not preach at home or abroad. It was one of the +forms of his active benevolence. If a poor minister broke down and needed +rest, Parson Dorrance preached for him, for one month or for three, as the +case required. If a little church were without a pastor and could not find +one, or were in debt and could not afford to hire one, it sent to ask +Parson Dorrance to supply the pulpit; and he always went. Finally, not +content with these ordinary and established channels for preaching the +gospel, he sought out for himself a new one. About eight miles from the +village there was a negro settlement known as "The Cedars." It was a wild +place. Great outcropping ledges of granite, with big boulders toppling +over, and piled upon each other, and all knotted together by the gnarled +roots of ancient cedar-trees, made the place seem like ruins of old +fortresses. There were caves of great depth, some of them with two +entrances, in which, in the time of the fugitive slave law, many a poor +hunted creature had had safe refuge. Besides the cedar-trees, there were +sugar-maples and white birches; and the beautiful rock ferns grew all over +the ledges in high waving tufts, almost as luxuriantly as if they were in +the tropics; so that the spot, wild and fierce as it was, had great +beauty. Many of the fugitive slaves had built themselves huts here: some +lived in the caves. A few poor and vicious whites had joined them, +intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as +mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen. They were the terror of the +neighborhood. Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as +dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws. No man cared for them; +and they cared for no man. Parson Dorrance's heart yearned over these +poor Ishmaelites; and he determined to see if they were irreclaimable. The +first thing that his townsmen knew of his plan was his purchase of several +acres of land near "The Cedars." He bought it very cheap, because land in +that vicinity was held to be worthless for purposes of cultivation. Unless +the crops were guarded night and day, they were surreptitiously harvested +by foragers from "The Cedars." Then it was found out that Parson Dorrance +was in the habit of driving over often to look at his new property. +Gradually, the children became used to his presence, and would steal out +and talk to him. Then he carried over a small microscope, and let them +look through it at insects; and before long there might have been seen, on +a Sunday afternoon, a group of twenty or thirty of the outcasts gathered +round the Parson, while he talked to them as he had talked to the +children. Then he told them that, if they would help, he would build a +little house on his ground, and put some pictures and maps in it for them, +and come over every Sunday and talk to them; and they set to work with a +will. Very many were the shrugs and smiles over "Parson Dorrance's Chapel +at 'The Cedars.'" But the chapel was built; and the Parson preached in it +to sometimes seventy-five of the outlaws. The next astonishment of the +Parson's friends was on finding him laying out part of his new land in a +nursery of valuable young fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Then they +said,--</p> + +<p>"Really, the Parson is mad! Does he think he has converted all those +negroes, so that they won't steal fruit?" And, when they met the Parson, +they laughed at him. "Come, come, Parson," they said, "this is carrying +the thing a little too far, to trust a fruit orchard over there by 'The +Cedars.'"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance's eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"I know the boys better than you do," he replied. "They will not steal a +single pear."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to wager you something on that," said the friend.</p> + +<p>"Well, I couldn't exactly take such a wager," answered the Parson, +"because you see I know the boys won't steal the fruit."</p> + +<p>Somewhat vexed at the obstinacy of the Parson's faith, his friend +exclaimed, "I'd like to know how you can know that beforehand?"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance loved a joke.</p> + +<p>"Neighbor," said he, "I wish I could in honor have let you wager me on +that. I've given the orchard to the boys. The fruit's all their own."</p> + +<p>This was the man whom Mercy Philbrick met early in her first summer at +Penfield. She had heard him preach twice, and had been so greatly +impressed by his words and by his face that she longed very much to know +him. She had talked with Stephen about him, but had found that Stephen did +not sympathize at all in her enthusiasm. "The people over at Danby are all +crazy about him, I think," said Stephen. "He is a very good man no doubt, +and does no end of things for the college boys, that none of the other +professors do. But I think he is quixotic and sentimental; and all this +stuff about those niggers at the Cedars is moonshine. They'd pick his very +pocket, I daresay, any day; and he'd never suspect them. I know that lot +too well. The Lord himself couldn't convert them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen! I think you are wrong," replied Mercy. "Parson Dorrance is +not sentimental, I am sure. His sermons were clear and logical and +terse,--not a waste word in them; and his mouth and chin are as strong as +an old Roman's."</p> + +<p>Stephen looked earnestly at Mercy. "Mercy," said he, "I wonder if you +would love me better if I were a preacher, and could preach clear, +logical, and terse sermons?"</p> + +<p>Mercy was impatient. Already the self-centring of Stephen's mind, his +instant reverting from most trains of thought to their possible bearing on +her love for him, had begun to irritate her. It was so foreign to her own +unconscious, free-souled acceptance and trust.</p> + +<p>"Stephen," she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Besides +seeming to imply a sort of distrust of my love for you, they are +illogical; and you know there is nothing I hate like bad logic."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. The slightest approach to a disagreement between +Mercy and himself gave him great pain and a sense of terror; and he took +refuge instantly behind his usual shield of silence. This also was foreign +to Mercy's habit and impulse. When any thing went wrong, it was Mercy's +way to speak out honestly; to have the matter set in all its lights, until +it could reach its true one. She hated mystery; she hated reticence; she +hated every thing which fell short of full and frank understanding of each +other.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen!" she used to say often, "it is bad enough for us to be +forced into keeping things back from the world. Don't let us keep any +thing back from each other."</p> + +<p>Poor Mercy! the days were beginning to be hard for her. Her face often +wore a look of perplexed thought which was very new to it. Still she never +wavered for a moment in her devotion to Stephen. If she had stood +acknowledged before all the world as his wife, she could not have been any +more single-hearted and unquestioning in her loyalty.</p> + +<p>It was at a picnic in which the young people of both Danby and Penfield +had joined that Mercy met Parson Dorrance. No such gathering was ever +thought complete without the Parson's presence. Again and again one might +hear it said in the preliminary discussion: "But we must find out first +what day Parson Dorrance can go. It won't be any fun without him!"</p> + +<p>Until Mercy came, Stephen White had rarely been asked to the pleasurings +of the young people in Penfield. There was a general impression that he +did not care for things of that sort. His manner was wrongly interpreted, +however: it was really only the constraint born of the feeling that he was +out of his place, or that nobody wanted him. He watched in silent wonder +the cordial way in which, it seemed to him, that Mercy talked with +everybody, and made everybody feel happy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy, how can you!" he would exclaim: "I feel so dumb, even while I +am talking the fastest!"</p> + +<p>"Why, so do I, Stephen," said Mercy. "I am often racking my brains to +think what I shall say next. Half the people I meet are profoundly +uninteresting to me; and half of the other half paralyze me at first +sight, and I feel like such a hypocrite all the time; but, oh, what a +pleasure it is to talk with the other quarter!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," sighed Stephen, "you look so happy and absorbed sometimes that it +makes me feel as if you had forgotten me altogether."</p> + +<p>"Silly boy!" laughed Mercy. "Do you want me to prove to you by a long face +that I am remembering you?--Darling," she added, "at those very times when +you see me seem so absorbed and happy in company, I am most likely +thinking about the last time you looked into my face, or the next time you +will."</p> + +<p>And for once Stephen was satisfied.</p> + +<p>The picnic at which Mercy met Parson Dorrance had taken place on a +mountain some six miles south-west of Penfield. This mountain was the +western extremity of the range of which I have before spoken; and at its +base ran the river which made the meadow-lands of Penfield and Danby so +beautiful. Nowhere in America is there a lovelier picture than these +meadow-lands, seen from the top of this mountain which overhangs them. The +mountain is only about twenty-five hundred feet high: therefore, one loses +no smallest shade of color in the view; even the difference between the +green of broom-corn and clover records itself to the eye looking down from +the mountain-top. As far as one can see to northward the valley stretches +in bands and belts and spaces of varied tints of green. The river winds +through it in doubling curves, and looks from the height like a line of +silver laid in loops on an enamelled surface. To the east and the west +rise the river terraces, higher and higher, becoming, at last, lofty and +abrupt hills at the horizon.</p> + +<p>When Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy, she was alone on a spur of +rock which jutted out from the mountain-side and overhung the valley. She +had wandered away from the gay and laughing company, and was sitting +alone, absorbed and almost saddened by the unutterable beauty of the +landscape below. Stephen had missed her, but had not yet dared to go in +search of her. He imposed on himself a very rigid law in public, and never +permitted himself to do or say or even look any thing which could suggest +to others the intimacy of their relations. Mercy sometimes felt this so +keenly that she reproached him. "I can't see why you should think it +necessary to avoid me so," she would say. "You treat me exactly as if I +were only a common acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"That is exactly what I wish to have every one believe you to be, Mercy," +Stephen would reply with emphasis. "That is the only safe course. Once let +people begin to associate our names together, and there is no limit to the +things they would say. We cannot be too careful. That is one thing you +must let me be the judge of, dear. You cannot understand it as I do. So +long as I am without the right or the power to protect you, my first duty +is to shield you from any or all gossip linking our names together."</p> + +<p>Mercy felt the justice of this; and yet to her there seemed also a sort +of injustice involved in it. She felt stung often, and wounded, in spite +of all reasoning with herself that she had no cause to do so, that Stephen +was but doing right. So inevitable and inextricable are pains and dilemmas +when once we enter on the paths of concealment.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy by Mrs. Hunter, a young married +woman, who was fast becoming her most intimate friend. Mrs. Hunter's +father had been settled as the minister of a church in Penfield, in the +same year that Parson Dorrance had taken his professorship in Danby, and +the two men had been close friends from that day till the day of Mr. +Adams's death. Little Lizzy Adams had been Parson Dorrance's pet when she +lay in her cradle. He had baptized her; and, when she came to woman's +estate, he had performed the ceremony which gave her in marriage to Luke +Hunter, the most promising young lawyer in the county.</p> + +<p>She had always called Parson Dorrance her uncle, and her house in Penfield +was his second home. It had been Mrs. Hunter's wish for a long time that +he should see and know her new friend, Mercy. But Mercy was very shy of +seeing the man for whom she felt such reverence, and had steadily refused +to meet him. It was therefore with a certain air of triumphant +satisfaction that Mrs. Hunter led Parson Dorrance to the rock where Mercy +was sitting, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"There, Uncle Dorrance! here she is!"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance did not wait for any farther introduction; but; holding +out both his hands to Mercy, he said in a deep, mellow voice, and with a +tone which had a benediction in it,--</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Philbrick. My child Lizzy here has been +telling me about you for a long time. You know I'm the same as a father to +her; so you can't escape me, if you are going to be her friend."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked up half-shamefacedly and half-archly, and replied,--</p> + +<p>"It was not that I wanted to escape you; but I wanted you to escape me." +She perceived that the Parson had been told of her refusals to meet him. +Then they all sat down again on the jutting rock; and Mercy, leaning +forward with her hands clasped on her knees, fixed her eyes on Parson +Dorrance's face, and drank in every word that he said. He had a rare +faculty of speaking with the greatest simplicity, both of language and +manner. It was impossible not to feel at ease in his presence. It was +impossible not to tell him all that he asked. Before you knew it, you were +speaking to him of your own feelings, tastes, the incidents of your life, +your plans and purposes, as if he were a species of father confessor. He +questioned you so gently, yet with such an air of right; he listened so +observantly and sympathetically. He did not treat Mercy Philbrick as a +stranger; for Mrs. Hunter had told him already all she knew of her +friend's life, and had showed him several of Mercy's poems, which had +surprised him much by their beauty, and still more by their condensation +of thought. They seemed to him almost more masculine than feminine; and +he had unconsciously anticipated that in seeing Mercy he would see a woman +of masculine type. He was greatly astonished. He could not associate this +slight, fair girl, with a child's honesty and appeal in her eyes, with the +forceful words he had read from her pen. He pursued his conversation with +her eagerly, seeking to discover the secret of her style, to trace back +the poetry from its flower to its root. It was an astonishment to Mercy to +find herself talking about her own verses with this stranger whom she so +reverenced. But she felt at once as if she had sat at his feet all her +life, and had no right to withhold any thing from her master.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Mrs. Philbrick, you have read the earlier English poets a +great deal, have you not?" he said. "I infer so from the style of some of +your poems."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mercy, in honest vehemence. "I have read hardly any +thing, Mr. Dorrance. I know Herbert a little; but most of the old English +poets I have never even seen. I have never lived where there were any +books till now."</p> + +<p>"You love Wordsworth, I hope," he said inquiringly.</p> + +<p>Mercy turned very red, and answered in a tone of desperation, "I've tried +to. Mr. Allen said I must. But I can't. I don't care any thing about him." +And she looked at the Parson with the air of a culprit who has confessed a +terrible misdemeanor.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he replied, "you have not then reached the point in the journey at +which one sees him. It is only a question of time: one comes of a sudden +into the presence of Wordsworth, as a traveller finds some day, upon a +well-known road, a grand cathedral, into which he turns aside and +worships, and wonders how it happens that he never before saw it. You will +tell me some day that this has happened to you. It is only a question of +time."</p> + +<p>Just as Parson Dorrance pronounced the last words, they were echoed by a +laughing party who had come in search of him. "Yes, yes, only a question +of time," they said; "and it is our time now, Parson. You must come with +us. No monopoly of the Parson allowed, Mrs. Hunter," and they carried him +off, joining hands around him and singing the old college song, "Gaudeamus +igitur."</p> + +<p>Stephen, who had joined eagerly in the proposal to go in search of the +Parson, remained behind, and made a sign to Mercy to stay with him. +Sitting down by her side, he said gloomily,--</p> + +<p>"What were you talking about when we came up? Your face looked as if you +were listening to music."</p> + +<p>"About Wordsworth," said Mercy. "Parson Dorrance said such a beautiful +thing about him. It was like music, like far off music," and she repeated +it to Stephen. "I wonder if I shall ever reach that cathedral," she added.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've never reached it," said Stephen, "and I'm a good deal older +than you. I think two thirds of Wordsworth's poetry is imbecile, +absolutely imbecile."</p> + +<p>Mercy was too much under the spell of Parson Dorrance's recent words to +sympathize in this; but she had already learned to avoid dissent from +Stephen's opinions, and she made no reply. They were sitting on the edge +of a great fissure in the mountain. Some terrible convulsion must have +shaken the huge mass to its centre, to have made such a rift. At the +bottom ran a stream, looking from this height like little more than a +silver thread. Shrubs and low flowering things were waving all the way +down the sides of the abyss, as if nature had done her best to fill up the +ugly wound. Many feet below them, on a projecting rock, waved one little +white blossom, so fragile it seemed as if each swaying motion in the +breeze must sever it from the stem.</p> + +<p>"Oh, see the dainty, brave little thing!" exclaimed Mercy. "It looks as if +it were almost alone in space."</p> + +<p>"I will get it for you," said Stephen; and, before Mercy could speak to +restrain him, he was far down the precipice. With a low ejaculation of +terror, Mercy closed her eyes. She would not look on Stephen in such +peril. She did not move nor open her eyes, until he stood by her side, +exclaiming, "Why, Mercy! my darling, do not look so! There was no danger," +and he laid the little plant in her hand. She looked at it in silence for +a moment, and then said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen! to risk your life for such a thing as that! The sight of it +will always make me shudder."</p> + +<p>"Then I will throw it away," said Stephen, endeavoring to take it from her +hand; but she held it only the tighter, and whispered,--</p> + +<p>"No! oh, what a moment! what a moment! I shall keep this flower as long as +I live!" And she did,--kept it wrapped in a paper, on which were written +the following lines:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>A Moment.</h3> + +<p>Lightly as an insect floating<br /> + In the sunny summer air,<br /> +Waved one tiny snow-white blossom,<br /> +From a hidden crevice growing,<br /> + Dainty, fragile-leaved, and fair,<br /> +Where great rocks piled up like mountains,<br /> +Well-nigh to the shining heavens,<br /> + Rose precipitous and bare,<br /> +With a pent-up river rushing,<br /> + Foaming as at boiling heat<br /> + Wildly, madly, at their feet.</p> + +<p>Hardly with a ripple stirring<br /> + The sweet silence by its tone,<br /> +Fell a woman's whisper lightly,--<br /> +"Oh, the dainty, dauntless blossom!<br /> + What deep secret of its own<br /> +Keeps it joyous and light-hearted,<br /> +O'er this dreadful chasm swinging,<br /> + Unsupported and alone,<br /> +With no help or cheer from kindred?<br /> + Oh, the dainty, dauntless thing,<br /> + Bravest creature of the spring!"</p> + +<p>Then the woman saw her lover,<br /> + For one instant saw his face,<br /> +Down the precipice slow sinking,<br /> +Looking up at her, and sending<br /> + Through the shimmering, sunny space<br /> +Look of love and subtle triumph,<br /> +As he plucked the tiny blossom<br /> + In its airy, dizzy place,--<br /> +Plucked it, smiling, as if danger<br /> + Were not danger to the hand<br /> + Of true lover in love's land.</p> + +<p>In her hands her face she buried,<br /> + At her heart the blood grew chill;<br /> +In that one brief moment crowded<br /> +The whole anguish of a lifetime,<br /> + Made her every pulse stand still.<br /> +Like one dead she sat and waited,<br /> +Listening to the stirless silence,<br /> + Ages in a second, till,<br /> +Lightly leaping, came her lover,<br /> + And, still smiling, laid the sweet<br /> + Snow-white blossom at her feet.</p> + +<p>"O my love! my love!" she shuddered,<br /> + "Bloomed that flower by Death's own spell?<br /> +Was thy life so little moment,<br /> +Life and love for that one blossom<br /> + Wert thou ready thus to sell?<br /> +O my precious love! for ever<br /> +I shall keep this faded token<br /> + Of the hour which came to tell,<br /> +In such voice I scarce dared listen,<br /> + How thy life to me had grown<br /> + So much dearer than my own!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>On their way home from the picnic late in the afternoon, they came at the +base of the mountain to a beautiful spot where two little streams met. The +two streams were in sight for a long distance: one shining in a green +meadow; the other leaping and foaming down a gorge in the mountain-side. A +little inn, which was famous for its beer, stood on the meadow space, +bounded by these two streams; and the picnic party halted before its door. +While the white foamy glasses were clinked and tossed, Mercy ran down the +narrow strip of land at the end of which the streams met. A little +thicket of willows grew there. Standing on the very edge of the shore, +Mercy broke off a willow wand, and dipped it to right in the meadow +stream, to the left in the stream from the gorge. Then she brought it back +wet and dripping.</p> + +<p>"It has drank of two waters," she cried, holding it up. "Oh, you ought to +see how wonderful it is to watch their coming together at that point! For +a little while you can trace the mountain water by itself in the other: +then it is all lost, and they pour on together." This picture, also, she +set in a frame of verse one day, and gave it to Stephen.</p> + +<blockquote><p> On a green point of sunny land,<br /> + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high,<br /> +I stood alone as dreamers stand,<br /> + And watched two streams that hurried by.</p> + +<p>One ran to east, and one to south;<br /> + They leaped and sparkled in the sun;<br /> +They foamed like racers at the mouth,<br /> + And laughed as if the race were won.</p> + +<p>Just on the point of sunny land<br /> + A low bush stood, like umpire fair,<br /> +Waving green banners in its hand,<br /> + As if the victory to declare.</p> + +<p>Ah, victory won, but not by race!<br /> + Ah, victory by a sweeter name!<br /> +To blend for ever in embrace,<br /> + Unconscious, swift, the two streams came.</p> + +<p>One instant, separate, side by side<br /> + The shining currents seemed to pour;<br /> +Then swept in one tumultuous tide,<br /> + Swifter and stronger than before.</p> + +<p>O stream to south! O stream to east!<br /> + Which bears the other, who shall see?<br /> +Which one is most, which one is least,<br /> + In this surrendering victory?</p> + +<p>To that green point of sunny land,<br /> + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high,<br /> +I called my love, and, hand in hand,<br /> + We watched the streams that hurried by.</p></blockquote> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-09"> +<h2>Chapter IX.</h2> + + + +<p>It was a turning-point in Mercy's life when she met Parson Dorrance. Here +at last was a man who had strength enough to influence her, culture enough +to teach her, and the firm moral rectitude which her nature so inexorably +demanded. During the first few weeks of their acquaintance, Mercy was +conscious of an insatiable desire to be in his presence: it was an +intellectual and a moral thirst. Nothing could be farther removed from the +absorbing consciousness which passionate love feels of its object, than +was this sentiment she felt toward Parson Dorrance. If he had been a being +from another planet, it could not have been more so. In fact, it was very +much as if another planet had been added to her world,--a planet which +threw brilliant light into every dark corner of this one. She questioned +him eagerly. Her old doubts and perplexities, which Mr. Allen's narrower +mind had been unable to comprehend or to help, were now set at rest and +cleared up by a spiritual vision far keener than her own. Her mind was fed +and trained by an intellect so much stronger than her own that it +compelled her assent and her allegiance. She came to him almost as a +maiden, in the ancient days of Greece, would have gone to the oracle of +the holiest shrine. Parson Dorrance in his turn was as much impressed by +Mercy; but he was never able to see in her simply the pupil, the +questioner. To him she was also a warm and glowing personality, a young +and beautiful woman. Parson Dorrance's hair was white as snow; but his +eyes were as keen and dark as in his youth, his step as firm, and his +pulse as quick. Long before he dreamed of such a thing, he might have +known, if he had taken counsel of his heart, that Mercy was becoming to +him the one woman in the world. There was always this peculiarity in +Mercy's influence upon all who came to love her. She was so unique and +incalculable a person that she made all other women seem by comparison +with her monotonous and wearying. Intimacy with her had a subtle flavor to +it, by which other flavors were dulled. The very impersonality of her +enthusiasms and interests, her capacity for looking on a person for the +time being merely as a representative or mouth-piece, so to speak, of +thoughts, of ideas, of narrations, was one of her strongest charms. By +reason of this, the world was often unjust to her in its comments on her +manner, on her relations with men. The world more than once accused her +uncharitably of flirting. But the men with whom she had friendships knew +better; and now and then a woman had the insight to be just to her, to see +that she was quite capable of regarding a human being as objectively as +she would a flower or a mountain or a star. The blending of this trait in +her with the strong capacity she had for loving individuals was singular; +not more so, perhaps, than the blending of the poetic temperament with the +active, energetic, and practical side of her nature.</p> + +<p>It was not long before her name began to be mentioned in connection with +Parson Dorrance's, by the busy tongues which are always in motion in small +villages. It was not long, moreover, before a thought and a hope, in which +both these names were allied, crept into the heart of Lizzy Hunter.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she thought, "if only Uncle Dorrance would marry Mercy, how happy I +should be, she would be, every one would be."</p> + +<p>No suspicion of the relation in which Mercy stood to Stephen White had +ever crossed Mrs. Hunter's mind. She had never known Stephen until +recently; and his manner towards her had been from the outset so chilled +and constrained by his unconscious jealousy of every new friend Mercy +made, that she had set him down in her own mind as a dull and surly man, +and rarely thought of him. And, as one of poor Mercy's many devices for +keeping up with her conscience a semblance of honesty in the matter of +Stephen was the entire omission of all reference to him in her +conversation, nothing occurred to remind her friends of him. Parson +Dorrance, indeed, had said to her one day,--</p> + +<p>"You never speak of Mr. White, Mercy. Is he an agreeable and kind +landlord?"</p> + +<p>Mercy started, looked bewilderedly in the Parson's face, and repeated his +words mechanically,--</p> + +<p>"Landlord?" Then recollecting herself, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes! we do pay +rent to him; but it was paid for the whole year in advance, and I had +forgotten all about it."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance had had occasion to distrust Stephen's father, and he +distrusted the son. "Advance? advance?" he exclaimed. "Why did you do +that, child? That was all wrong."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" said Mercy, eagerly. "I had the money, and it made no difference +to me; and Mr. Allen told me that Mr. White was in a great strait for +money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible +burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White, +until she had effectually led the conversation away from Stephen.</p> + +<p>When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle +Dorrance's loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to +refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a +possibility. But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would +terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether. So she contented +herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations +on the subject of marriage. Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging, +caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men's affections as kittens +nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,--love of +warmth and shelter, and of being fondled. To all these instincts in Lizzy, +however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of +affection. If the world held more such women, there would be more happy +children and contented husbands.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said she one afternoon, earnestly, "Mercy, it makes me perfectly +wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married. +You don't know what you are talking about: you don't realize in the least +what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days."</p> + +<p>"I never need be homeless, dear," said Mercy. "I shall always have a home, +even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near, +she has failed so much this past summer. But, even if I were all alone, I +should still keep my home."</p> + +<p>"A house isn't a home, Mercy!" exclaimed Lizzy. Of course you can always +be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort."</p> + +<p>"And that's a great way, my Lizzy," interrupted Mercy, laughing,--"a great +way. No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Mercy, don't talk so. You know very well what I mean," replied +Lizzy. "It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to +have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and +not to have anybody to love herself. Oh, Mercy, I don't see how any woman +lives without it!"</p> + +<p>The tears came into Mercy's eyes. There were depths of lovingness in her +soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream. But she spoke in a +resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, when she said,--</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see how any woman can help living very well without it, if +it doesn't come to her. I don't see how any human being--man or woman, +single or married--can help being glad to be alive under any conditions. +It is such a glorious thing to have a soul and a body, and to get the most +out of them. Just from the purely selfish point of view, it seems to me a +delight to live; and when you look at it from a higher point, and think +how much each human being can do for those around him, why, then it is +sublime. Look at Parson Dorrance, Lizzy! Just think of the sum of the +happiness that man has created in this world! He isn't lonely. He couldn't +think of such a thing."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is, too,--I know he is," said Lizzy, impetuously. "The very way +he takes up my children and hugs them and kisses them shows that he longs +for a home and children of his own."</p> + +<p>"I think not," replied Mercy. "It is all part of the perpetual overflow of +his benevolence. He can't pass by a living creature, if it is only a dog, +without a desire to give it a moment's happiness. Of happiness for himself +he never thinks, because he is on a plane above happiness,--a plane of +perpetual joy." Mercy hesitated, paused, and then went on, "I don't mean +to be irreverent, but I could never think of his needing personal +ministrations to his own happiness, any more than I could think of God's +needing them. I think he is on a plane as absolutely above such needs as +God is. Not so high above, but as absolutely."</p> + +<p>"How are you so sure God is above it?" said Lizzy, timidly. "I can't +conceive of God's being happy if nobody loved him."</p> + +<p>Mercy was startled by these words from Lizzy, who rarely questioned and +never philosophized. She opened her lips to reply with a hasty reiteration +of her first sentiment, but the words died even before they were spoken, +arrested by her sudden consciousness of the possibility of a grand truth +underlying Lizzy's instinct. If that were so, did it not lie out far +beyond every fact in life, include and control them all, as the great +truth of gravitation outlies and embraces the physical universe? Did God +so need as well as so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son +for it? Is this what it meant to be "one with God"? Then, if the great, +illimitable heart of God thus yearns for the love of his creatures, the +greater the heart of a human being, the more must he yearn for a fulness +of love, a completion of the cycle of bonds and joys for which he was +made. From these simple words of a loving woman's heart had flashed a +great light into Mercy's comprehension of God. She was silent for some +moments; then she said solemnly,--</p> + +<p>"That was a great thought you had then, Lizzy. I never saw it in that +light before. I shall never forget it. Perhaps you are right about the +Parson, too. I wonder if there is any thing he does long for? If there is, +I would die to give it to him,--I know that."</p> + +<p>It was very near Lizzy's lips to say, "If you would live to give it to +him, it would be more to the purpose, perhaps;" but she wisely forbore and +they parted in silence, Mercy absorbed in thinking of this new view of +God's relation to man, and Lizzy hoping that Mercy was thinking of Parson +Dorrance's need of a greater happiness than he possessed.</p> + +<p>As Mercy's circle of friends widened, and her interests enlarged and +deepened, her relation to Stephen became at once easier and harder: +easier, because she no longer spent so many hours alone in perplexed +meditation as to the possible wrong in it; harder, because he was +frequently unreasonable, jealous of the pleasure that he saw she found in +others, jealous of the pleasure she gave to others,--jealous, in short, of +every thing in which he was not her centre. Mercy was very patient with +him. She loved him unutterably. She never forgot for an instant the quiet +heroism with which he bore his hard life. As the months had gone on, she +had gradually established a certain kindly familiarity with his mother; +going in often to see her, taking her little gifts of flowers or fruit, +and telling her of all little incidents which might amuse her. She seemed +to herself in this way to be doing a little towards sharing Stephen's +burden; and she also felt a certain bond to the woman who, being Stephen's +mother, ought to have been hers by adoption. The more she saw of Mrs. +White's tyrannical, exacting nature, the more she yearned over Stephen. +Her first feeling of impatience with him, of resentment at the seeming +want of manliness in such subjection, had long ago worn away. She saw that +there were but two courses for him,--either to leave the house, or to buy +a semblance of peace at any cost.</p> + +<p>"Flesh and blood can't stand up agin Mis' White," said Marty one day, in +an irrepressible confidence to Mercy. "An' the queerest thing is, that +she'll never let go on you. There ain't nothin' to hender my goin' away +any day, an' there hain't been for twenty year; but she sez I'm to stay +till she dies, an' I don't make no doubt I shall. It's Mister Stephen I +stay for, though, after all, more 'n 't is her. I don't believe the Lord +ever made such a man."</p> + +<p>Mercy's cheeks would burn after such a talk as this; and she would lavish +upon Stephen every device of love and cheer which she could invent, to +atone to him by hours, if possible, for the misery of days.</p> + +<p>But the hours were few and far between. Stephen's days were filled with +work, and his evenings were his mother's. Only after she slept did he have +freedom. Just as soon as it was safe for him to leave the house, he flew +to Mercy; but, oh, how meagre and pitiful did the few moments seem!</p> + +<p>"Hardly long enough to realize that I am with you, my darling," he often +said.</p> + +<p>"But then it is every day, Stephen,--think of that," Mercy would reply, +bent always on making all things easier instead of harder for him. Even +the concealment, which was at times well-nigh insupportable to her, she +never complained of now. She had accepted it. "And, after accepting it, I +have no right to reproach him with it: it would be base," she thought.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was slowly wearing away the very foundations of her +peace. The morning walks had long been given up. Mercy had been resolute +about this. When she found Stephen insisting upon going in by-ways and +lanes, lest some one should see them who might mention it to his mother, +when he told her that she must not speak of it to her own mother, she said +firmly,--</p> + +<p>"This must end, Stephen. How hard it is to me to give it up you know very +well. It is like the sunrise to my day, always, these moments with you. +But I will not multiply concealments. It makes me guilty and ashamed all +the time. Don't urge me to any such thing; for I am not sure that too much +of it would not kill my love for you. Let us be patient. Chance will do a +good deal for us; but I will not plan to meet clandestinely. Whenever you +can come to our house, that is different. It distresses me to have you do +that and never tell of it; but that is yours and not mine, if any thing +can be yours and not mine," she added sadly. Stephen had not heard the +last words.</p> + +<p>"Kill your love for me, Mercy!" he exclaimed. "Are you really afraid of +that?"</p> + +<p>"No, not kill my love for you," replied Mercy, "I think nothing could do +that, but kill all my joy in my love for you; and that would be as +terrible to you as if the love were killed. You would not know the +difference, and I should not be able to make you see it."</p> + +<p>It was a strange thing that with all Stephen's jealousy of Mercy's +enlarged and enlarging life, of her ever-widening circle of friends, he +had no especial jealousy of Parson Dorrance. The Parson was Mercy's only +frequent visitor; and Stephen knew very well that he had become her +teacher and her guide, that she referred every question to his decision, +and was guided implicitly by his taste and wish in her writing and in her +studies. But, when Stephen was a boy in college, Parson Dorranee had +seemed to him an old man; and he now seemed venerable. Stephen could not +have been freer from a lover's jealousy of him, if he had been Mercy's own +father. Perhaps, if his instinct had been truer, it might have quickened +Mercy's. She was equally unaware of the real nature of the Parson's regard +for her. He did for her the same things he did for Lizzy, whom he called +his child. He came to see her no oftener, spoke to her no more +affectionately: she believed that she and Lizzy were sisters together in +his fatherly heart.</p> + +<p>When she was undeceived, the shock was very great: it was twofold,--a +shock to her sense of loyalty to Stephen, a shock to her tender love for +Parson Dorrance. It was true, as she had said to Lizzy, that she would +have died to give him a pleasure; and yet she was forced to inflict on him +the hardest of all pains. Every circumstance attending it made it harder; +made it seem to Mercy always in after life, as she looked back upon it, +needlessly hard,--cruelly, malignantly hard.</p> + +<p>It was in the early autumn. The bright colors which had thrilled Mercy +with such surprise and pleasure on her first arrival in Penfield were +glowing again on the trees, it seemed to her brighter than before. Purple +asters and golden-rod waved on the roadsides and in the fields; and blue +gentians, for which Penfield was famous, were blooming everywhere. Parson +Dorrance came one day to take Lizzy and Mercy over to his "Parish," as he +called "The Cedars." They had often been with him there; and Mercy had +been for a long time secretly hoping that he would ask her to help him in +teaching the negroes. The day was one of those radiant and crystalline +days peculiar to the New England autumn. On such days, joy becomes +inevitable even to inert and lifeless natures: to enthusiastic and +spontaneous ones, the exhilaration of the air and the sun is as +intoxicating as wine. Mercy was in one of her most mirthful moods. She +frolicked with the negro children, and decked their little woolly heads +with wreaths of golden-rod, till they looked as fantastic as dancing +monkeys. She gathered great sheaves of ferns and blue gentians and asters, +until the Parson implored her to "leave a few just for the poor sun to +shine on." The paths winding among "The Cedars" were in some places +thick-set with white eupatoriums, which were now in full, feathery flower, +some of them so old that, as you brushed past them, a cloud of the fine +thread-like petals flew in all directions. Mercy gathered branch after +branch of these, but threw them away impatiently, as the flowers fell off, +leaving the stems bare.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "Nature wants some seeds, I suppose; but I want +flowers. What becomes of the poor flower, any way? it lives such a short +while; all its beauty and grace sacrificed to the making of a seed for +next year."</p> + +<p>"That's the way with every thing in life, dear child," said Parson +Dorrance. "The thing that shall be is the thing for which all the powers +of nature are at work. We, you and Lizzy and I, will drop off our stems +presently,--I, a good deal the first, for you and Lizzy have the blessing +of youth, but I am old."</p> + +<p>"You are not old! You are the youngest person I know," exclaimed Mercy, +impetuously. "You will never be old, Mr. Dorrance, not if you should live +to be as old as--as old as the Wandering Jew!"</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes were fixed intently on the Parson's face; but she did not +note the deep flush which rose to his very hair, as she said these words. +She was thinking only of the glorious soul, and seeing only its shining +through the outer tabernacle. Lizzy Hunter, however, saw the flush, and +knew what it meant, and her heart gave a leap of joy. "Now he can see that +Mercy never thinks of him as an old man, and never would," she thought to +herself; and while her hands were idly playing with her flowers and +mosses, and her face looked as innocent and care-free as a baby's, her +brain was weaving plots of the most complicated devices for hastening on +the future which began to look to her so assured for these two.</p> + +<p>They were sitting on a mossy mound in the shadow of great cedar-trees. The +fields around "The Cedars" were filled with low mounds, like velvet +cushions: some of them were merely a mat of moss over great rocks; some of +them were soft yielding masses of moss, low cornel, blueberry-bushes, +wintergreen, blackberry-vines, and sweet ferns; dainty, fragrant, crowded +ovals, lovelier than any florist could ever make; white and green in the +spring, when the cornels were in flower; scarlet and green and blue in the +autumn, when the cornels and the blueberries were in fruit.</p> + +<p>Mercy was sitting on a mound which was thick-grown with the shining +wintergreen. She picked a stem which had a cluster of red berries on it, +and below the berries one tiny pink blossom. As she held it up, the +blossom fell, leaving a tiny satin disk behind it on its stem. She took +the bell and tried to fit it again on its place; then she turned it over +and over, held it up to the light and looked through it. "It makes me +sad," she said: "I wish I knew if the flower knows any thing about the +fruit. If it were working to that end all the while, and so were content +to pass on and make room, it would seem all right. But I don't want to +pass on and make room! I do so like to be here!"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance looked from one woman's face to the other, both young, +both lovely: Lizzy's so full of placid content, unquestioning affection, +and acceptance; Mercy's so full of mysterious earnestness, far-seeing +vision, and interpretation.</p> + +<p>"What a lot lies before that gifted creature," he said to himself, "if +life should go wrong with her! If only I might dare to take her fate into +my hands! I do not believe any one else can do for her what I could, if I +were only younger." And the Parson sighed.</p> + +<p>That night he stayed in Penfield at Lizzy's house. The next morning, on +his way to Danby, he stopped to see Mercy for a moment. When he entered +her door, he had no knowledge of what lay before him; he had not yet said +to himself, had not yet dared to say to himself, that he would ask Mercy +to be his wife. He knew that the thought of it was more and more present +with him, grew sweeter and sweeter; yet he had never ceased resisting it, +saying that it was impossible. That is, he had never ceased saying so in +words; but his heart had ceased resisting long ago. Only that traitor +which we call judgment had been keeping up a false show of resolute +opinion, just to lure the beguiled heart farther and farther on in a +mistaken security.</p> + +<p>But love is like the plants. It has its appointed days for flowers and for +the falling of the flowers. The vague, sweetness of the early hours and +days together, the bright happiness of the first close intimacy and +interchange,--these reach their destined moment, to pass on and make room +for the harvest. Blessed are the lives in which all these sweet early +petals float off gently and in season for the perfect setting of the holy +fruit!</p> + +<p>On this morning, when Parson Dorrance entered Mercy's room, it was already +decorated as if for a festival. Every blooming thing she had brought from +"The Cedars" the day before had taken its own place in the room, and +looked as at home as it had looked in the fields. One of Mercy's great +gifts was the gift of creating in rooms a certain look which it is hard to +define. The phrase "vitalized individuality," perhaps, would come as near +describing it as is possible; for it was not merely that the rooms looked +unlike other rooms. Every article in them seemed to stand in the place +where it must needs stand by virtue of its use and its quality. Every +thing had a certain sort of dramatic fitness, without in the least +trenching on the theatrical. Her effects were always produced with simple +things, in simple ways; but they resulted in an impression of abundance +and luxury. As Parson Dorrance glanced around at all the wild-wood beauty, +and the wild-wood fragrance stole upon his senses, a great mastering wave +of love for the woman whose hand had planned it all swept over him. He +recalled Mercy's face the day before, when she had said,--</p> + +<p>"You are the youngest person I know;" and, as she crossed the threshold of +the door at that instant, he went swiftly towards her with outstretched +hands, and a look on his face which, if she had seen, she could not have +failed to interpret aright.</p> + +<p>But she was used to the outstretched hands; she always put both her own in +them, as simply as a child; and she was bringing to her teacher now a +little poem, of which her thoughts were full. She did not look fully in +his face, therefore; for it was still a hard thing for her to show him her +verses.</p> + +<p>Holding out the paper, she said shyly,--</p> + +<p>"It had to get itself said or sung, you know,--that thought that haunted +me so yesterday at 'The Cedars.' I daresay it is very bad poetry, though."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance unfolded the paper, and read the following poem:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Where?</h3> + +<p> My snowy eupatorium has dropped<br /> +Its silver threads of petals in the night;<br /> +No sound told me its blossoming had stopped;<br /> +Its seed-films flutter, silent, ghostly white:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask, "Where?"</p> + +<p>Beneath the glossy leaves of wintergreen<br /> +Dead lily-bells lie low, and in their place<br /> +A rounded disk of pearly pink is seen,<br /> +Which tells not of the lily's fragrant grace:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask "Where?"</p> + +<p>This morning's sunrise does not show to me<br /> +Seed-film or fruit of my sweet yesterday;<br /> +Like falling flowers, to realms I cannot see<br /> +Its moments floated silently away:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask, "Where?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>As he read the last verse, his face altered. Mercy was watching him.</p> + +<p>"I thought you wouldn't like the last verse," she said eagerly. "But, +indeed, it doesn't mean doubt. I know very well no day dies; but we can't +see the especial good of each single day by itself. That is all I meant."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance came closer to Mercy: they were both standing. He laid one +hand on her' head, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Child, it was a 'sweet yesterday' wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Mercy, still absorbed in the thought of the poem. "The +day was as sweet as the flowers. But all days are heavenly sweet out of +doors with you and Lizzy," she continued, lifting one hand, and laying it +caressingly on the hand which was stroking her hair.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy! Mercy! couldn't I make all days sweet for you? Come to me, +darling, and let me try!" came from Parson Dorrance's lips in hurried and +husky tones.</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him for one second in undisguised terror and bewilderment. +Then she uttered a sharp cry, as of one who had suddenly got a wound, and, +burying her face in her hands, sank into a chair and began to cry +convulsively.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance walked up and down the room. He dared not speak. He was +not quite sure what Mercy's weeping meant; so hard is it, for a single +moment, to wrench a great hope out of a man's heart. But, as she continued +sobbing, he understood. Unselfish to the core, his first thought was, even +now, "Alas! now she will never let me do any thing more for her. Oh, how +shall I win her back to trust me as a father again?"</p> + +<p>"Mercy!" he said. Mercy did not answer nor look up.</p> + +<p>"Mercy!" he repeated in a firmer tone. "Mercy, my child, look up at me!"</p> + +<p>Docile from her long habit and from her great love, Mercy looked up, with +the tears streaming. As soon as she saw Parson Dorrance's face, she burst +again into more violent crying, and sobbed out incoherently,--</p> + +<p>"Oh! I never knew it. It wouldn't be right."</p> + +<p>"Hush, dear! Hush!" said the Parson, in a voice of tender authority. "I +have done wrong; and you must forgive me, and forget it. You are not in +the least to blame. It is I who ought to have known that you could never +think of me as any thing but a father."</p> + +<p>"Oh! it is not that," sobbed Mercy, vehemently,--"it is not that at all! +But it wouldn't be right."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance would not have been human if Mercy's vehement "It is not +that,--it is not that!" had not fallen on his ear gratefully, and made +hope stir in his heart again. But her evident grief was too great for the +hope to last a moment.</p> + +<p>"You may not know why it seems so wrong to you, dear child," he continued; +"but that is the real reason. There could be no other." He paused. Mercy +shuddered, and opened her lips to speak again; but the words refused to be +uttered. This was the supreme moment of pain. If she could but have +said,--</p> + +<p>"I loved some one else long before I saw you. I was not my own. If it had +not been for that, I should have loved you, I know I should!" Even in her +tumult of suffering, she was distinctly conscious of all this. The words +"I could have loved him, I know I could! I can't bear to have him think it +is because he is so old," went clamoring in her heart, pleading to be +said; but she dared not say them.</p> + +<p>Tenderly and patiently Parson Dorrance endeavored to soothe her, to +convince her that his words sprung from a hasty impulse which he would be +able wholly to put aside and forget. The one thing that he longed now to +do, the only reparation that he felt was left for him to make to her, was +to enable her, if possible, to look on him as she had done before. But +Mercy herself made this more difficult. Suddenly wiping her tears, she +looked very steadily into his face, and said slowly,--"It is not of the +least use, Mr. Dorrance, for you to say this sort of thing to me. You +can't deceive me. I know exactly how you love me, and how you always will +love me. And, oh, I wish I were dead! It can never be any thing but pain +to you to see me,--never," and she wept more bitterly than before.</p> + +<p>"You do not know me, Mercy," replied the Parson, speaking as slowly as she +had done. "All my life has been one long sacrifice of my own chief +preferences. It is not hard for me to do it."</p> + +<p>Mercy clasped her hands tighter, and groaned,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it! I know it! and I said you were on a plane above all +thought of personal happiness."</p> + +<p>The Parson looked bewildered, but went on,--</p> + +<p>"You do love me, my child, very dearly, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know I do!" cried Mercy. "You know I do!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know you do, or I should not have said that. You know I am all +alone in the world, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," moaned Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Now remember that you and Lizzy are my two children, and that +the greatest happiness I can have, the greatest help in my loneliness, is +the love of my two daughters. You will not refuse me this help, will you? +You will let me be just as I was before, will you not?"</p> + +<p>Mercy did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Will you try, Mercy?" he said in a tone almost of the old affectionate +authority; and Mercy again moaned rather than said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Then Parson Dorrance kissed her hair where his hand had lain a few moments +before, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Now I must go. Good-by, my child."</p> + +<p>But Mercy did not look up; and he closed the door gently, leaving her +sitting there bowed and heart-stricken, in the little room so gay with the +bright flowers she had gathered on her "sweet yesterday."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-10"> +<h2>Chapter X.</h2> + + + +<p>The winter set in before its time, and with almost unprecedented severity. +Early in the last week in November, the whole country was white with snow, +the streams were frozen solid, and the cold was intense. Week after week +the mercury ranged from zero to ten, fifteen, and even twenty below, and +fierce winds howled night and day. It was a terrible winter for old +people. They dropped on all sides, like leaves swept off of trees in +autumn gales. It was startling to read the death records in the +newspapers, so large a proportion of them were of men and women past +sixty. Mrs. Carr had been steadily growing feebler all summer; but the +change had seemed to Mercy to be more mental than physical, and she had +been in a measure blinded to her mother's real condition. With the +increase of childishness and loss of memory had come an increased +gentleness and love of quiet, which partially disguised the loss of +strength. She would sit in her chair from morning till night, looking out +of the window or watching the movements of those around her, with an +expression of perfect placidity on her face. When she was spoken to, she +smiled, but did not often speak. The smile was meaningless and yet +infinitely pathetic: it was an infant's smile on an aged face; the +infant's heart and infant's brain had come back. All the weariness, all +the perplexity, all the sorrow, had gone from life, had slipped away from +memory. This state had come on so gradually that even Mercy hardly +realized the extent of it. The silent smile or the gentle, simple +ejaculations with which her mother habitually replied meant more to her +than they did to others. She did not comprehend how little they really +proved a full consciousness on her mother's part; and she was unutterably +shocked, when, on going to her bedside one morning, she found her unable +to move, and evidently without clear recognition of any one's face. The +end had begun; the paralysis which had so slowly been putting the mind to +rest had prostrated the body also. It was now only a question of length of +siege, of how much vital force the system had hoarded up. Lying helpless +in bed, the poor old woman was as placid and gentle as before. She never +murmured nor even stirred impatiently. She seemed unconscious of any +weariness. The only emotion she showed was when Mercy left the room; then +she would cry silently till Mercy returned. Her eyes followed Mercy +constantly, as a little babe's follow its mother; and she would not take a +mouthful of food from any other hand.</p> + +<p>It was the very hardest form of illness for Mercy to bear. A violent and +distressing disease, taxing her strength, her ingenuity to their utmost +every moment, would have been comparatively nothing to her. To sit day +after day, night after night, gazing into the senseless yet appealing eyes +of this motionless being, who had literally no needs except a helpless +animal's needs of food and drink; who clung to her with the irrational +clinging of an infant, yet would never know even her name again,--it was +worse than the chaining of life to death. As the days wore on, a species +of terror took possession of Mercy. It seemed to her that this silent +watchful, motionless creature never had been her mother,--never had been a +human being like other human beings. As the old face grew more and more +haggard, and the old hands more and more skinny and claw-like, and the +traces of intellect and thought more and more faded away from the +features, the horror deepened, until Mercy feared that her own brain must +be giving way. She revolted from the very thought of herself for having +such a feeling towards her mother. Every instinct of loyalty in her deeply +loyal nature rose up indignantly against her. She would reiterate to +herself the word, "Mother! mother! mother!" as she sat gazing with a +species of horror-stricken fascination into the meaningless face. But she +could not shake off the feeling. Her nerves were fast giving way under the +strain, and no one could help her. If she left the room or the house, the +consciousness that the helpless creature was lying silently weeping for +lack of the sight of her pursued her like a presence. She saw the piteous +old face on the pillow, and the slow tears trickling down the cheeks, just +as distinctly as if she were sitting by the bed. On the whole, the torture +of staying was less than the torture of being away; and for weeks +together she did not leave the house. Sometimes a dull sense of relief +came to her in the thought that by this strange confinement she was +escaping many things which would have been hard. She rarely saw Stephen +except for a few moments late in the evening. He had ventured into Mrs. +Carr's room once or twice; but his presence seemed to disturb her, the +only presence that had done so. She looked distressed, made agonizing +efforts to speak, and with the hand she could lift made a gesture to repel +him when he drew near the bed. In Mercy's overwrought state, this seemed +to her like an omen. She shuddered, and drew Stephen away.</p> + +<p>"O Stephen," she said, "she knows now that I have deceived her about you. +Don't come near her again."</p> + +<p>"You never deceived her, darling. Do not distress yourself so," whispered +Stephen. They were standing on the threshold of the room. A slight +rustling in the bed made them turn: Mrs. Carr had half-lifted her head +from the pillow, her lower jaw had fallen to its utmost extent in her +effort to articulate, and she was pointing the forefinger of her left hand +at the door. It was a frightful sight. Even Stephen turned pale, and +sprang hastily away.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Mercy, in a ghastly whisper, "sometimes she certainly does +know things; but she never looks like that except at you. You must never +come in again."</p> + +<p>"No," said Stephen, almost as horror-stricken as Mercy. "It is very +strange though, for she always used to seem so fond of me."</p> + +<p>"She was very childish and patient," said Mercy. "And I think she thought +that you were slowly getting to care about me; but now, wherever her soul +is,--I think it has left her body,--she knows that we deceived her."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no answer, but turned to go. The expression of resolved +endurance on his face pierced Mercy to the quick, as it always did. She +sprang after him, and clasped both her hands on his arm. "O Stephen, +darling,--precious, brave, strong darling! do forgive me. I ought to be +killed for even saying one word to give you pain. How I can, I don't see, +when I long so to make you happy always."</p> + +<p>"You do give me great, unutterable happiness, Mercy," he replied. "I never +think of the pain: I only think of the joy," and he laid her hand on his +lips. "All the pain that you could possibly give me in a lifetime could +not outweigh the joy of one such moment as this, when you say that you +love me."</p> + +<p>These days were unspeakably hard for Stephen. He had grown during the past +year to so live on the sight and in the blessedness of Mercy that to be +shut away from them was simply a sort of dying. There was no going back +for him to the calm routine of the old life before she came. He was +restless and wretched: he walked up and down in front of the house every +night, watching the shadow of her figure on the curtains of her mother's +room. He made all manner of excuses, true and false, reasonable and +unreasonable, to speak to her for a moment at the door in the morning. He +carried the few verses in his pocket-book she had given him; and, although +he knew them nearly by heart, he spent long hours in his office turning +the little papers over and over. Some of them were so joyous that they +stirred in him almost a bitter incredulity as he read them in these days +of loss and pain. One was a sonnet which she had written during a two +days' absence of his,--his only absence from his mother's house for six +years. Mercy had been astonished at her sense of loneliness in these two +days. "O Stephen," she had said, when he came back, "I am honestly ashamed +of having missed you so much. Just the knowing that you wouldn't be here +to come in, in the evenings, made the days seem a thousand years long, and +this is what came of it."</p> + +<p>And she gave him this sonnet:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>To an Absent Lover.</h3> + +<p> That so much change should come when them dost go,<br /> +Is mystery that I cannot ravel quite.<br /> +The very house seems dark as when the light<br /> +Of lamps goes out. Each wonted thing doth grow<br /> +So altered, that I wander to and fro,<br /> +Bewildered by the most familiar sight,<br /> +And feel like one who rouses in the night<br /> +From dream of ecstasy, and cannot know<br /> +At first if he be sleeping or awake,<br /> +My foolish heart so foolish for thy sake<br /> +Hath grown, dear one!<br /> + Teach me to be more wise.<br /> +I blush for all my foolishness doth lack;<br /> +I fear to seem a coward in thine eyes.<br /> +Teach me, dear one,--but first thou must come back!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another was a little poem, which she laughingly called his and not hers. +One morning, when they had bade each other "good-by," and she had kissed +him,--a rare thing for Mercy to do, he had exclaimed, "That kiss will go +floating before me all day in the air, Mercy. I shall see every thing in a +light as rosy as your lips."</p> + +<p>At night she gave him this little poem, saying,--</p> + +<p>"This is your poem, not mine, darling. I should never have thought of any +thing so absurd myself."</p> + +<blockquote><h3>"Couleur de Rose."</h3> + +<p> All things to-day "Couleur de rose,"<br /> + I see,--oh, why?<br /> +I know, and my dear love she knows,<br /> + Why, oh, why!<br /> +On both my eyes her lips she set,<br /> +All red and warm and dewy wet,<br /> + As she passed by.<br /> +The kiss did not my eyelids close,<br /> +But like a rosy vapor goes,<br /> + Where'er I sit, where'er I lie,<br /> +Before my every glance, and shows<br /> + All things to-day "Couleur de rose."</p> + +<p>Would it last thus? Alas, who knows?<br /> + Men ask and sigh:<br /> +They say it fades, "Couleur de rose."<br /> + Why, oh, why?<br /> +Without swift joy and sweet surprise,<br /> +Surely those lips upon my eyes<br /> + Could never lie,<br /> +Though both our heads were white as snows,<br /> +And though the bitterest storm that blows,<br /> + Of trouble and adversity,<br /> +Had bent us low: all life still shows<br /> + To eyes that love "Couleur de rose."</p></blockquote> + +<p>This sonnet, also, she persisted in calling Stephen's, and not her own, +because he had asked her the question which had suggested it:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Lovers' Thoughts.</h3> + +<p> "How feels the earth when, breaking from the night,<br /> +The sweet and sudden Dawn impatient spills<br /> +Her rosy colors all along the hills?<br /> +How feels the sea, as it turns sudden white,<br /> +And shines like molten silver in the light<br /> +Which pours from eastward when the full moon fills<br /> +Her time to rise?"</p> + +<p> "I know not, love, what thrills<br /> +The earth, the sea, may feel. How should I know?<br /> +Except I guess by this,--the joy I feel<br /> +When sudden on my silence or my gloom<br /> +Thy presence bursts and lights the very room?<br /> +Then on my face doth not glad color steal<br /> +Like shining waves, or hill-tops' sunrise glow?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>One of the others was the poem of which I spoke once before, the poem +which had been suggested to her by her desolate sense of homelessness on +the first night of her arrival in Penfield. This poem had been widely +copied after its first appearance in one of the magazines; and it had been +more than once said of it, "Surely no one but a genuine outcast could have +written such a poem as this." It was hard for Mercy's friends to +associate the words with her. When she was asked how it happened that she +wrote them, she exclaimed, "I did not write that poem, I lived it one +night,--the night when I came to Penfield, and drove through these streets +in the rain with mother. No vagabond in the world ever felt more forlorn +than I did then."</p> + +<blockquote><h3>The Outcast.</h3> + +<p>O sharp, cold wind, thou art my friend!<br /> +And thou, fierce rain, I need not dread<br /> +Thy wonted touch upon my head!<br /> +On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend<br /> +Your force on all these dwellings. Rend<br /> +These doors so pitilessly locked,<br /> +To keep the friendless out! Strike dead<br /> +The fires whose glow hath only mocked<br /> +By muffled rays the night where I,<br /> +The lonely outcast, freezing lie!</p> + +<p>Ha! If upon those doors to-night<br /> +I knocked, how well I know the stare,<br /> +The questioning, the mingled air<br /> +Of scorn and pity at the sight,<br /> +The wonder if it would be right<br /> +To give me alms of meat and bread!<br /> +And if I, reckless, standing there,<br /> +For once the truth imploring said,<br /> +That not for bread or meat I longed,<br /> +That such an alms my real need wronged,</p> + +<p>That I would fain come in, and sit<br /> +Beside their fire, and hear the voice<br /> +Of children; yea, and if my choice<br /> +Were free, and I dared mention it,<br /> +And some sweet child should think me fit<br /> +To hold a child upon my knee<br /> +One moment, would my soul rejoice,<br /> +More than to banquet royally,<br /> +And I the pulses of its wrist<br /> +Would kiss, as men the cross have kissed.</p> + +<p>Ha! Well the haughty stare I know<br /> +With which they'd say, "The man is mad!"<br /> +"What an impostor's face he had!"<br /> +"How insolent these beggars grow!"<br /> +Go to, ye happy people! Go!<br /> +My yearning is as fierce as hate.<br /> +Must my heart break, that yours be glad?<br /> +Will your turn come at last, though late?<br /> +I will not knock, I will pass by;<br /> +My comrades wait,--the wind, the rain.<br /> +Comrades, we'll run a race to-night!<br /> +The stakes may not seem much to gain:<br /> +The goal is not marked plain in sight;<br /> +But, comrades, understand,--if I<br /> +Drop dead, 't will be a victory!</p></blockquote> + +<p>These poems and many others Stephen carried with him wherever he went. To +read them over was next to seeing Mercy. The poet was hardly less dear to +him than the woman. He felt at times so removed from her by the great gulf +which her genius all unconsciously seemed to create between herself and +him that he doubted his own memories of her love, and needed to be +reassured by gazing into her eyes, touching her hand, and listening to her +voice. It seemed to him that, if this separation lasted much longer, he +should lose all faith in the fact of their relation. Very impatient +thoughts of poor old Mrs. Carr filled Stephen's thoughts in these days. +Heretofore she had been no barrier to his happiness; her still and +childlike presence was no restraint upon him; he had come to disregard it +as he would the presence of an infant in a cradle. Therefore, he had, or +thought he had, the kindest of feelings towards her; but now that her +helpless paralyzed hands had the power to shut him away from Mercy, he +hated her, as he had always hated every thing which stood between him and +delight. Yet, had it been his duty to minister to her, he would have done +it as gently, as faithfully, as Mercy herself. He would have spoken to her +in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her +dead. So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of +compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter. By +the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him +often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy's life. The +one great desire he had left now was to regain that,--to see her again +look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had +had until that sad morning.</p> + +<p>A strange incident happened to Mercy in these first weeks of her mother's +illness. She was called to the door one morning by the message that a +stranger wished to speak to her. She found standing there an elderly +woman, with a sweet but care-worn face, who said eagerly, as soon as she +appeared,--</p> + +<p>"Are you Mrs. Philbrick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mercy. "Did you wish to see me?"</p> + +<p>The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and +then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,--</p> + +<p>"Won't you come and help me make my husband come home. He is so sick, and +I believe he will die in that wretched old garret."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that +she must be insane; but the woman continued,--</p> + +<p>"I'm Mrs. Wheeler. You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about +you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day. You're the only +human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if +anybody could do any thing with him, you could."</p> + +<p>It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man +Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving +no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a +human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one +place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and +factories, and uninhabited rooms and houses in all the towns in the +vicinity. There was hardly any article of merchandise which he had not at +one time or another had a depot for, or a manufactory of. He had +especially a hobby for attempting to make articles which were not made in +this country. It was only necessary for some one to go to him, and say, +"Mr. Wheeler, do you know how much this country pays every year for +importing such or such an article?" to throw him into a rage.</p> + +<p>"Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, sir. Just as well make it here. I'll +make it myself." And up would start a new manufacture, just as soon as he +could get men to work at it.</p> + +<p>At one time it was ink, at another time brushes, then chintz, and then +pocket-books; in fact, nobody pretended to remember all the schemes which +the old man had failed in. He would stop them as instantaneously as he +began them, dismiss the workmen, shut up the shops or the mills, turn the +key on them just as they stood, very possibly filled full of material in +the rough. He did not care. The hobby was over: he had proved that the +thing could be made in America, and he was content. It was usually in some +one of these disused buildings that he set up his hermitage in these +absences from home. He would sally out once a day and buy bread, just a +pittance, hardly enough to keep him alive, and then bury himself again in +darkness and solitude. If the absence did not last more than three or four +days, his wife and sons gave themselves no concern about him. He usually +returned a saner and healthier man than he went away. When the absences +were longer, they went in search of him, and could usually prevail on him +to return home with them. But this last absence had been much longer than +usual before they found him. He was as cunning and artful as a fugitive +from justice in concealing his haunt. At last he was discovered in the old +garret store-room over the Brick Row. The marvel was that he had not died +of cold there. He was not far from it, however; for he was so ill that at +times he was delirious. He lay curled up in the old stack of comforters in +the corner, with only a jug of water and some crumbs of bread by his side, +when they found him. He had been so ill when he last crawled up the stairs +that he had forgotten to take the key out of the keyhole, but left it on +the outside, and by that they found him. At the bare suggestion of his +going home, he became so furious that it seemed unsafe to urge it. His +wife and eldest son had stayed there with him now for two days; but he had +grown steadily worse, and it was plain that he must die unless he could be +properly cared for.</p> + +<p>"At last I thought of you," said the poor woman. "He's always said so much +about you; and once, when I was riding with him, he pointed you out to me +on the street, and said he, 'That's the very nicest girl in America.' And +he told me about his giving you the clock; and I never knew him give any +thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very +good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd +always pay bills,--that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to +'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to +let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find +her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I +don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of queer way Mr. Wheeler's +always had; and everybody's got something queer about 'em, first or last; +and this way of Mr. Wheeler's of going off don't hurt anybody but himself. +I got used to 't long ago. Now, won't you come, and try and see if you +can't persuade him? It won't do any harm to try."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, indeed, Mrs. Wheeler, I'll come; but I don't believe I can do +any thing," said Mercy, much touched by the appeal to her. "I have +wondered very much what had become of Mr. Wheeler. I had not seen him for +a long time."</p> + +<p>When they went into the garret, the old man was half-lying, half-sitting, +propped on his left elbow. In his right hand he held his cane, with which +he continually tapped the floor, as he poured out a volley of angry +reproaches to his son "'Siah," a young man of eighteen or twenty years +old, who sat on a roll of leather at a safe distance from his father's +lair. As the door opened, and he saw Mercy entering with his wife, the old +man's face underwent the most extraordinary change. Surprise, shame, +perplexity, bravado,--all struggled together there.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, trying to draw the +comforters more closely about him.</p> + +<p>Mercy went up to him, and, sitting down by his side, began to talk to him +in a perfectly natural tone, as if she were making an ordinary call on an +invalid in his own home. She said nothing to suggest that he had done any +thing unnatural in hiding himself, and spoke of his severe cold as being +merely what every one else had been suffering from for some time. Then she +told him how ill her mother was, and succeeded in really arousing his +interest in that. Finally, she said,--</p> + +<p>"But I must go now. I can't be away from my mother long. I will come and +see you again to-morrow. Shall I find you here or at your home?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was thinking I 'd better move home to-day," said he.</p> + +<p>His wife and son involuntarily exchanged glances. This was more than they +had dared to hope.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would, if I were you," replied Mercy, still in a perfectly natural +tone. "It would be so much better for you to be in a room with a fire in +it for a few days. There isn't any way of warming this room, is there?" +said she, looking all about, as if to see if it might not be possible +still to put up a stove there. "'Siah" turned his head away to hide a +smile, so amused was he by the tact of the remark. "No, I see there is no +stovepipe-hole here," she went on, "so you'd much better move home. I'm +going by the stable. Let me send Seth right up with the carriage, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, no! Bless my soul! Thinks I'm made of money, don't she! No, no! I can +walk." And the old half-crazy glare came into his eyes.</p> + +<p>Mercy went nearer to him, and laid her hand gently on his.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wheeler," said she, "you did something very kind for me once: now +won't you do something once more,--just once? I want you to go home in the +carriage. It is a terribly cold day, and the streets are very icy. I +nearly fell several times myself coming over here. You will certainly +take a terrible cold, if you walk this morning. Please say I may get the +carriage."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul, child! Go get it then, if you care so much; +but tell him I'll only pay a quarter,--only a quarter, remember. They'd +take every cent I've got. They are all wolves, wolves, wolves!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll tell him only a quarter. I'll have him here in a few minutes!" +exclaimed Mercy, and ran out of the room hastily before the old man could +change his mind.</p> + +<p>As good luck would have it, Seth and his "kerridge" were in sight when +Mercy reached the foot of the staircase. So in less than five minutes she +returned to the garret, exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Here is Seth now, Mr. Wheeler. It is so fortunate I met him. Now I can +see you off." The old man was so weak that his son had to carry him down +the stairs; and his face, seen in the broad daylight, was ghastly. As they +placed him in the carriage, he called out to his wife and son, sharply,--</p> + +<p>"Don't you get in! You can walk, you can walk. Mind, he's to have but a +quarter, tell him." And, as Seth whipped up his horses and drove off, the +words, "wolves, wolves, wolves," were heard coming in muffled tones +through the door.</p> + +<p>"He'd never have gone, if you hadn't come back,--never," said Mrs. +Wheeler, as she turned to Mercy. "I never can thank you enough. It'll save +his life, getting him out of that garret."</p> + +<p>Mercy did not say, but she thought that it was too late. A mortal +sickness had fastened upon the old man; and so it proved. When she went to +his home the next day, he was in a high fever and delirious; and he lived +only a few days. He had intervals of partial consciousness, and in those +he seemed to be much touched by the patient care which his two sons were +giving to him. He had always been a hard father; had compelled his sons +very early to earn their own living, and had refused to give them money, +which he could so easily have spared, to establish themselves in business. +Now, that it was too late, he repented.</p> + +<p>"Good boys, good boys, good boys after all," he would mutter to himself, +as they bent over him, and nursed him tenderly in his helplessness. "Might +have left them more money, might have left them more. Mistake, mistake!" +Once he roused, and with great vehemence asked to have his lawyer sent for +immediately. But, when the lawyer came, the delirium had returned again: +it was too late; and the old man died without repairing the injustice he +had done. The last intelligible words he spoke were, "Mistake! mistake!"</p> + +<p>And he had indeed made a mistake. When his will was opened, it was found +that the whole bulk of his large estate had been left to trustees, to be +held as a fund for assisting poor young men to a certain amount of capital +to go into business with,--the very thing which he had never done for his +own children. The trust was burdened with such preposterous conditions, +however, that it never could have amounted to any thing, even if the +courts had not come to the rescue, and mercifully broken the will, +dividing the property where it rightfully belonged, between the wife and +children.</p> + +<p>Early in February Mrs. Carr died. It was more like a going to sleep than +like a death. She lay for two days in a dozing state, smiling whenever +Mercy spoke to her, and making great efforts to swallow food whenever +Mercy offered it to her. At last she closed her eyes, turned her head on +one side, as if for a sounder sleep, and never moved again.</p> + +<p>However we may think we are longing for the release from suffering to come +to one we love, when it does come, it is a blow, is a shock. Hundreds of +times Mercy had said to herself in the course of the winter, "Oh, if God +would only take my mother to heaven! Her death would be easier to bear +than this." But now she would have called her back, if she could. The +silent house, the empty room, still more terrible the long empty hours in +which nobody needed her help, all wrung Mercy's heart. It was her first +experience of being alone. She had often pictured to herself, or rather +she thought she had, what it would be; but no human imagination can ever +sound the depths of that word: only the heart can feel it. It is a marvel +that hearts do not break under it oftener than they do. The silence which +is like that darkness which could be felt; the sudden awakening in the +night with a wonder what it means that the loved one is not there; the +pitiless morning light which fills the empty house, room after room; and +harder than all else to forget, to rise above--the perpetual sense of no +future: even the little near futures of the next hour, the next day, all +cut off, all closed, to the human being left utterly alone. The mockery of +the instincts of hunger and need of rest seems cruel. What a useless +routine, for one left alone, to be fed, to sleep, and to rise up to eat +and sleep again!</p> + +<p>Mercy bore all this in a sort of dumb bewilderment for a few days. All +Stephen's love and sympathy did not help her. He was unutterably tender +and sympathizing now that poor old Mrs. Carr was fairly out of his way. It +surprised even himself to see what a sort of respectful affection he felt +for her in her grave. Any misgiving that this new quiet and undisturbed +possession of Mercy might not continue did not cross his mind; and when +Mercy said to him suddenly, one evening about ten days after her mother's +death, "Stephen, I must go away, I can't live in this house another week," +it was almost as sudden a shock to him as if he had gone in and found her +dead.</p> + +<p>"Go away! Leave me!" he gasped, rather than said. "Mercy, you can't mean +it!" and the distress in his face smote Mercy bitterly. But she persisted. +"Yes, I do mean it," she said. "You must not ask me to stay. I should lose +my senses or fall ill. You can't think how terrible it is to me to be all +alone in these rooms. Perhaps in new rooms I should not feel it so much. I +have always looked forward to being left alone at some time, and have +thought I would still have my home; but I did not think it could feel like +this. I simply cannot bear it,--at any rate, not till I am stronger. And +besides, Stephen," and Mercy's face flushed red, "there is another thing +you have not thought of: it would never do for me to live here alone in +this house with you, as we have been living. You couldn't come to see me +so much now mother is not here."</p> + +<p>Poor Mrs. Carr! avenged at last, by Stephen's own heart. How gladly would +he have called her to life now! Mercy's words carried instantaneous +conviction to his mind. It was strange he had never thought of this +before; but he had not. He groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy! O Mercy!" he exclaimed, "I never once thought of that, we have +been living so so long. You are right: you cannot stay here. Oh, what +shall I do without you, my darling, my darling?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think you can ever be so lonely as I," said Mercy; "for you have +still your work left you to do. If I had any human being to need me, I +could bear being separated from you."</p> + +<p>"Where will you go, Mercy?" asked Stephen, in a tone of dull, hopeless +misery.</p> + +<p>"I do not know. I have not thought yet. Back to my old home for a visit, I +think, and then to some city to study and work. That is the best life for +me."</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, Mercy, I am going to lose you,--lose you utterly!" exclaimed +Stephen.</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him with a pained and perplexed expression. "Stephen," she +said earnestly, "I can't understand you. You bear your hard life so +uncomplainingly, so bravely, that it seems as if you could not have a +vestige of selfishness in you; and yet"--Mercy halted; she could not put +her thought in words. Stephen finished it for her.</p> + +<p>"And yet," he said, "I am selfish about you, you think. Selfish! Good God! +do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a +man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread? What else have I that +one could call life except you? Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is +the whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it +selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy +almost angrily. She was writhing under his words. She had always an +unspeakable dread of being unjust to him. Love made her infinitely tender, +and pity made her yearn over him. But neither her own love and pity nor +his passionate words could wholly blind her now; and there was a sadness +in the tones in which she replied,--</p> + +<p>"No, Stephen, I did not mean to call you selfish; but I can't understand +why you are not as brave and patient about all hard things as you are +about the one hardest thing of all."</p> + +<p>"Mercy, would you marry me now, if I asked you?" said Stephen. He did not +realize the equivocal form of his question. An indignant look swept over +Mercy's face for a moment, but only for a moment. She knew Stephen's love +too well.</p> + +<p>"No, Stephen," she said, "I would not. If you had asked me at first, I +should have done it. I thought then that it would be best," she said, with +hot blushes mounting high on her cheeks; "but I have seen since that it +would not."</p> + +<p>Stephen sighed. "I am glad you see that," he said. Then in a lower tone, +"You know you are free, Mercy,--utterly free. I would never be so base as +to hold you by a word."</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled half-bitterly, as she replied,--</p> + +<p>"Words never hold people, and you know very well it is only an empty form +of words to say that I am free. I do not want to be free, darling," she +added, in a burst of tenderness toward him. "You could not set me free, if +you tried."</p> + +<p>When Mercy told Parson Dorrance her intention of going away, his face +changed as if some fierce spasm wrung him; but it was over in a second, +and he said,--</p> + +<p>"You are quite right, my child,--quite right. It will be a great deal +better for you in every way. This is no place for you now. You must have +at least a year or two of travel and entire change."</p> + +<p>In her heart, Mercy contrasted the replies of her two lovers. She could +not banish the feeling that one was the voice of a truer love than the +other. She fought against the feeling as against a treason; but the truth +was strongest. In her heart, she knew that the man she did not love was +manlier than the man she loved.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-11"> +<h2>Chapter XI</h2> + + + +<p>For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself +to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain +movements for a certain length of time, and could by no possibility stop. +He did not suffer as he had expected. Sometimes it seemed to him that he +did not suffer at all; and he was terrified at this very absence of +suffering. Then again he had hours and days of a dull despair, which was +worse than any more active form of suffering. Now he understood, he +thought, how in the olden time men had often withdrawn themselves from the +world after some great grief, and had lived long, stagnant lives in +deserts and caves. He had thought it would kill him to lose Mercy out of +his life. Now he felt sure that he should live to be a hundred years old; +should live by very help of the apathy into which he had sunk. Externally, +he seemed very little changed,--a trifle quieter, perhaps, and gentler. +His mother sometimes said to herself,--</p> + +<p>"Steve is really getting old very fast for so young a man;" but she was +content with the change. It seemed to bring them nearer together, and made +her feel more at ease as to the possibility of his falling in love. Her +old suspicions and jealousies of Mercy had died out root and branch, +within three months after her departure. Stephen's unhesitating assurance +to her that he did not expect to write to Mercy had settled the question +in her mind once for all. If she had known that at the very moment when he +uttered these words he had one long letter from Mercy and another to her +lying in his pocket, the shock might well-nigh have killed her; for never +once in Mrs. White's most jealous and ill-natured hours had the thought +crossed her mind that her son would tell her a deliberate lie. He told it, +however, unflinchingly, in as gentle and even a tone and with as unruffled +a brow as he would have bade her good-morning. He had thought the whole +matter over, and deliberately resolved to do it. He did it to save her +from pain; and he had no more compunction about it than he would have had +about closing a blind, to shut out a sunlight too strong for her eyes. +What a terrible thing is the power which human beings have of deceiving +each other! Woe to any soul which trusts itself to any thing less than an +organic integrity of nature, to which a lie is impossible!</p> + +<p>Mercy's letters disappointed Stephen. They were loving; but they were +concise, sensible, sometimes merry, and always cheerful. Her life was +constantly broadening; friends crowded around her; and her art was +becoming more and more to her every day. Her name was beginning to be +known, and her influence felt. Her verses were simple, and went to +people's hearts. They were also of a fine and subtle flavor, and gave +pleasure to the intellect. Strangers began to write words of +encouragement to her,--sometimes a word of gratitude for help, sometimes a +word of hearty praise. She began to feel that she had her own circle of +listeners, unknown friends, who were always ready to hear her when she +spoke. This consciousness is a most exquisite happiness to a true artist: +it is a better stimulus than all the flattering criticism in the world can +give.</p> + +<p>She was often touched to tears by the tributes she received from these +unknown friends. They had a wide range, coming sometimes from her +fellow-artists in literature, sometimes from lowly and uncultured people. +Once there came to her by mail, on a sheet of coarse paper, two faded +roses, fragrant,--for they were cinnamon roses, whose fragrance never +dies,--but yellow and crumpled, for they had journeyed many days to reach +her. They were tied together by a bit of blue yarn; and on the paper was +written, in ill-spelt words, "I wanted to send you something; and these +were all I had. I am an old woman, and very poor. You've helped me ever so +much."</p> + +<p>Another gift was a moss basket filled with arbutus blossoms. Hid away in +the leaves was a tiny paper, on which were written some graceful verses, +evidently by a not unpractised hand. The signature was in initials unknown +to Mercy; but she hazarded a guess as to the authorship, and sent the +following verses in reply:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3> To E.B.</h3> + +<p> At night, the stream came to the sea.<br /> + "Long leagues," it cried, "this drop I bring,<br /> +O beauteous, boundless sea!<br /> + What is the meagre, paltry thing<br /> + In thine abundance unto thee?<br /> +No ripple, in thy smallest wave, of me<br /> +Will know! No thirst its suffering<br /> +Shall better slake for my surrendering<br /> + My life! O sea, in vain<br /> + My leagues of toil and pain!"</p> + +<p>At night, wayfarers reached the sea.<br /> + "Long weary leagues we came," they cried,<br /> +"O beauteous, boundless sea!<br /> + The swelling waves of thy swift tide<br /> +Break on the shores where souls are free:<br /> +Through lonely wildernesses, unto thee<br /> +One tiny stream has been our guide,<br /> +And in the desert we had died,<br /> + If its oases sweet<br /> + Had not refreshed our feet."</p> + +<p>O tiny stream, lost in the sea,<br /> + Close symbol of a lifetime's speech!<br /> +O beauteous, boundless sea,<br /> + Close fitting symbol of the reach,<br /> + Of measureless Eternity!<br /> +Be glad, O stream, O sea, blest equally!<br /> +And thou whose words have helped to teach<br /> +Me this,--my unknown friend,--for each<br /> +Kind thought, warm thanks.<br /> + Only the stream can know<br /> +How at such words the long leagues lighter grow.</p></blockquote> + +<p>All these new interests and occupations, while they did not in the least +weaken her loyalty to Stephen, filled her thoughts healthfully and +absorbingly, and left her no room for any such passionate longing and +brooding as Stephen poured out to her in his letters. He looked in vain +for any response to these expressions. Sometimes, unable to bear the +omission any longer, he would ask her pathetically why she did not say +that she longed to see him. Her reply was characteristic:--</p> + +<p>"You ask me, dear, why I do not say that I long to see you. I am not sure +that I ever do long, in the sense in which you use the word. I know that I +cannot see you till next winter, just as I used to know every morning that +I could not see you until night; and the months between now and then seem +to me one solid interval of time to be filled up and made the most of, +just as the interval of the daytime between your going away in the morning +and coming home at night used to seem to me. I do not think, dear Stephen, +there is a moment of any day when I have not an under current of +consciousness of you; but it is not a longing for the sight of you. Are +you sure, darling, that the love which takes perpetual shape in such +longings is the strongest love?"</p> + +<p>Little by little, phrases like this sank into Stephen's mind, and +gradually crystallized into a firm conviction that Mercy was being weaned +from him. It was not so. It was only that separation and its surer tests +were adjusting to a truer level the relation between them. She did not +love him one whit less; but she was taking the position which belonged to +her stronger and finer organization. If she had ever lived by his side as +his wife, the same change would have come; but her never-failing +tenderness would have effectually covered it from his recognition, and hid +it from her own, so long as he looked into her eyes with pleading love, +and she answered with woman's fondness. No realization of inequality could +ever have come. It is, after all, the flesh and blood of the loved one +which we idealize. There is in love's sacraments a "real presence," which +handling cannot make us doubt. It is when we go apart and reflect that our +reason asks questions. Mercy did not in the least know that she was +outgrowing Stephen White. She did not in the least suspect that her +affection and her loyalty were centring around an ideal personality, to +which she gave his name, but which had in reality never existed. She +believed honestly that she was living for and in Stephen all this time; +that she was his, as he was hers, inalienably and for ever. If it had been +suggested to her that it was unnatural that she should be so content in a +daily life which he did not share, so busy and glad in occupations and +plans and aspirations into which he did not enter, she would have been +astonished. She would have said, "How foolish of me to do otherwise! We +have our lives to lead, our work to do. It would be a sin to waste one's +life, to leave one's work undone, because of the mere lack of seeing any +one human being, however dear." Stephen knew love better than this: he +knew that life without the daily sight of Mercy was a blank drudgery; +that, day by day, month by month, he was growing duller and duller, and +more and more lifeless, as if his very blood were being impoverished by +lack of nourishment. Surely it was a hard fate which inflicted on this +man, already so overburdened, the perpetual pain of a love denied, +thwarted, unhappy. Surely it was a brave thing in him to bear the double +load uncomplainingly, to make no effort to throw it off, and never by a +word or a look to visit his own sufferings on the head of the helpless +creature, who seemed to be the cause of them all. If there were any change +in his manner toward his mother during these months, it was that he grew +tenderer and more demonstrative to her. There were even times when he +kissed her, solely from the yearning need he felt to kiss something human, +he so longed for one touch of Mercy's hand. He would sometimes ask her +wistfully, "Do I make you happy, mother?" And she would be won upon and +softened by the words; when in reality they were only the outcry of the +famished heart which needed some reassurance that its sacrifices had not +been all in vain.</p> + +<p>Month after month went on, and no tenants came for the "wing." Stephen +even humiliated himself so far as to offer it to Jane Barker's husband at +a lowered rent; but his offer was surlily rejected, and he repented having +made it. Very bitterly he meditated on the strange isolation into which he +and his mother were forced. His sympathies were not broad and general +enough to comprehend it. He did not know how quickly all people feel an +atmosphere of withdrawal, an air of indifference. If Stephen had been rich +and powerful, the world would have forgiven him these traits, or have +smothered its dislike of them; but in a poor man, and an obscure one, such +"airs" were not to be tolerated. Nobody would live in the "wing." And so +it came to pass that one day Stephen wrote to Mercy the following +letter:--</p> + +<p>"You will be sorry to hear that I have had to foreclose the mortgage on +this house. It was impossible to get a tenant for the other half of it, +and there was nothing else to be done. The house must be sold, but I doubt +if it brings the full amount of the loan. I should have done this three +months ago, except for your strong feeling against it. I am very sorry for +old Mrs. Jacobs; but it is her misfortune, not my fault. I have my mother +to provide for, and my first duty is to her. Of course, Mrs. Jacobs will +now have to go to the alms-house but I am not at all sure that she will +not be more comfortable there than she has made herself in the cottage. +She has starved herself all these years. Some people say she must have a +hoard of money there somewhere, that she cannot have spent even the little +she has received.</p> + +<p>"I shall move out of the house at once, into the little cottage you liked +so much, farther up on the hill. That is for rent, only fifty dollars a +year. I shall put this house into good repair, run a piazza around it as +you suggested, and paint it; and then I think I shall be sure of finding a +purchaser. It can be made a very pretty house by expending a little money +on it; and I can sell it for enough more to repay me. I am sure nobody +would buy it as it is."</p> + +<p>Mercy replied very briefly to this part of Stephen's letter. She had +discussed the question with him often before, and she knew the strict +justice of his claim; but her heart ached for the poor friendless old +woman, who was thus to lose her last dollar. If it had been possible for +Mercy to have continued to pay the rent of the wing herself, she would +gladly have done so; but, at her suggestion of such a thing, Stephen had +been so angry that she had been almost frightened.</p> + +<p>"I am not so poor yet, Mercy," he had exclaimed, "as to take charity from +you! I think I should go to the alms-house myself first. I don't see why +old Granny Jacobs is so much to you, any way."</p> + +<p>"Only because she is so absolutely friendless, Stephen," Mercy had replied +gently. "I never before knew of anybody who had not a relative or a friend +in the world; and I am afraid they are cruel to the poor people at the +alms-house. They all look so starved and wretched!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it will be no more than she deserves," said Stephen; "for she was +cruel to her husband's brother's wife. I used to hear horrid stories, when +I was a boy, about how she drove them out of the house; and she was cruel +to her son too, and drove him away from home. Of course, I am sorry to be +the instrument of punishing her, and I do have a certain pity for the old +woman; but it is really her own fault. She might be living now in comfort +with her son, perhaps, if she had treated him well."</p> + +<p>"We can't go by such 'ifs' in this world, Steve," said Mercy, earnestly. +"We have to take things as they are. I don't want to be judged way back in +my life. Only God knows all the 'ifs.'" Such conversations as these had +prepared Mercy for the news which Stephen now wrote her; but they had in +no wise changed her feeling in regard to it. She believed in the bottom of +her heart that Stephen might have secured a tenant, if he had tried. He +had once, in speaking of the matter, dropped a sentence which had shocked +her so that she could never forget it.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great deal better for me," he had said, "to have the money +invested in some other way. If the house does fall into my hands, I shall +sell it; and, even if I don't get the full amount of what father loaned, I +shall make it bring us in a good deal more than it does this way."</p> + +<p>This sentence rang in Mercy's ears, as she read in Stephen's letter all +his plans for improving the house; but the thing was done, and it was not +Mercy's habit to waste effort or speech over things which could not be +altered.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," she wrote, "that you have been obliged to take the +house. You know how I always felt for poor old Granny Jacobs. Perhaps we +can do something to make her more comfortable in the alms-house. I think +Lizzy could manage that for us."</p> + +<p>And in her own mind Mercy resolved that the old woman should never lack +for food and fire, however unwilling the overseers might be to permit her +to have unusual comforts.</p> + +<p>Stephen's next letter opened with these words: "O Mercy, I have such a +strange thing to tell you. I am so excited I can hardly find words. I have +found a lot of money in your old fireplace. Just think of our having sat +there so quietly night after night, within hands' reach of it, all last +winter! And how lucky that I found it, instead of any of the workmen! +They'd have pocketed it, and never said a word."</p> + +<p>"To be sure they would," thought Mercy, "and poor old Granny Jacobs would +have been"--she was about to think, "cheated out of her rights again," +but with a pang she changed the phrase into "none the better off for it. +Oh, how glad I am for the poor old thing! People always said her husband +must have hid money away somewhere."</p> + +<p>Mercy read on. "I was in such a hurry to get the house done before the +snow came that I took hold myself, and worked every night and morning +before the workmen came; and, after they had gone, I found this last +night, and I declare, Mercy, I haven't shut my eyes all night long. It +seems to me too good to be true. I think there must be as much as three +thousand dollars, all in solid gold. Some of the coins I don't know the +value of; but the greater proportion of them are English sovereigns. Of +course rich people wouldn't think this such a very big sum, but you and I +know how far a little can go for poor people."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," thought Mercy. "Why, it will make the poor old woman +perfectly comfortable all her life: it will give her more than she had +from the house." And Mercy laid the letter in her lap and fell into a +reverie, thinking how strange it was that this good fortune should have +come about by means of an act which had seemed to her cruel on Stephen's +part.</p> + +<p>She took the letter up again. It continued: "O Mercy, my darling, do you +suppose you can realize what this sudden lift is to me? All my life I have +found our poverty so hard to bear, and these latter years I have bitterly +felt the hardship of being unable to go out into the world and make my +fortune as other men do, as I think I might, if I were free. But this sum, +small as it is, will be a nucleus, I feel sure it will, of a competency at +least. I know of several openings where I can place it most +advantageously. O Mercy! dear, dear Mercy! what hopes spring up in my +heart! The time may yet come when we shall build up a lovely home +together. Bless old Jacobs's miserliness! How little he knew what he was +hoarding up his gold for!"</p> + +<p>At this point, Mercy dropped the letter,--dropped it as if it had been a +viper that stung her. She was conscious of but two things: a strange, +creeping cold which seemed to be chilling her to the very marrow of her +bones; and a vague but terrible sense of horror, mentally. The letter fell +to the floor. She did not observe it. A half-hour passed, and she did not +know that it had been a moment. Gradually, her brain began to rouse into +activity again, and strove confusedly with the thoughts which crowded on +it.</p> + +<p>"That would be stealing. He can't mean it. Stephen can't be a thief." +Half-formed, incoherent sentences like these floated in her mind, seemed +to be floating in the air, pronounced by hissing voices.</p> + +<p>She pressed her hands to her temples, and sprang to her feet. The letter +rustled on the floor, as her gown swept over it. She turned and looked at +it, as if it were a living thing she would kill. She stooped to pick it +up, and then recoiled from it. She shrank from the very paper. All the +vehemence of her nature was roused. As in the moment of drowning people +are said to review in one swift flash of consciousness their whole lives, +so now in this moment did Mercy look back over the months of her life with +Stephen. Her sense of the baseness of his action now was like a lightning +illuming every corner of the past: every equivocation, every concealment, +every subterfuge he had practised, stood out before her, bare, stripped of +every shred of apology or excuse. "He lies; he has always lied. Why should +he not steal?" she exclaimed. "It is only another form of the same thing. +He stole me, too; and he made me steal him. He is dishonest to the very +core. How did I ever love such a man? What blinded me to his real nature?"</p> + +<p>Then a great revulsion of feeling, of tenderness toward Stephen, would +sweep over her, and drown all these thoughts. "O my poor, brave, patient +darling! He never meant to do any thing wrong in his life. He does not see +things as I do: no human soul could see clearly, standing where he stands. +There is a moral warp in his nature, for which he is no more responsible +than a tree is responsible for having grown into a crooked shape when it +was broken down by heavy stones while it was a sapling. Oh, how unjust I +am to him! I will never think such thoughts of him again. My darling, my +darling! He did not stop to think in his excitement that the money was +not his. I daresay he has already seen it differently."</p> + +<p>Like waves breaking on a beach, and rolling back again to meet higher +waves and be swallowed up in them, these opposing thoughts and emotions +struggled with each other in Mercy's bosom. Her heart and her judgment +were at variance, and the antagonism was irreconcilable. She could not +believe that her lover was dishonest. She could not but call his act a +theft. The night came and went, and no lull had come to the storm by which +her soul was tossed. She could not sleep. As the morning dawned, she rose +with haggard and weary eyes, and prepared to write to Stephen. In some of +her calmer intervals, she had read the remainder of his letter. It was +chiefly filled with the details of the manner in which the gold had been +hidden. A second fireplace had been built inside the first, leaving a +space of several inches between the two brick walls. On each side two +bricks had been so left that they could be easily taken out and replaced; +and the bags of gold hung upon iron stanchions in the outer wall. What a +strange picture it must have been in the silent night hours,--the old +miser bending above the embers of the dying fire on the hearth, and +reaching down the crevice to his treasures! The bags were of leather, +curiously embossed; they were almost charred by the heat, and the gold was +dull and brown.</p> + +<p>"I wonder which old fellow put it there?" said Stephen, at the end of his +letter. "Captain John would have been more likely to have foreign gold; +but why should he hide it in his brother's fireplace? At any rate, to +whichever of them I am indebted for it, I am most profoundly grateful. If +ever I meet him in any world, I'll thank him."</p> + +<p>Suddenly the thought occurred to Mercy, "Perhaps old Mrs. Jacobs is dead. +Then there would be nobody who had any right to the money. But no: Stephen +would have told me if she had been."</p> + +<p>Still she clung to this straw of a hope; and, when she sat down to write +to Stephen, these words came first to her pen:--</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Jacobs dead, Stephen? You do not say any thing about her; but I +cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself, unless she is dead. If she is alive, the money is hers. Nobody +but her husband or his brother could have put it there. Nobody else has +lived in the house, except very poor people. Forgive me, dear, but perhaps +you had not thought of this when you first wrote: it has very likely +occurred to you since then, and I may be making a very superfluous +suggestion." So hard did she cling to the semblance of a trust that all +would yet prove to be well with her love and her lover.</p> + +<p>Stephen's reply came by the very next mail. It was short: it ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Dear</span> DARLING,--I do not know what to make of your letter. Your sentence, +'I cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself,' is a most extraordinary one. What do you mean by 'keeping it +for myself'? It is mine: the house was mine and all that was in it. Old +Mrs. Jacobs is alive still, at least she was last week; but she has no +more claim on that money than any other old woman in town. I can't suppose +you would think me a thief, Mercy; but your letter strikes me as a very +strange one. Suppose I were to discover that there is a gold mine in the +orchard,--stranger things than that have happened,--would you say that +that also belonged to Mrs. Jacobs and not to me? The cases are precisely +parallel. You have allowed your impulsive feeling to run away with your +judgment; and, as I so often tell you, whenever you do that, you are +wrong. I never thought, however, it would carry you so far as to make you +suspect me of a dishonorable act."</p> + +<p>Stephen was deeply wounded. Mercy's attempted reticence in her letter had +not blinded him. He felt what had underlain the words, and it was a hard +blow to him. His conscience was as free from any shadow of guilt in the +matter of that money as if it had been his by direct inheritance from his +own father. Feeling this, he had naturally the keenest sense of outrage at +Mercy's implied accusation.</p> + +<p>Before Stephen's second letter came, Mercy had grown calm. The more she +thought the thing over, the more she felt sure that Mrs. Jacobs must be +dead, and that Stephen in his great excitement had forgotten to mention +the fact. Therefore the second letter was even a greater blow to her than +the first: it was a second and a deeper thrust into a wound which had +hardly begun to heal. There was also a tone of confident, almost +arrogant, assumption in the letter, it seemed to Mercy, which irritated +her. She did not perceive that it was the inevitable confidence of a +person so sure he is right that he cannot comprehend any doubt in +another's mind on the subject. There was in Mercy's nature a vein of +intolerance, which was capable of the most terrible severity. She was as +blinded, to Stephen's true position in the matter as he was to hers. The +final moment of divergence had come: its seeds were planted in her nature +and in Stephen's when they were born. Nothing could have hindered their +growth, nothing could have forestalled their ultimate result. It was only +a question of time and of occasion, when the two forces would be arrayed +against each other, and would be found equally strong.</p> + +<p>Mercy took counsel with herself now, and delayed answering this second +letter. She was resolved to be just to Stephen.</p> + +<p>"I will think this thing over and over," she said to herself, "till I am +sure past all doubt that I am right, before I say another word."</p> + +<p>But her long thinking did not help Stephen. Each day her conviction grew +deeper, her perception clearer, her sense of alienation from Stephen +profounder. If a moral antagonism had grown up between them in any other +shape, it would have been less fatal to her love. There were many species +of wrong-doing which would have been less hateful in her sight. It seemed +to her sometimes that there could be no crime in the world which would +appear to her so odious as this. Her imagination dwelt on the picture of +the lonely old woman in the alms-house. She had been several times to see +Mrs. Jacobs, and had been much moved by a certain grim stoicism which gave +almost dignity to her squalor and wretchedness.</p> + +<p>"She always had the bearing of a person who knew she was suffering +wrongly, but was too proud to complain," thought Mercy. "I wonder if she +did not all along believe there was something wrong about the mortgage?" +and Mercy's suspicious thoughts and conjectures ran far back into the +past, fastening on the beginnings of all this trouble. She recollected old +Mr. Wheeler's warnings about Stephen, in the first weeks of her stay in +Penfield. She recollected Parson Dorrance's expression, when he found out +that she had paid her rent in advance. She tortured herself by reviewing +minutely every little manoeuvre she had known of Stephen's practising to +conceal his relation with her.</p> + +<p>Let Mercy once distrust a person in one particular, and she distrusted him +in all. Let one act of his life be wrong, and she believed that his every +act was wrong in motive, or in relation to others, however specious and +fair it might be made to appear. All the old excuses and apologies she had +been in the habit of making for Stephen's insincerities to his mother and +to the world seemed to her now less than nothing; and she wondered how she +ever could have held them as sufficient. In vain her heart pleaded. In +vain tender memories thrilled her, by their vivid recalling of hours, of +moments, of looks and words. It was with a certain sense of remorse that +she dwelt on them, of shame that she was conscious of clinging to them +still. "I shall always love him, I am afraid," she said to herself; "but I +shall never trust him again,--never!"</p> + +<p>And hour by hour Stephen was waiting and looking for his letter.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-12"> +<h2>Chapter XII.</h2> + + + +<p>Stephen took Mercy's letter from the post-office at night. It was one week +past the time at which it would have reached him, if it had been written +immediately on the receipt of his. Only too well he knew what the delay +meant. He turned the letter over and over in his hand, and noted without +surprise it was very light. The superscription was written with unusual +care. Mercy's handwriting was free and bold, but illegible, unless she +made a special effort to write with care; and she never made that effort +in writing to Stephen. How many times he had said to her: "Never mind how +you write to me, dear. I read your sentences by another sense than the +sense of sight." This formally and neatly written, superscription smote +him, as a formal bow and a chilling glance from Mercy would, if he had +passed her on the street.</p> + +<p>He carried the letter home unopened. All through the evening it lay like a +leaden weight in his bosom, as he sat by his mother's side. He dared not +read it until he was sure of being able to be alone for hours. At last he +was free. As he went upstairs to his room, he thought to himself, "This is +the hour at which I used to fly to her, and find such welcome. A year ago +to-night how happy we were!" With a strange disposition to put off the +opening of the letter, he moved about his room, rearranged the books, +lighted an extra lamp, and finally sat down in an arm-chair, and leaning +both his arms on the table looked at the letter lying there so white, so +still. He felt a preternatural consciousness of what was in it; and he +shrank from looking at the words, as a condemned prisoner might shrink +from reading his own death-warrant. The room was bitterly cold. Fires in +bed-rooms were a luxury Stephen had never known. As he sat there, his body +and heart seemed to be growing numb together. At last he said, "I may as +well read it," and took the letter up. As he opened it and read the first +words, "My darling Stephen," his heart gave a great bound. She loved him +still. What a reprieve in that! He had yet to learn that love can be +crueller than any friendship, than any indifference, than any hate: +nothing is so exacting, so inexorable, as love. The letter was full of +love; but it was, nevertheless, hard and pitiless in its tone. Stephen +read it again and again: then he held it in the flame of the lamp, and let +it slowly burn, until only a few scorched fragments remained. These he +folded in a small paper, and put into his pocket-book. Why he did this, he +could not tell, and wondered at himself for doing it. Then he walked the +room for an hour or two, revolving in his mind what he should say to +Mercy. His ideas arranged themselves concisely and clearly. He had been +stung by Mercy's letter into a frame of feeling hardly less inexorable +than her own. He said to himself, "She never truly loved me, or nothing +under heaven could make her believe me capable of a dishonesty;" and, in +midst of all his pain at this thought, he had an indignant resentment, as +if Mercy herself had been in some way actively responsible for all this +misery.</p> + +<p>His letter was shorter than Mercy's. They were sad, strange letters to +have passed between lovers. Mercy's ran as follows:--</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING <span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>,--Your letters have shocked me so deeply that I find +myself at a loss for words in which to reply. I cannot understand your +present position at all. I have waited all these days, hoping that some +new light would come to me, that I could see the whole thing differently; +but I cannot. On the contrary, each hour that I think of it (and I have +thought of nothing else since your second letter came) only makes my +conviction stronger. Darling, that money is Mrs. Jacobs's money, by every +moral right. You may be correct in your statement as to the legal rights +of the case. I take it for granted that you are. At any rate, I know +nothing about that; and I rest no argument upon it at all. But it is clear +as daylight to me that morally you are bound to give her the money. +Suppose you had had permission from her to make those changes in the +house, while you were still her tenant, and had found the money, then you +would have handed it to her unhesitatingly. Why? Because you would have +said, 'This woman's husband built this house. No one except his brother +who could possibly have deposited this money here has lived in the house. +One of those two men was the owner of that gold. In either case, she is +the only heir, and it is hers. I am sure you would have felt this, had we +chanced to discover the money on one of those winter nights you refer to. +Now in what has the moral obligation been changed by the fact that the +house has come into your hands? Not by ordinary sale, either; but simply +by foreclosure of a mortgage, under conditions which were certainly very +hard for Mrs. Jacobs, inasmuch as one-half the interest has always been +paid. This money which you have found would have paid nearly the whole of +the original loan. It was hers, only she did not know where it lay. O +Stephen, my darling, I do implore you not to do this great wrong. You will +certainly come to see, sooner or later, that it was a dishonest act; and +then it will be too late to undo it. If I thought that by talking with you +I could make you see it as I do, I would come to you at once. But I keep +clinging to the hope that you will see it of yourself, that a sudden +realization of it will burst upon you like a great light. Don't speak so +angrily to me of calling you a thief. I never used the word. I never +could. I know the act looks to you right, or you would not commit it. But +it is terrible to me that it should look so to you. I feel, darling, as if +you were color-blind, and I saw you about to pick a most deadly fruit, +whose color ought to warn every one from touching it; but you, not seeing +the color, did not know the danger; and I must save you at all hazards, at +all costs. Oh, what shall I say, what shall I say! How can I make you see +the truth? God help us if I do not; for such an act as this on your part +would put an impassable gulf between our souls for ever. Your loving,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>."</p> + +<p>Stephen's letter was in curter phrase. Writing was not to him a natural +form of expression. Even of joyous or loving words he was chary, and much +more so of their opposites. His life-long habit of repression of all signs +of annoyance, all complaints, all traces of suffering, told still more on +his written words than on his daily speech and life. His letter sounded +harder than it need for this reason; seemed to have been written in +antagonism rather than in grief, and so did injustice to his feeling.</p> + +<p>"MY <span class="smallcaps">Dear Mercy</span>,--It is always a mistake for people to try to impose their +own standards of right and wrong on others. It gives me very great pain to +wound you in any way, you know that; and to wound you in such a way as +this gives me the greatest possible pain. But I cannot make your +conscience mine. If this money had not seemed to me to be justly my own, I +should never have thought of taking it. As it does seem to me to be justly +my own, your believing it to be another's ought not to change my action. +If I had only my own future to consider, I might give it up, for the sake +of your peace of mind. But it is not so. I have a helpless invalid +dependent on me; and one of the hardest things in my life to bear has +always been the fear that I might lose my health, and be unable to earn +even the poor living we now have. This sum, small as it is, will remove +that fear, will enable me to insure for my mother a reasonable amount of +comfort as long as she lives; and I cannot give it up. I do not suppose, +either, that it would make any difference in your feeling if I gave it up +solely to please you, and not because I thought it wrong to keep it. How +any act which I honestly believe to be right, and which you know I +honestly believe to be right, can put 'an impassable gulf between our +souls for ever,' I do not understand. But, if' it seems so to you, I can +only submit; and I will try to forget that you ever said to me, 'I shall +trust you till I die!' O Mercy, Mercy, ask yourself if you are just!</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>Mercy grasped eagerly at the intimation in this letter that Stephen might +possibly give the money up because she desired it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if he will only not keep it, I don't care on what grounds he gives it +up!" she exclaimed. "I can bear his thinking it was his, if only the money +goes where it belongs. He will see afterwards that I was right." And she +sat down instantly, and wrote Stephen a long letter, imploring him to do +as he had suggested.</p> + +<p>"Darling," she said, "this last letter of yours has given me great +comfort." As Stephen read this sentence, he uttered an ejaculation of +surprise. What possible comfort there could have been in the words he +remembered to have written he failed to see; but it was soon made clear to +him.</p> + +<p>"You say," she continued, "that you might possibly give the money up for +sake of my peace of mind, if it were not for the fear that your mother +might suffer. O Stephen, then give it up! give it up! Trust to the +future's being at least as kind as the past. I will not say another word +about the right or wrong of the thing. Think that my feeling is all morbid +and overstrained about it, if you will. I do not care what you think of +me, so that I do not have to think of you as using money which is not your +own. And, darling, do not be anxious about the future: if any thing +happens to you, I will take care of your mother. It is surely my right +next to yours. I only wish you would let me help you in it even now. I am +earning more and more money. I have more than I need. Oh, if you would +only take some of it, darling! Why should you not? I would take it from +you, if you had it and I had not. I could give you in a very few years as +much as this you have found and never miss it. Do let me atone to you in +this way for your giving up what you think is your right in the matter of +this ill-fated money. O Stephen, I could be almost happy again, if you +would do this! You say it would make no difference in my feeling about it, +if you gave the money up only to please me, and not because you thought it +wrong to keep it. No, indeed! that is not so. I would be happier, if you +saw it as I do, of course; but, if you cannot, then the next best thing, +the only thing left for my happiness, is to have you yield to my wish. +Why, Stephen, I have even felt so strongly about it as this: that +sometimes, in thinking it over, I have had a wild impulse to tell you that +if you did not give the money to Mrs. Jacobs I would inform the +authorities that you had it, and so test the question whether you had the +right to keep it or not. Any thing, even your humiliation, has at times +seemed to me better than that you should go on living in the possession of +stolen money. You can see from this how deeply I felt about the thing. I +suppose I really never could have done this. At the last moment, I should +have found it impossible to array myself against you in any such public +way; but, oh, my darling, I should always have felt as if I helped steal +the money, if I kept quiet about it. You see I use a past tense already, I +feel so certain that you will give it up now. Dear, dear Stephen, you will +never be sorry: as soon as it is done, you will be glad. I wish that gold +had been all sunk in the sea, and never seen light again, the sight of it +has cost us so dear. Darling, I can't tell you what a load has rolled off +my heart. Oh, if you could know what it has been to me to have this cloud +over my thoughts of you! I have always been so proud of you, +Stephen,--your patience, your bravery. In my thought, you have stood +always for my ideal of the beautiful alliance of gentleness and strength. +Darling, we owe something to those who love us: we owe it to them not to +disappoint them. If I were to be tempted to do some dishonorable thing, I +should say to myself: 'No, for I must be what Stephen believes me. It is +not only that I will not grieve him: still more, I will not disappoint +him.'"</p> + +<p>Mercy wrote on and on. The reaction from the pent-up grief, the prolonged +strain, was great. In her first joy at any, even the least, alleviation of +the horror she had felt at the thought of Stephen's dishonesty, she +over-estimated the extent of the relief she would feel from his +surrendering the money at her request. She wrote as buoyantly, as +confidently, as if his doing that would do away with the whole wrong from +the beginning. In her overflowing, impetuosity, also, she did not consider +what severe and cutting things were implied as well as said in some of her +sentences. She closed the letter without rereading it, hastened to send it +by the first mail, and then began to count the days which must pass before +Stephen's answer could reach her.</p> + +<p>Alas for Mercy! this was a sad preparation for the result which was to +follow her hastily written words. It seems sometimes as if fate delighted +in lifting us up only to cast us down, in taking us up into a high +mountain to show us bright and goodly lands, only to make our speedy +imprisonment in the dark valley the harder to bear.</p> + +<p>Stephen read this last letter of Mercy's with an ever-increasing sense of +resentment to the very end. For the time being it seemed to actually +obliterate every trace of his love for her. He read the words as +wrathfully as if they had been written by a mere acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Stolen money! Inform the authorities!' +Let her do it if she likes and see how she would come out at the end of +that.' And Stephen wrote Mercy very much such a letter as he would have +written to a man under the same circumstances. Luckily, he kept it a day, +and, rereading it in a cooler moment was shocked at its tone, destroyed +it, and wrote another. But the second one was no less hard, only more +courteous, than the first. It ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>,--I am sorry that any thing in my last letter should have led you +to suppose that under the existing circumstances you could control my +actions. All I said was that I might, for the sake of your peace of mind, +give up this money, if it were not for my obligations to my mother. It was +a foolish thing to say, since those obligations could not be done away +with. I ought to have known that in your overwrought frame of mind you +would snatch at the suggestion, and make it the basis of a fresh appeal.</p> + +<p>"Now let me say, once for all, that my mind is firmly made up on this +subject, and that it must be dropped between us. The money is mine, and I +shall keep it. If you think it your duty to 'inform the authorities,' as +you say, you must do so; and I would not say one word to hinder you. I +would never, as you do in this case, attempt to make my own conscience the +regulator of another's conduct. If you do regard me as the possessor of +'stolen money,' it is undoubtedly your duty to inform against me. I can +only warn you that all you would gain by it would be a most disagreeable +exposure of your own and my private affairs, and much mortification to +both of us. The money is mine beyond all question. I shall not reply to +any more letters from you on this subject. There is nothing more to be +said; and all prolonging of the discussion is a needless pain, and is +endangering the very foundations of our affection for each other. I want +to say one thing more, however; and I hope it will impress you as it +ought. Never forget that the strongest proof that my conscience was +perfectly clear in regard to that money is that I at once told you of its +discovery. It would have been perfectly easy for me to have accounted to +you in a dozen different ways for my having come into possession of a +little money, or even to have concealed from you the fact that I had done +so; and, if I had felt myself a thief, I should certainly have taken good +care that you did not know it.</p> + +<p>"I must also thank you for your expressions of willingness to take care of +my mother, in case of any thing's happening to me. Until these last +letters of yours, I had often thought, with a sense of relief, that, if I +died, you would never see my mother suffer; but now any such thought is +inseparably associated with bitter memories. And my mother will not, in +any event, need your help; for the money I shall have from the sale of the +house, together with this which I have found, will give her all she will +require.</p> + +<p>"You must forgive me if this letter sounds hard, Mercy. I have not your +faculty of mingling endearing epithets with sharp accusations and +reproaches. I cannot be lover and culprit at once, as you are able to be +lover and accuser, or judge. I love you, I think, as deeply and tenderly +as ever; but you yourself have made all expression of it impossible. +<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>This letter roused in Mercy most conflicting emotions. Wounded feeling at +its coldness, a certain admiration for its tone of immovable resolution, +anger at what seemed to her Stephen's unjustifiable resentment of her +effort to influence his action,--all these blended in one great pain which +was well-nigh unbearable. For the time being, her distress in regard to +the money seemed cast into shadow and removed by all this suffering in her +personal relation with Stephen; but the personal suffering had not so deep +a foundation as the other. Gradually, all sense of her own individual +hurts in Stephen's words, in his acts, in the weakening of the bond which +held them together, died out, and left behind it only a sense of +bereavement and loss; while the first horror of Stephen's wrong-doing, of +the hopeless lack in his moral nature, came back with twofold intensity. +This had its basis in convictions,--in convictions which were as strong as +the foundations of the earth: the other had its basis in emotions, in +sensibilities which might pass away or be dulled.</p> + +<p>Spite of Stephen's having forbidden all reference to the subject, Mercy +wrote letter after letter upon it, pleading sometimes humbly, sometimes +vehemently. It seemed to her that she was fighting for Stephen's very +life, and she could not give way. To all these out-pourings Stephen made +no reply. He answered the letters punctually, but made no reference to the +question of the money, save by a few short words at the end of his letter, +or in a postscript: such as, "It grieves me to see that you still dwell on +that matter of which I said we must speak no more;" or, "Pray, dear Mercy, +do not prolong that painful discussion. I have nothing more to say to you +about it."</p> + +<p>For the rest, his letters were faithful transcripts of the little events +of his uneventful life, warm comments on any of Mercy's writings which he +read, and gentle assurances of his continued affection. The old longings, +broodings, and passionate yearnings, which he used to pour out, ceased. +Stephen was wounded to the very quick; and the wound did not heal. Yet he +felt no withdrawal from Mercy: probably nothing she could do would ever +drive him from her. He would die, if worst came to worst, lying by her +side and looking up in her eyes, like a dog at the feet of its master who +had shot him.</p> + +<p>Mercy was much moved by this tone of patience in his letters: it touched +her, as the look of patient endurance on his face used to touch her. It +also irritated her, it was so foreign to her own nature.</p> + +<p>"How can he help answering these things I say?" she would exclaim. "He has +no right to refuse to talk with me about such a vital matter." If any one +had said to Mercy, "He has as much right to refuse to discuss the question +as you have to force it upon him," she could not have seen the point +fairly.</p> + +<p>But all Stephen's patience, gentleness, and firmness did not abate one jot +or tittle of Mercy's conviction that he was doing a dishonest thing. Oh +the contrary, his quiet appeared to her more and more like a callous +satisfaction; and his occasional cheerfulness, like an exultation over his +ill-gotten gains. Slowly there crept into her feeling towards him a +certain something which was akin to scorn,--the most fatal of deaths to +love. The hateful word "thief" seemed to be perpetually ringing in her +ears. When she read accounts of robberies, of defalcations, of breaches of +trust, she found herself always drawing parallels between the conduct of +these criminals and Stephen's. The secrecy, the unassailable safety of his +crime, seemed to her to make it inexpressibly more odious.</p> + +<p>"I do believe," she thought to herself again and again, "that if he had +been driven by his poverty to knocking men down on the highway, and +robbing them of their pocket-books, I should not have so loathed it!"</p> + +<p>As the weeks went on, Mercy's unhappiness increased rather than +diminished. There seemed an irreconcilible conflict between her love and +every other emotion in her soul. She seemed to herself to be, as it were, +playing the hypocrite to her own heart in thinking thus of a man and +loving him still; for that she still loved Stephen, she did not once +doubt. At this time, she printed a little poem, which set many of her +friends to vondering from what experience of hers it could possibly have +been drawn. Mercy's poems were so largely subjective in tone that it was +hard for her readers to believe that they were not all drawn from her own +individual experience.</p> + +<blockquote><h3>A Woman's Battle.</h3> + +<p> Dear foe, I know thou'lt win the fight;<br /> + I know thou hast the stronger bark,<br /> + And thou art sailing in the light,<br /> + While I am creeping in the dark.<br /> +Thou dost not dream that I am crying,<br /> +As I come up with colors flying.</p> + +<p> I clear away my wounded, slain,<br /> + With strength like frenzy strong and swift;<br /> + I do not feel the tug and strain,<br /> + Though dead are heavy, hard to lift.<br /> +If I looked on their faces dying,<br /> +I could not keep my colors flying.</p> + +<p> Dear foe, it will be short,--our fight,--<br /> + Though lazily thou train'st thy guns:<br /> + Fate steers us,--me to deeper night,<br /> + And thee to brighter seas and suns;<br /> +But thou'lt not dream that I am dying,<br /> +As I sail by with colors flying!</p></blockquote> + +<p>There was great injustice to Stephen in this poem. When he read it, he +groaned, and exclaimed aloud, "O Mercy! O Mercy!" Then, as he read it over +again, he said, "Surely she could not have meant herself in this: it is +only dramatic. She could never call me her foe." Mercy had often said to +him of some of her most intense poems, "Oh, it was purely dramatic. I just +fancied how anybody would feel under such circumstances;" and he clung to +the hope that it was true in this case. But it was not. Already Mercy had +a sense of antagonism, of warfare, with Stephen, or rather with her love +for him. Already her pride was beginning to array itself in reticence, in +withdrawal, in suppression. More than once she had said to herself "I can +live without him! I could bear that pain better than this." More than once +she had asked herself with a kind of terror, "Do I really wish ever to see +Stephen again?" and had been forced to own in her secret thought that she +shrank from meeting him. She began even to consider the possibility of +deferring the visit to Lizzy Hunter, which she had promised to make in the +spring. As the time drew nearer, her unwillingness to go increased, and +she would no doubt have discovered some way of escape; but one day early +in March a telegram came to her, which left her no longer any room for +choice.</p> + +<p>It ran:--</p> + +<p>"Uncle Dorrance is not expected to live. He wishes to see you. He is at my +house. Come immediately.</p> + +<p>"LIZZY HUNTER."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-13"> +<h2>Chapter XIII.</h2> + + + +<p>Within six hours after the receipt of this telegram, Mercy was on her way +to Penfield. Her journey would take a night and part of a day. As the +morning dawned, and she drew near the old familiar scenes, her heart was +wrung with conflicting memories and hopes and fears. The whole landscape +was dreary: the fields were dark and sodden, with narrow banks of +discolored snow lying under the fences, and thin rims of ice along the +edges of the streams and pools. The sky was gray; the bare trees were +gray: all life looked gray and hopeless to Mercy. She had had an +over-mastering presentiment from the moment when she read the telegram +that she should reach Penfield too late to see Parson Dorrance alive. A +strange certainty that he had died in the night settled upon her mind as +soon as she waked from her troubled sleep; and when she reached Lizzy's +door, and saw standing before it the undertaker's wagon, which she so well +remembered, there was no shock of surprise to her in the sight. At the +first sound of Mercy's voice, Lizzy came swiftly forward, and fell upon +her neck in a passion of crying.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, Mercy, he"--</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know it," interrupted Mercy, in a calm tone. "I know he is +dead."</p> + +<p>"Why, who told you, Mercy?" exclaimed Lizzy. "He only died a few hours +ago,--about daybreak,"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought he died in the night!" said Mercy, in a strange tone, as if +trying to recollect something accurately about which her memory was not +clear. Her look and her tone filled Lizzy with terror, and banished her +grief for the time being.</p> + +<p>"Mercy, Mercy, don't look so!" she exclaimed. "Speak to me! Oh, do cry, +can't you?" And Lizzy's tears flowed afresh.</p> + +<p>"No, Lizzy, I don't think I can cry," said Mercy, in the same strange, low +voice. "I wish I could have spoken to him once, though. Did he leave any +word for me? Perhaps there is something he wanted me to do."</p> + +<p>Mercy's face was white, and her lips trembled; but her look was hardly the +look of one in sorrow: it was a rapt look, as of one walking on dizzy +heights, breathless with some solemn purpose. Lizzy was convulsed with +grief, sobbing like a child, and pouring out one incoherent sentence after +another. Mercy soothed her and comforted her as a mother might have done, +and finally compelled her to be more calm. Mercy's magnetic power over +those whom she loved was almost unlimited. She forestalled their very +wills, and made them desire what she desired.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, don't make me glad he is dead! You frighten me, darling. I don't +want to stop crying; but you have sealed up all my tears," cried Lizzy, +later in the day, when Mercy had been talking like a seer, who could look +into the streets of heaven, and catch the sound of the songs of angels.</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled sadly. "I don't want to prevent your crying, dear," she said, +"if it does you any good. But I am very sure that Mr. Dorrance sees us at +this moment, and longs to tell us how glad he is, and that we must be glad +for him." And Mercy's eyes shone as they looked steadfastly across the +room, as if the empty space were, to her vision, peopled with spirits. +This mood of exalted communion did not leave her. Her face seemed +transfigured by it. When she stood by the body of her loved teacher and +friend, she clasped her hands, and, bending over the face, exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good God was!" Then, turning suddenly to Lizzy, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Lizzy, did you know that he loved me, and asked me to be his wife? This +is why I am thanking God for taking him to heaven."</p> + +<p>Lizzy's face paled. Astonishment, incredulity, anger, grief, all blended +in the sudden look she turned upon Mercy. "I thought so! I thought so! But +I never believed you knew it. And you did not love him! Mercy, I will +never forgive you!"</p> + +<p>"He forgave me," said Mercy, gently; "and so you might. But I shall never +forgive myself!"</p> + +<p>"Mercy Philbrick!" exclaimed Lizzy, "how could you help loving that man?" +And, in her excitement, Lizzy stretched out her right hand towards the +rigid, motionless figure under the white pall. "He was the most glorious +man God ever made."</p> + +<p>The two women stood side by side, looking into the face of the dead. It +was a strange place for these words to be spoken. It was as solemn as +eternity.</p> + +<p>"I did not help loving him," said Mercy, in a lower tone, her white face +growing whiter as she spoke. "But"--she paused. No words came to her lips, +for the bitter consciousness which filled her heart.</p> + +<p>Lizzy's voice sank to a husky whisper.</p> + +<p>"But what?" she said. "O Mercy, Mercy! is it Stephen White you love?" And +Lizzy's face, even in that solemn hour, took a look of scorn. "Are you +going to marry Stephen White?" she continued.</p> + +<p>"Never, Lizzy,--never!" said Mercy, in a tone as concentrated as if a +lifetime ended there; and, stooping low, she kissed the rigid hands which +lay folded on the heart of the man she ought to have loved, but had not. +Then, turning away, she took Lizzy's hands in hers, and kissing, her +forehead said earnestly,--</p> + +<p>"We will never speak again of this, Lizzy, remember." Lizzy was overawed +by her tone, and made no reply.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance's funeral was a scene which will never be forgotten by +those who saw it. It was on one of the fiercest days which the fierce New +England March can show. A storm of rain and sleet, with occasional +softened intervals of snow, raged all day. The roads were gullies of +swift-running water and icy sloughs; the cold was severe; and the cutting +wind at times drove the sleet and rain in slanting scourges, before which +scarce man or beast could stand. The funeral was held in the village +church, which was larger than the college chapel. Long before the hour at +which the services were to begin, every pew was filled, and the aisles +were crowded with those who could not find seats. From every parish within +twenty miles the mourners had come. There was not one there who had not +heard words of help or comfort from Parson Dorrance's lips. The students +of the college filled the body of the church; the Faculty and +distinguished strangers sat in the front pews. The pews under one of the +galleries had been reserved for the negroes from "The Cedars." Early in +the morning the poor creatures had begun to flock in. Not a seat was +empty: old women, women with babies, old men, boys and girls, wet, +dripping, ragged, friendless, more than one hundred of them,--there they +were. They had walked all that distance in that terrible storm. Each one +had brought in his hand a green bough or a bunch of rock-ferns, something +of green beauty from the woods their teacher had taught them to love. They +sat huddled together, with an expression of piteous grief on every face, +which was enough to touch the stoniest heart. Now and then sobs would +burst from the women, and some old figure would be seen rocking to and fro +in uncontrollable sorrow.</p> + +<p>The coffin stood on a table in front of the pulpit. It seemed to be +resting on an altar of cedar and ferns. Mercy had brought from her old +haunts in the woods masses of the glossy evergreen fern, and interwoven +them with the boughs of cedar. At the end of the services, it was +announced that all who wished could pass by the coffin and take one last +look at their friend.</p> + +<p>Slowly and silently the congregation passed up the right aisle, looked on +the face, and passed out at the left door. It was a pathetic sight to see +the poor, outcast band wait patiently, humbly, till every one else had +gone: then, like a flock of stricken sheep, they rushed confusedly towards +the pulpit, and gathered round the coffin. Now burst out the grief which +had been pent up: with cries and ejaculations, they went tottering and +stumbling down the aisles. One old man, with hair as white as snow,--one +of the original fugitive slaves who had founded the settlement,--bent over +the coffin at its head, and clung with both hands to its edge, swaying +back and forth above it, crying aloud, till the sexton was obliged to +loosen his grasp and lead him away by force.</p> + +<p>The college faculty still sat in the front pews. There were some of their +number, younger men, scholars and men of the world, who had not been free +from a disposition to make good-natured fun of Parson Dorrance's +philanthropies. They shrugged their shoulders sometimes at the mention of +his parish at "The Cedars;" they regarded him as old-fashioned and +unpractical. They sat conscience-stricken and abashed now; the tears of +these bereaved black people smote their philosophy and their worldliness, +and showed them how shallow they were. Tears answered to tears, and the +college professors and the negro slaves wept together.</p> + +<p>"They have nobody left to love them now," exclaimed one of the youngest +and hitherto most cynical of Parson Dorrance's colleagues, as he stood +watching the grief-stricken creatures.</p> + +<p>While the procession formed to bear the body to the grave, the blacks +stood in a group on the church-steps, watching it. After the last carriage +had fallen into line, they hurried down and followed on in the storm. In +vain some kindly persons tried to dissuade them. It was two miles to the +cemetery, two miles farther away from their homes; but they repelled all +suggestions of the exposure with indignant looks, and pressed on. When the +coffin was lowered into the grave, they pushed timidly forward, and began +to throw in their green boughs and bunches of ferns. Every one else +stepped back respectfully as soon as their intention was discovered, and +in a moment they had formed in solid ranks close about the grave, each one +casting in his green palm of crown and remembrance,--a body-guard such as +no emperor ever had to stand around him in his grave.</p> + +<p>On the day after Mercy's arrival in town, Stephen had called to see her. +She had sent down to him a note with these words:--</p> + +<p>"I cannot see you, dear Stephen, until after all is over. The funeral will +be to-morrow. Come the next morning, as early as you like."</p> + +<p>The hours had seemed bitterly long to Stephen. He had watched Mercy at the +funeral; and, when he saw her face bowed in her hands, and felt rather +than saw that she was sobbing, he was stung by a new sense of loss and +wrong that he had no right to be by her side and comfort her. He forgot +for the time, in the sight of her grief, all the unhappiness of their +relation for the past few months. He had unconsciously felt all along +that, if he could but once look in her eyes, all would be well. How +could he help feeling so, when he recalled the expression of childlike +trust and devotion which her sweet face always wore when she lifted it to +his? And now, as his eyes dwelt lingeringly and fondly on every line of +her bowed form, he had but one thought, but one consciousness,--his desire +to throw his arms about her, and exclaim, "O Mercy, are you not my own, my +very own?"</p> + +<p>With his heart full of this new fondness and warmth, Stephen went at an +early hour to seek Mercy. As he entered the house, he was sensibly +affected by the expression still lingering of the yesterday's grief. The +decorations of evergreens and flowers were still untouched. Mercy and +Lizzy had made the whole house gay as for a festival; but the very +blossoms seemed to-day to say that it had been a festival of sorrow. A +large sheaf of callas had stood on a small table at the head of the +coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood +near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange +expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into +the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as +fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the +door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with +outstretched arms. Something in her look made the outstretched arms fall +nerveless; made his springing step pause suddenly; made the very words +die away on his lips. "O Mercy!" was all he could say, and he breathed it +rather than said it.</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled a very piteous smile, and said, "Yes, Stephen, I am here."</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, it is not you! You are not here. What has done this to you? Did +you so love that man?" exclaimed Stephen, a sudden pang seizing him of +fiercest jealousy of the dead, whom he had never feared while he was +living.</p> + +<p>Mercy's face contracted, as if a sharp pain had wrenched every nerve.</p> + +<p>"No, I did not love him; that is, not as you mean. You know how very +dearly I did love him, though."</p> + +<p>"Dear darling, you are all worn out. This shock has been too much for you. +You are not well," said Stephen, tenderly, coming nearer to her and taking +her hand. "You must have rest and sleep at once."</p> + +<p>The hand was not Mercy's hand any more than the voice had been Mercy's +voice. Stephen dropped it, and, looking fixedly at Mercy's eyes, +whispered, "Mercy, you do not love me as you used to."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes drooped; she locked her hands tightly together, and said, "I +can't, Stephen." No possible form of words could have been so absolute. "I +can't!" "I do not," would have been merciful, would have held a hope, by +the side of this helpless, despairing, "I can't."</p> + +<p>Stephen sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. Mercy +stood still, near the white callas; her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed +on Stephen. At last she spoke, in a voice of unutterable yearning and +tenderness, "I do love you, Stephen."</p> + +<p>At these words, he pressed his hands tighter upon his eyes for one second, +then shook them hastily free, and looking up at Mercy said gently,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know you do; and I know you would have loved me always, if +you could. Do not be unhappy. I told you a long time ago that to have had +you once love me was enough for a lifetime." And Stephen smiled,--a smile +more pathetic than Mercy's had been. He went on, still in the same gentle +voice,--a voice out of which the very life seemed to have died,--"I hoped, +when we met, all would be right. It used to be so much to you, Mercy, to +look into my eyes, I thought you would trust me when you saw me."</p> + +<p>No reproach, no antagonism, no entreaty. With the long-trained patience of +a lifetime, Stephen accepted this great grief, and made no effort to +gainsay it. Mercy tried again and again to speak, but no words came. At +last, with a flood of tears, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"I cannot help it, Stephen,--I cannot help it."</p> + +<p>"No, darling, you cannot help it; and it is not your fault," replied +Stephen. Touched to the heart by his sweetness and forbearance, Mercy went +nearer him, and took his hand, and in her old way was about to lay it to +her cheek.</p> + +<p>Stephen drew it hastily away, and a shudder ran over his body. "No, Mercy, +do not try to do that. That is not right, when you do not trust me. You +cannot help loving the touch of my hand, Mercy,"--and a certain sad pride +lighted Stephen's face at the thought of the clinging affection which even +now stirred this woman's veins for him,--"any more than you can help +having ceased to trust me. If the trust ever comes back, then"--Stephen +turned his head away, and did not finish the sentence. A great silence +fell upon them both. How inexplicable it seemed to them that there was +nothing to say! At last Stephen rose, and said gravely,--</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mercy. Unless there is something I can do to help you, I would +rather not see you again."</p> + +<p>"No," whispered Mercy. "That is best."</p> + +<p>"And if the time ever comes, darling, when you need me, ... or trust me ... +again, will you write to me and say so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," sobbed Mercy, and Stephen left her. On the threshold of the door, +he turned and fixed his eyes upon her with one long look of sorrow, +compassion, and infinite love. Her heart thrilled under it. She made an +eager step forward. If he had returned, she would have thrown herself into +his arms, and cried out, "O Stephen, I do love you, I do trust you." But +Stephen made an inexorable gesture of his hand, which said more than any +words, "No! no! do not deceive yourself," and was gone.</p> + +<p>And thus they parted for ever, this man and this woman who had been for +two years all in all to each other, who had written on each other's hearts +and lives characters which eternity itself could never efface.</p> + +<p>Hope lived long in Stephen's heart. He built too much on the memories of +his magnetic power over Mercy, and he judged her nature too much by his +own. He would have loved and followed her to the end, in spite of her +having become a very outcast of crime, if she had continued to love him; +and it was simply impossible for him to conceive of her love's being +either less or different. But, when in a volume of poems which Mercy +published one year after their parting, he read the following sonnet, he +knew that all was indeed over:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Died.</h3> + +<p> Not by the death that kills the body. Nay,<br /> +By that which even Christ bade us to fear<br /> +Hath died my dead.<br /> + Ah, me! if on a bier<br /> +I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day,<br /> +I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay<br /> +My cheek to his in anguish which were near<br /> +To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear<br /> +In death as life. Mere separations weigh<br /> +As dust in balances of love. The death<br /> +That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain<br /> +To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore,<br /> +O thou once loved so well, loved now no more!<br /> +There is no resurrection for such slain,<br /> +No miracle of God could give thee breath!</p></blockquote> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Mercy Philbrick lived thirty years after the events described in these +pages. It was a life rich to overflowing, yet uneventful, as the world +reckons: a life lonely, yet full of companionship; sady yet full of cheer; +hard, and yet perpetually uplifted by an inward joy which made her very +presence like sunshine, and made men often say of her, "Oh, she has never +known sorrow." This was largely the result of her unquenchable gift of +song, of the true poet's temperament, to which life is for ever new, +beautiful, and glad. It was also the result of her ever-increasing +spirituality of nature. This took no shape of creed, worship, or what the +world's common consent calls religion. Most of the words spoken by the +teachers of churches repelled Mercy by their monotonous iteration of the +letter which killeth. But her realization of the solemn significance of +the great fact of being alive deepened every hour; her tenderness, her +sense of brotherhood to every human being, and her sense of the actual +presence and near love of God. Her old intolerance was softened, or rather +it had changed from antagonisms on the surface to living principles at the +core. Truth, truth, truth, was still the war-cry of her soul; and there +was an intensity in every word of her written or spoken pleadings on this +subject which might well have revealed to a careful analyzer of them that +they had sprung out of the depths of the profoundest experiences. Her +influence as a writer was very great. As she grew older, she wrote less +and less for the delight of the ear, more and more for the stirring of the +heart. To do a little towards making people glad, towards making them kind +to one another, towards opening their eyes to the omnipresent +beauty,--these were her ambitions. "Oh, the tender, unutterable beauty of +all created things!" were the opening lines of one of her sweetest songs; +and it might have been said to be one of the watchwords of her life.</p> + +<p>It took many years for her to reach this plane, to attain to the fulness +of this close spiritual communion with things seen and unseen. The double +bereavement and strain of her two years of life in Penfield left her for a +long time bruised and sore. Her relation with Stephen, as she looked back +upon it, hurt her in every fibre of her nature. Sometimes she was filled +with remorse for the grief she had caused him, and sometimes with poignant +distress, of doubt whether she had not after all been unjust to him. +Underlying all this remorse, all this doubt was a steadily growing +consciousness that her love for him was in the very outset a mistake, an +abnormal emotion, born of temporary and insufficient occasion, and +therefore sure to have sooner or later proved too weak for the tests of +life. On the other hand, her thoughts of Parson Dorrance grew constantly +warmer, tenderer, more assured. His character, his love for her, his +beautiful life, rose steadily higher and higher, and brighter and brighter +on her horizon, as the lofty snow-clad peaks of a mountain land reveal +themselves in all their grandeur to our vision only when we have journeyed +away from their base. Slowly the whole allegiance of her heart transferred +itself to the dead man's memory; slowly her grief for his loss deepened, +and yet with the deepened grief came a certain new and holy joy. It surely +could not be impossible for him to know in heaven that she was his on +earth? As confidently as if she had been wedded to him here, she looked +forward to the reunion with him there, and found in her secret +consciousness of this eternal bond a hidden rapture, such as has been the +stay of many a widowed heart through long lifetimes of loneliness. This +secret bond was like an impalpable yet impenetrable veil between her soul +and the souls of all men who came into relation with her. Men loved her +and sought her,--loved her warmly and sought her with long years of +devotion. The world often judged her uncharitably by reason of these +friendships, which were only friendships, and yet pointed to a warmer +regard than the world consents that friends may feel. But there was never +a man, of all the men who loved Mercy, who did not feel himself, spite of +all her frank and loving intimacy, withheld, debarred, separated from her +at a certain point, as if there stood drawn up there a cordon of viewless +spirits.</p> + +<p>The one grief above which she could not wholly rise, which at times smote +her and bowed her down, was her sense of her loss in being childless. The +heart of mother was larger in her even than the heart of wife. Her longing +for children of her own was so great that it was often more than she could +bear to watch little children at their play. She stood sometimes at her +window at dusk, and watched the poor laboring men and women going home, +leading or carrying their children; and it seemed as if her heart would +break. Everywhere, her eye noted the swarming groups of children, poor, +uncared for, so often unwelcome; and she said sadly to herself, "So many! +so many! and not one for me." Yet she never felt any desire to adopt +children. She distrusted her own patience and justice too much; and she +feared too deeply the development of hereditary traits which she could not +conquer; "I might find that I had taken a liar," she thought; "and I +should hate him."</p> + +<p>As she reached middle age, this unsatisfied desire ceased to be so great a +grief. She became more and more like a motherly friend to the young people +surrounding her. Her house was a home to them all, and she reproduced in +her own life very nearly the relation which Parson Dorrance had held to +the young people of Danby. Her friend Lizzy Hunter was now the mother of +four girls, all in their first young womanhood. They all strove eagerly +for the privilege of living with "Aunt Mercy," and went in turn to spend +whole seasons with her.</p> + +<p>On Stephen White's thirty-sixth birthday, his mother died. The ten years +which had passed since Mercy left him had grown harder and harder, day by +day; but he bore the last as silently and patiently as he bore the first, +and Mrs. White's last words to the gray-haired man who bent over her bed +were,--</p> + +<p>"You have been a good boy, Steve,--a good boy. You'll have some rest now."</p> + +<p>Since the day he bade good-by to Mercy in the room from which Parson +Dorrance had just been buried, Stephen had never written to her, never +heard from her, except as all the world heard from her, in her published +writings. These he read eagerly, and kept them carefully in scrap-books. +He took great delight in collecting all the copies of her verses. +Sometimes a little verse of hers would go the rounds of the newspapers +for months, and each reappearance of it was a new pleasure to Stephen. He +knew most of them by heart; and he felt that he knew Mercy still, as well +as he knew her when she looked up in his face. On the night of his +mother's death he wrote to her these words:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>,--It is ten years since we parted. I love you as I loved you then. +I shall never love any other woman. I am free now. My mother has died this +night. May I come and see you? I ask nothing of you, except to be your +friend. Can I not be that?</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>If a ghost of one dead for ten years had entered her presence, Mercy had +hardly been more startled. Stephen had ceased to be a personality to her. +Striving very earnestly with herself to be kind, and to do for this +stranger whom she knew not what would be the very best and most healing +thing for his soul, Mercy wrote to him as follows:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Dear Stephen</span>,--Your note was a very great surprise to me. I am most +heartily thankful that you are at last free to live your life like other +men. I think that the future ought to hold some very great and good gifts +in store for you, to reward you for your patience. I have never known any +human being so patient as you.</p> + +<p>"You must forgive me for saying that I do not believe it is possible for us +to be friends. I could be yours, and would be glad to be so. But you could +not be mine while you continue so to set me apart from all other women, +as you say you do, in your affection. I am truly grieved that you do this, +and I hope that in your new free life you will very soon find other +relations which will make you forget your old one with me. I did you a +great harm, but we were both ignorant of our mistake. I pray that it may +yet be repaired, and that you may soon be at rest in a happy home with a +wife and children. Then I should be glad to see you: until then, it is not +best.</p> + +<p>"Yours most honestly,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>."</p> + +<p>Until he read this letter, Stephen had not known that secretly in the +bottom of his heart he riad all these years cherished a hope that there +might yet be a future in store for him and Mercy. Now, by the new sense of +desolation which he felt, he knew that there must have been a little more +life than he thought left; in him to die.</p> + +<p>As soon as his mother was buried, he closed the house and went abroad. +There he roamed about listlessly from country to country, for many years, +acquiring a certain desultory culture, and buying, so far as his income +would permit, every thing he saw which he thought Mercy would like. Then +he went home, bought the old Jacobs house back again, and fitted it up in +every respect as Mercy had once suggested. This done, he sat down to +wait--for he knew not what. He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, +and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and +spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life +together. He led the life of a hermit,--rarely went out, and still more +rarely saw any one at home. He looked like a man of sixty rather than like +one of fifty. He was fast becoming an invalid, more, however, from the +lack of purpose and joy than from any disease. Life had been very hard to +Stephen.</p> + +<p>Nothing seemed more probable, contrasting his listless figure, gray hair, +and jaded face with Mercy's full, fresh countenance and bounding +elasticity, than that his dream of going first, and leaving to her the +gift of all he had, would be realized; but he was destined to outlive her +by many a long year.</p> + +<p>Mercy's death was a strange one. She had gone with two of Lizzy Hunter's +daughters to spend a few weeks in one of the small White Mountain +villages, which was a favorite haunt of hers. The day after their arrival, +a two days' excursion to some of the mountains was proposed; and Mercy, +though not feeling well enough to join it herself, insisted that the girls +should go. They were reluctant to leave her; but, with her usual +vehemence, she resisted all their protestations, and compelled them to +join the party. She was thus left alone in a house crowded with people, +all of whom were strangers to her. Some of them recollected afterward to +have noticed her sitting on the piazza at sunset, looking at the mountains +with an expression of great delight; but no one spoke with her, and no one +missed her the next morning, when she did not come to breakfast. Late in +the forenoon, the landlady came running in great terror and excitement to +one of the guests, exclaiming: "That lady that came yesterday is dying. +The chambermaids could not get into her room, nor get any answer, so we +broke open the door. The doctor says she'll never come to again!"</p> + +<p>Helpless, the village doctor, and the servants, and the landlady, and as +many of the guests as could crowd into the little room, stood around +Mercy's bed. It seemed a sad way to die, surrounded by strangers, who did +not even know her name; but Mercy was unconscious. It made no difference +to her. Her heavy breathing told only too well the nature of the trouble.</p> + +<p>"This cannot be the first attack she has had," said the doctor; and it was +found afterward that Mercy had told Lizzy Hunter of her having twice had +threatenings of a paralytic seizure. "If only I die at once," she had said +to Lizzy, "I would rather go that way than in most others. I dread the +dying part of death. I don't want to know when I am going."</p> + +<p>And she did not. All day her breathing grew slower and more labored, and +at night it stopped. In a few hours, there settled upon her features an +expression of such perfect peace that each one who came to look at her +stole away reverent and subdued.</p> + +<p>The two old crones who had come to "lay out" the body crept about on +tiptoe, their usual garrulity quenched by the sad and beautiful spectacle. +It was a singular thing that no one knew the name of the stranger who had +died thus suddenly and alone. In the confusion of their arrival, Mercy +had omitted to register their names. In the smaller White Mountain houses, +this formality is not rigidly enforced. And so it came to pass that this +woman, so well known, so widely beloved, lay a night and a day dead, +within a few hours' journey of her home as unknown as if she had been cast +up from a shipwrecked vessel on a strange shore.</p> + +<p>The two old crones sat with the body all night and all the next day. They +sewed on the quaint garments in which it is still the custom of rural New +England to robe the dead. They put a cap of stiff white muslin over +Mercy's brown hair, which even now, in her fiftieth year, showed only here +and there a silver thread. They laid fine plaits of the same stiff white +muslin over her breast, and crossed her hands above them.</p> + +<p>"She must ha' been a handsome woman in her time, Mis' Bunker. I 'spect +she was married, don't you?" said Ann Sweetser, Mrs. Bunker's spinster +cousin, who always helped her on these occasions.</p> + +<p>"Well, this ere ring looks like it," replied Mrs. Bunker, taking up a bit +of the muslin and rubbing the broad gold band on the third finger of +Mercy's left hand. "But yer can't allers tell by that nowadays. There's +folks wears 'em that ain't married. This is a real harndsome ring, 's +heavy 's ever I see."</p> + +<p>How Mercy's heart must have been touched, and also her fine and pathetic +sense of humor, if her freed spirit hovered still in that little +low-roofed room! This cast-off garment of hers, so carefully honored, so +curiously considered and speculated upon by these simple-minded people! +There was something rarely dramatic in all the surroundings of these last +hours. Among the guests in the house was one, a woman, herself a poet, who +toward the end of the second day came into the chamber, bringing long +trailing vines of the sweet Linnea, which was then in full bloom. Her +poet's heart was moved to the depths by the thought of this unknown, dead +woman lying there, tended by strangers' hands. She gazed with an +inexplicable feeling of affection upon Mercy's placid brow. She lifted the +lifeless hands and laid them down again in a less constrained position. +She, too, noted the broad gold ring, and said,--</p> + +<p>"She has been loved then. I wonder if he is alive!" The door was closed, +and no one was in the room. With a strange impulse she could not account +for to herself, she said, "I will kiss her for him," and bent and kissed +the cold forehead. Then she laid the fragrant vines around the face and +across the bosom, and went away, feeling an inexplicable sense of nearness +to the woman she had kissed. When the next morning she knew that it was +Mercy Philbrick, the poet, in whose lifeless presence she had stood, she +exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh, I might have known that there was +some subtile bond which made me kiss her! I have always loved her verses +so."</p> + +<p>On the day after Lizzy Hunter returned from Mercy's funeral, Stephen White +called at her house and asked to speak to her. She had almost forgotten +his existence, though she knew that he was living in the Jacobs house. +Their paths never crossed, and Lizzy had long ago forgotten her passing +suspicion of Mercy's regard for him. The haggard and bowed man who met her +now was so unlike the Stephen White she recollected, that Lizzy +involuntarily exclaimed. Stephen took no notice of her exclamation.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, I will not sit down," he said, as with almost solicitude +in her face she offered him a chair. "I merely wish to give you something +of"--he hesitated--"Mrs. Philbrick's."</p> + +<p>He drew from his breast a small package of papers, yellow, creased, old. +He unfolded one of these and handed it to Lizzy, saying,--</p> + +<p>"This is a sonnet of hers which has never been printed. She gave it to me +when,"--he hesitated again,--"when she was living in my house. She said at +that time that she would like to have it put on her tombstone. I did not +know any other friend of hers to go to but you. Will you see that it is +done?"</p> + +<p>Lizzy took the paper and began to read the sonnet. Stephen stood leaning +heavily on the back of a chair; his breath was short, and his face much +flushed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, pray sit down, Mr. White! You are ill," exclaimed Lizzy.</p> + +<p>"No, I am not ill. I would rather stand," replied Stephen. His eyes were +fixed on the spot where thirty years before Mercy had stood when she said, +"I can't, Stephen."</p> + +<p>Lizzy read the sonnet with tears rolling down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is beautiful,--beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Why did she never have +it printed?"</p> + +<p>Stephen colored and hesitated. One single thrill of pride followed by a +bitter wave of pain, and he replied,--</p> + +<p>"Because I asked her not to print it."</p> + +<p>Lizzy's heart was too full of tender grief now to have any room for wonder +or resentment at this, or even to realize in that first moment that there +was any thing strange in the reply.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, it shall be put on the stone," she said. "I am so thankful you +brought it. I have been thinking that there were no words fit to put above +her grave. No one but she herself could have written any that would be," +and she was folding up the paper.</p> + +<p>Stephen stretched out his hand. "Pardon me," he said, "I cannot part with +that. I have brought a copy to leave with you," and he gave Lizzy another +paper.</p> + +<p>Mechanically she restored to him the first one, and gazed earnestly into +his face. Its worn and harrowed features, its look of graven patience, +smote her like a cry. She was about to speak to him eagerly and with +sympathy, but he was gone. His errand was finished,--the last thing he +could do for Mercy. She watched his feeble steps as he walked away, and +her pity revealed to her the history of his past.</p> + +<p>"How he loved her! how he loved her!" she said, and watched his figure +lingeringly, till it was out of sight.</p> + +<p>This is the sonnet which was cut on the stone above Mercy's grave:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Emigravit.</h3> + +<p> With sails full set, the ship her anchor weighs;<br /> + Strange names shine out beneath her figure-head:<br /> + What glad farewells with eager eyes are said!<br /> + What cheer for him who goes, and him who stays!<br /> + Fair skies, rich lands, new homes, and untried days<br /> + Some go to seek: the rest but wait instead<br /> + Until the next stanch ship her flag shall raise.<br /> + Who knows what myriad colonies there are<br /> + Of fairest fields, and rich, undreamed-of gains,<br /> + Thick-planted in the distant shining plains<br /> + Which we call sky because they lie so far?<br /> + Oh, write of me, not,--"Died in bitter pains,"<br /> + But, "Emigrated to another star!"</p></blockquote> +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10519 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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H.</title> + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- +body { + margin .5em; + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps +} + +.smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + +a { text-decoration: none; } + +a:hover { background-color: #ffffcc } + +div.chapter { + margin-top: 4em; +} + +ul { + list-style-type: none; +} + + + --> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Mercy Philbrick's Choice, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mercy Philbrick's Choice + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: December 23, 2003 [EBook #10519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1 class="title">Mercy Philbrick's Choice.</h1> + +<h4>1876,<br /> +</h4> + + + +<blockquote> +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p><i>To one who found us on a starless night,<br /> +All helpless, groping in a dangerous way,<br /> +Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay,<br /> +And, seeing all our peril, flashed a light<br /> +To show to our bewildered, blinded sight,<br /> +By one swift, clear, and piercing ray,<br /> +The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the height<br /> +Of our great thankfulness? And yet, at most,<br /> +The most he saved was this poor, paltry life<br /> +Of flesh, which is so little worth its cost,<br /> +Which eager sows, but may not stay to reap,<br /> +And so soon breathless with the strain and strife,<br /> +Its work half-done, exhausted, falls asleep.</i></p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p><i>But unto him who finds men's souls astray<br /> +In night that they know not is night at all,<br /> +Walking, with reckless feet, where they may fall<br /> +Each moment into deadlier deaths than slay<br /> +The flesh,--to him whose truth can rend away<br /> +From such lost souls their moral night's black pall,--<br /> +Oh, unto him what words can hearts recall<br /> +Which their deep gratitude finds fit to say?<br /> +No words but these,--and these to him are best:--<br /> +That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame,<br /> +His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine;<br /> +His memory be truth worshipped and confessed;<br /> +Our gratitude and love, the priestess line,<br /> +Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name.</i></p> +</blockquote> + + + +<h1>Mercy Philbrick's Choice.</h1> + + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-01"> +<h2>Chapter I.</h2> + + + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of a November day. The sky had worn all day +that pale leaden gray color, which is depressing even to the least +sensitive of souls. Now, at sunset, a dull red tint was slowly stealing +over the west; but the gray cloud was too thick for the sun to pierce, and +the struggle of the crimson color with the unyielding sky only made the +heavens look more stern and pitiless than before.</p> + +<p>Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut +off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in +which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic +in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a +fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and +only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and +gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can +look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your +neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you +say on a summer night, where windows are open.</p> + +<p>One cannot walk through the streets of a New England village, without +being impressed by a sense of this futile semblance of barrier, this +touching effort at withdrawal and reticence. Often we see the tacit +recognition of its uselessness in an old gate shoved back to its farthest, +and left standing so till the very grass roots have embanked themselves on +each side of it, and it can never again be closed without digging away the +sods in which it is wedged. The gate on which Stephen White was leaning +had stood open in that way for years before Stephen rented the house; had +stood open, in fact, ever since old Billy Jacobs, the owner of the house, +had been carried out of it dead, in a coffin so wide that at first the +bearers had thought it could not pass through the gate; but by huddling +close, three at the head and three at the feet, they managed to tug the +heavy old man through without taking down the palings. This was so long +ago that now there was nobody left who remembered Billy Jacobs distinctly, +except his widow, who lived in a poor little house on the outskirts of the +town, her only income being that derived from the renting of the large +house, in which she had once lived in comfort with her husband and son. +The house was a double house; and for a few years Billy Jacobs's twin +brother, a sea captain, had lived in the other half of it. But Mrs. Billy +could not abide Mrs. John, and so with a big heart wrench the two +brothers, who loved each other as only twin children can love, had +separated. Captain John took his wife and went to sea again. The ship was +never heard of, and to the day of Billy Jacobs's death he never forgave +his wife. In his heart he looked upon her as his brother's murderer. Very +much like the perpetual presence of a ghost under her roof it must have +been to the woman also, the unbroken silence of those untenanted rooms, +and that never opened door on the left side of her hall, which she must +pass whenever she went in or out of her house. There were those who said +that she was never seen to look towards that door; and that whenever a +noise, as of a rat in the wall, or a blind creaking in the wind, came from +that side of the house, Mrs. Billy turned white, and shuddered. Well she +might. It is a fearful thing to have lying on one's heart in this life the +consciousness that one has been ever so innocently the occasion, if not +the cause, of a fellow-creature's turning aside into the path which was +destined to take him to his death.</p> + +<p>The very next day after Billy Jacobs's funeral, his widow left the house. +She sold all the furniture, except what was absolutely necessary for a +very meagre outfitting of the little cottage into which she moved. The +miserly habit of her husband seemed to have suddenly fallen on her like a +mantle. Her life shrank and dwindled in every possible way; she almost +starved herself and her boy, although the rent of her old homestead was +quite enough to make them comfortable. In a few years, to complete the +poor woman's misery, her son ran away and went to sea. The sea-farer's +stories which his Uncle John had told him, when he was a little child, +had never left his mind; and the drearier his mother made life for him on +land, the more longingly he dwelt on his fancies of life at sea, till at +last, when he was only fifteen, he disappeared one day, leaving a note, +not for his mother, but for his Sunday-school teacher,--the only human +being he loved. This young woman carried the note to Mrs. Jacobs. She read +it, made no comment, and handed it back. Her visitor was chilled and +terrified by her manner.</p> + +<p>"Can I do any thing for you, Mrs. Jacobs?" she said. "I do assure you I +sympathize with you most deeply. I think the boy will soon come back. He +will find the sea life very different from what he has dreamed."</p> + +<p>"No, you can do nothing for me," replied Mrs. Jacobs, in a voice as +unmoved as her face. "He will never come back. He will be drowned." And +from that day no one ever heard her mention her son. It was believed, +however, that she had news from him, and that she sent him money; for, +although the rents of her house were paid to her regularly, she grew if +possible more and more penurious every year, allowing herself barely +enough food to support life, and wearing such tattered and patched clothes +that she was almost an object of terror to children when they met her in +lonely fields and woods, bending down to the ground and searching for +herbs like an old witch. At one time, also, she went in great haste to a +lawyer in the village, and with his assistance raised three thousand +dollars on a mortgage on her house, mortgaging it very nearly to its full +value. In vain he represented to her that, in case the house should chance +to stand empty for a year, she would have no money to pay the interest on +her mortgage, and would lose the property. She either could not +understand, or did not care for what he said. The house always had brought +her in about so many dollars a year; she believed it always would; at any +rate, she wanted this money. And so it came to pass that the mortgage on +the old Jacobs house had come into Stephen White's hands, and he was now +living in one half of it, his own tenant and landlord at once, as he often +laughingly said.</p> + +<p>These old rumors and sayings about the Jacobs's family history were +running in Stephen's head this evening, as he stood listlessly leaning on +the gate, and looking down at the unsightly spot of bare earth still left +where the gate had so long stood pressed back against the fence.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how long it'll take to get that old rut smooth and green like +the rest of the yard," he thought. Stephen White absolutely hated +ugliness. It did not merely irritate and depress him, as it does everybody +of fine fastidiousness: he hated not only the sight of it, he hated it +with a sort of unreasoning vindictiveness. If it were a picture, he wanted +to burn the picture, cut it, tear it, trample it under foot, get it off +the face of the earth immediately, at any cost or risk. It had no business +to exist: if nobody else would make way with it, he must. He often saw +places that he would have liked to devastate, to blot out of existence if +he could, just because they were barren and unsightly. Once, when he was a +very little child, he suddenly seized a book of his father's,--an old, +shabby, worn dictionary,--and flung it into the fire with uncontrollable +passion; and, on being asked why he did it, had nothing to say in +justification of his act, except this extraordinary statement: "It was an +ugly book; it hurt me. Ugly books ought to go in the fire." What the child +suffered, and, still more, what the man suffered from this hatred of +ugliness, no words could portray. Ever since he could remember, he had +been unhappy from the lack of the beautiful in the surroundings of his +daily life. His father had been poor; his mother had been an invalid; and +neither father nor mother had a trace of the artistic temperament. From +what long-forgotten ancestor in his plain, hard-working family had come +Stephen's passionate love of beauty, nobody knew. It was the despair of +his father, the torment of his mother. From childhood to boyhood, from +boyhood to manhood, he had felt himself needlessly hurt and perversely +misunderstood on this one point. But it had not soured him: it had only +saddened him, and made him reticent. In his own quiet way, he went slowly +on, adding each year some new touch of simple adornment to their home. +Every dollar he could spare out of his earnings went into something for +the eye to feast on; and, in spite of the old people's perpetual grumbling +and perpetual antagonism, it came about that they grew to be, in a surly +fashion, proud of Stephen's having made their home unlike the homes of +their neighbors.</p> + +<p>"That's Stephen's last notion. He's never satisfied without he's sticking +up suthin' new or different," they would say, as they called attention to +some new picture or shelf or improvement in the house. "It's all tom- +foolery. Things was well enough before." But in their hearts they were +secretly a little elate, as in latter years they had come to know, by +books and papers which Stephen forced them to hear or to read, that he was +really in sympathy with well-known writers in this matter of the adornment +of homes, the love of beautiful things even in every-day life.</p> + +<p>A little more than a year before the time at which our story begins, +Stephen's father had died. On an investigation of his affairs, it was +found that after the settling of the estate very little would remain for +Stephen and his mother. The mortgage on the old Jacobs house was the +greater part of their property. Very reluctantly Stephen decided that +their wisest--in fact, their only--course was to move into this house to +live. Many and many a time he had walked past the old house, and thought, +as he looked at it, what a bare, staring, hopeless, joyless-looking old +house it was. It had originally been a small, square house. The addition +which Billy Jacobs had made to it was oblong, running out to the south, +and projecting on the front a few feet beyond the other part. This +obtrusive jog was certainly very ugly; and it was impossible to conceive +of any reason for it. Very possibly, it was only a carpenter's blunder; +for Billy Jacobs was, no doubt, his own architect, and left all details of +the work to the builders. Be that as it may, the little, clumsy, +meaningless jog ruined the house,--gave it an uncomfortably awry look, +like a dining-table awkwardly pieced out for an emergency by another table +a little too narrow.</p> + +<p>The house had been for several years occupied by families of mill +operatives, and had gradually acquired that indefinable, but unmistakable +tenement-house look, which not even neatness and good repair can wholly +banish from a house. The orchard behind the house had so run down for want +of care that it looked more like a tangle of wild trees than like any +thing which had ever been an orchard. Yet the Roxbury Russets and Baldwins +of that orchard had once been Billy Jacobs's great pride, the one point of +hospitality which his miserliness never conquered. Long after it would +have broken his heart to set out a generous dinner for a neighbor, he +would feast him on choice apples, and send him away with a big basket full +in his hands. Now every passing school-boy helped himself to the wan, +withered, and scanty fruit; and nobody had thought it worth while to mend +the dilapidated fences which might have helped to shut them out.</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. White, with all her indifference to externals, rebelled at first +at the idea of going to live in the old Jacobs house.</p> + +<p>"I'll never go there, Stephen," she said petulantly. "I'm not going to +live in half a house with the mill people; and it's no better than a barn, +the hideous, old, faded, yellow thing!"</p> + +<p>If it crossed Stephen's mind that there was a touch of late retribution +in his mother's having come at last to a sense of suffering because she +must live in an unsightly house, he did not betray it.</p> + +<p>He replied very gently. He was never heard to speak other than gently to +his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and +dictatorial.</p> + +<p>"But, mother, I think we must. It is the only way that we can be sure of +the rent. And, if we live ourselves in one half of it, we shall find it +much easier to get good tenants for the other part. I promise you none of +the mill people shall ever live there again. Please do not make it hard +for me, mother. We must do it."</p> + +<p>When Stephen said "must," his mother never gainsaid him. He was only +twenty-five, but his will was stronger than hers,--as much stronger as his +temper was better. Persons judging hastily, by her violent assertions and +vehement statements of her determination, as contrasted with Stephen's +gentle, slow, almost hesitating utterance of his opinions or intentions, +might have assumed that she would always conquer; but it was not so. In +all little things, Stephen was her slave, because she was a suffering +invalid and his mother. But, in all important decisions, he was the +master; and she recognized it, and leaned upon it in a way which was +almost ludicrous in its alternation with her petulance and perpetual +dictating to him in trifles.</p> + +<p>And so they went to live in the old Jacobs house. They took the northern +half of it, the part in which the sea captain and his wife had lived. +This half of the house was not so pleasant as the other, had less sun, and +had no door upon the street; but it was smaller and better suited to their +needs, and moreover, Stephen said to his mother,--</p> + +<p>"We must live in the half we should find it hardest to rent to a desirable +tenant."</p> + +<p>For the first six months after they moved in, the "wing," as Mrs. White +persisted in calling it, though it was larger by two rooms than the part +she occupied herself, stood empty. There would have been plenty of +applicants for it, but it had been noised in the town that the Whites had +given out that none but people as good as they were themselves would be +allowed to rent the house. This made a mighty stir among the mill +operatives and the trades-people, and Stephen got many a sour look and +short answer, whose real source he never suspected.</p> + +<p>"Ahem! there he goes with his head in the clouds, damn him!" muttered +Barker the grocer, one day, as Stephen in a more than ordinarily +absent-minded fit had passed Mr. Barker's door without observing that Mr. +Barker stood in it, ready to bow and smile to the whole world. Mr. +Barker's sister had just married an overseer in the mill; and they had +been very anxious to set up housekeeping in the Jacobs house, but had been +prevented from applying for it by hearing of Mrs. White's determination to +have no mill people under the same roof with herself.</p> + +<p>"Mill people, indeed!" exclaimed Jane Barker, when her lover told her, in +no very guarded terms, the reason they could not have the house on which +she had set her heart.</p> + +<p>"Mill people, indeed! I'd like to know if they're not every whit's good's +an old shark of a lawyer like Hugh White was! I'll be bound, if poor old +granny Jacobs hadn't lost what little wit she ever had, it 'ud be very +soon seen whether Madam White's got the right to say who's to come and +who's to go in that house. It's a nasty old yaller shell anyhow, not to +say nothin' o' it's bein' haunted, 's like 's not. But there ain't no +other place so handy to the mill for us, an' I guess our money's good ez +any lawyer's money, o' the hull on 'em any day. Mill people, indeed! I'll +jest give Steve White a piece o' my mind, the first time I see him on the +street."</p> + +<p>Jane and her lover were sitting on the tops of two barrels just outside +the grocery door, when this conversation took place. Just as the last +words had left her lips, she looked up and saw Stephen approaching at a +very rapid pace. The unusual sight of two people perched on barrels on the +sidewalk roused Stephen from the deep reverie in which he habitually +walked. Lifting his hat as courteously as if he were addressing the most +distinguished of women, he bowed, and said smiling, "How do you do, Miss +Jane?" and "Good-morning, Mr. Lovejoy," and passed on; but not before Jane +Barker had had time to say in her gentlest tones, "Very well, thank you, +Mr. Stephen," while an ugly sneer spread over the face of Reuben Lovejoy.</p> + +<p>"Woman all over!" he muttered. "Never saw one on ye yet thet wasn't +caught by a bow from a palaverin' fool."</p> + +<p>Jane laughed nervously. She herself felt ashamed of having so soon given +the lie to her own words of bravado; but she was woman enough not to admit +her mortification.</p> + +<p>"I know he's a palaverin' fool's well's you do; but I reckon I've got some +manners o' my own, 's well's he. When a man bids me a pleasant +good-mornin', I ain't a-goin' to take that time to fly out at him, however +much I've got agin him."</p> + +<p>And Reuben was silenced. The under-current of ill-feeling against Stephen +and his mother went steadily on increasing. There is a wonderful force in +these slow under-currents of feeling, in small communities, for or against +individuals. After they have once become a steady tide, nothing can check +their force or turn their direction. Sometimes they can be traced back to +their spring, as a stream can: one lucky or unlucky word or deed, years +ago, made a friend or an enemy of one person, and that person's influence +has divided itself again and again, as brooks part off and divide into +countless rivulets, and water whole districts. But generally one finds it +impossible to trace the like or dislike to its beginning. A stranger, +asking the reason of it, is answered in an off-hand way,--"Oh, +everybody'll tell you the same thing. There isn't a soul in the town but +hates him;" or, "Well, he's just the most popular man in the town. You'll +never hear a word said against him,--never; not if you were to settle +right down here, and live."</p> + +<p>It was months before Stephen realized that there was slowly forming in the +town a dislike to him. He was slow in discovering it, because he had +always lived alone; had no intimate friends, not even when he was a boy. +His love of books and his passionate love of beauty combined with his +poverty to hedge him about more effectually than miles of desert could +have done. His father and mother had lived upon fairly good terms with all +their neighbors, but had formed no very close bonds with any. In the +ordinary New England town, neighborhood never means much: there is a +dismal lack of cohesion to the relations between people. The community is +loosely held together by a few accidental points of contact or common +interest. The individuality of individuals is, by a strange sort of +paradox, at once respected and ignored. This is indifference rather than +consideration, selfishness rather than generosity; it is an unsuspected +root of much of our national failure, is responsible for much of our +national disgrace. Some day there will come a time when it will have +crystallized into a national apathy, which will perhaps cure itself, or +have to be cured, as indurations in the body are, by sharp crises or by +surgical operations. In the mean time, our people are living, on the +whole, the dullest lives that are lived in the world, by the so-called +civilized; and the climax of this dulness of life is to be found in just +such a small New England town as Penfield, the one of which we are now +speaking.</p> + +<p>When it gradually became clear to Stephen that he and his mother were +unpopular people, his first feeling was one of resentment, his second of +calm acquiescence: acquiescence, first, because he recognized in a measure +the justice of it,--they really did not care for their neighbors; why +should their neighbors care for them? secondly, a diminished familiarity +of intercourse would have to him great compensations. There were few +people in the town, whose clothes, whose speech, whose behavior, did not +jar upon his nerves. On the whole, he would be better content alone; and +if his mother could only have a little more independence of nature, more +resource within herself, "The less we see of them, the better," said +Stephen, proudly.</p> + +<p>He had yet to learn the lesson which, sooner or later, the proudest, most +scornful, most self-centred of human souls must learn, or must die of +loneliness for the want of learning, that humanity is one and indivisible; +and the man who shuts himself apart from his fellows, above all, the man +who thus shuts himself apart because he thinks of his fellows with pitying +condescension as his inferiors, is a fool and a blasphemer,--a fool, +because he robs himself of that good-fellowship which is the leaven of +life; a blasphemer, because he virtually implies that God made men unfit +for him to associate with. Stephen White had this lesson yet to learn.</p> + +<p>The practical inconvenience of being unpopular, however, he began to feel +keenly, as month after month passed by, and nobody would rent the other +half of the house in which he and his mother lived. Small as the rent +was, it was a matter of great moment to them; for his earnings as clerk +and copyist were barely enough to give them food. He was still retained by +his father's partner in the same position which he had held during his +father's life. But old Mr. Williams was not wholly free from the general +prejudice against Stephen, as an aristocratic fellow, given to dreams and +fancies; and Stephen knew very well that he held the position only as it +were on a sort of sufferance, because Mr. Williams had loved his father. +Moreover, law business in Penfield was growing duller and duller. A +younger firm in the county town, only twelve miles away, was robbing them +of clients continually; and there were many long days during which Stephen +sat idle at his desk, looking out in a vague, dreamy way on the street +below, and wondering if the time were really coming when Mr. Williams +would need a clerk no longer; and, if it did come, what he could possibly +find to do in that town, by which he could earn money enough to support +his mother. At such times, he thought uneasily of the possibility of +foreclosing the mortgage on the old Jacobs house, selling the house, and +reinvesting the money in a more advantageous way. He always tried to put +the thought away from him as a dishonorable one; but it had a fatal +persistency. He could not banish it.</p> + +<p>"Poor, half-witted old woman! she might a great deal better be in the +poor-house."</p> + +<p>"There is no reason why we should lose our interest, for the sake of +keeping her along."</p> + +<p>"The mortgage was for too large a sum. I doubt if the old house could +sell to-day for enough to clear it, anyhow." These were some of the +suggestions which the devil kept whispering into Stephen's ear, in these +long hours of perplexity and misgiving. It was a question of casuistry +which might, perhaps, have puzzled a finer moral sense than Stephen's. Why +should he treat old Mrs. Jacobs with any more consideration than he would +show to a man under the same circumstances? To be sure, she was a helpless +old woman; but so was his own mother, and surely his first duty was to +make her as comfortable as possible.</p> + +<p>Luckily for old Mrs. Jacobs, a tenant appeared for the "south wing." A +friend of Stephen's, a young clergyman living in a seaport town on Cape +Cod, had written to him, asking about the house, which he knew Stephen was +anxious to rent. He made these inquiries on behalf of two women, +parishioners of his, who were obliged to move to some inland town on +account of the elder woman's failing health. They were mother and +daughter, but both widows. The younger woman's marriage had been a +tragically sad one, her husband having died suddenly, only a few days +after their marriage. She had returned at once to her mother's house, +widowed at eighteen; "heart-broken," the young clergyman wrote, "but the +most cheerful person in this town,--the most cheerful person I ever knew; +her smile is the sunniest and most pathetic thing I ever saw."</p> + +<p>Stephen welcomed most gladly the prospect of such tenants as these. The +negotiations were soon concluded; and at the time of the beginning of our +story the two women were daily expected.</p> + +<p>A strange feverishness of desire to have them arrive possessed Stephen's +mind. He longed for it, and yet he dreaded it. He liked the stillness of +the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these +satisfactions were to be interfered with now. But he had a singular +consciousness that some new element was coming into his life. He did not +define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a +bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his +reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, +"Stephen, man, what is this? What are these two women to you, that your +imagination is taking these wild and superfluous leaps into their +history?"</p> + +<p>There was hardly a possible speculation as to their past history, as to +their looks, as to their future life under his roof, that Stephen did not +indulge in, as he stood leaning with his folded arms on the gate, in the +gray November twilight, where we first found him. His thoughts, as was +natural, centred most around the younger woman.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing! That was a mighty hard fate. Only nineteen years old +now,--six years younger than I am; and how much more she must know of life +than I do. I suppose she can't be a lady, exactly,--being a sea captain's +wife. I wonder if she's pretty? I think Harley might have told me more +about her. He might know I'd be very curious.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if mother'll take to them? If she does, it will be a great +comfort to her. She 's so alone." And Stephen's face clouded, as he +reflected how very seldom the monotony of the invalid's life was broken +now by a friendly visit from a neighbor.</p> + +<p>"If they should turn out really social, neighborly people that we liked, +we might move away the old side-board from before the hall door, and go in +and out that way, as the Jacobses used to. It would be unlucky though, I +reckon, to use that door. I guess I'll plaster it up some day." Like all +people of deep sentiment, Stephen had in his nature a vein of something +which bordered on superstition.</p> + +<p>The twilight deepened into darkness, and a cold mist began to fall in +slow, drizzling drops. Still Stephen stood, absorbed in his reverie, and +unmindful of the chill.</p> + +<p>The hall door opened, and an old woman peered out. She held a lamp in one +hand; the blast of cold air made the flame flicker and flare, and, as she +put up one hand to shade it, the light was thrown sharply across her +features, making them stand out like the distorted features of a hideous +mask.</p> + +<p>"Steve! Steve!" she called, in a shrill voice. "Supper's been waitin' more +'n half an hour. Lor's sake, what's the boy thinkin' on now, I wonder?" +she muttered in an impatient lower tone, as Stephen turned his head +slowly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, Marty. Tell my mother I will be there in a moment," replied +Stephen, as he walked slowly toward the house; even then noting, with the +keen and relentless glance of a beauty-worshipper, how grotesquely ugly +the old woman's wrinkled face became, lighted up by the intense +cross-light. Old Marty's face had never looked other than lovingly into +Stephen's since he first lay in her arms, twenty-five years ago, when she +came, a smooth-cheeked, rosy country-woman of twenty-five, to nurse his +mother at the time of his birth. She had never left the home since. With a +faithfulness and devotion only to be accounted for by the existence of +rare springs of each in her own nature, surely not by any uncommon +lovableness in either Mr. or Mrs. White, or by any especial comforts in +her situation, she had stayed on a quarter of a century, in the hard +position of woman of all work in a poor family. She worshipped Stephen, +and, as I said, her face had never once looked other than lovingly into +his; but he could not remember the time when he had not thought her +hideous. She had a big brown mole on her chin, out of which grew a few +bristling hairs. It was an unsightly thing, no doubt, on a woman's chin; +and sometimes, when Marty was very angry, the hairs did actually seem to +bristle, as a cat's whiskers do. When Stephen could not speak plain, he +used to point his little dimpled finger at this mole and say, "Do doe +away,--doe away;" and to this day it was a torment to him. His eyes seemed +morbidly drawn toward it at times.. When he was ill, and poor Marty bent +over his bed, ministering to him as no one but a loving old nurse can, he +saw only the mole, and had to make an effort not to shrink from her. +To-night, as she lingered on the threshold, affectionately waiting to +light his path, he was thinking only of her ugliness. But when she +exclaimed, with the privileged irritability of an old servant,--</p> + +<p>"Jest look at your feet, Steve! they're wet through, an' your coat too, a +standin' out in that drizzle. Anybody 'ud think you hadn't common sense," +he replied with perfect good nature, and as heartily loving a tone as if +he had been feasting on her beauty, instead of writhing inwardly at her +ugliness,--</p> + +<p>"All right, Marty,--all right. I'm not so wet as I look. I'll change my +coat, and come in to supper in one minute. Don't you fidget about me so, +good Marty." Never was Stephen heard to speak discourteously or even +ungently to a human being. It would have offended his taste. It was not a +matter of principle with him,--not at all: he hardly ever thought of +things in that light. A rude or harsh word, a loud, angry tone, jarred on +his every sense like a discord in music, or an inharmonious color; so he +never used them. But as he ran upstairs, three steps at a time, after his +kind, off-hand words to Marty, he said to himself, "Good heavens! I do +believe Marty gets uglier every day. What a picture Rembrandt would have +made of her old face peering out into the darkness there to-night! She +would have done for the witch of Endor, watching to see if Samuel were +coming up." And as he went down more slowly, revolving in his mind what +plausible excuse he could give to his mother for his tardiness, he +thought, "Well, I do hope she'll be at least tolerably good-looking."</p> + +<p>Already the younger of the two women who were coming to live under his +roof was "she," in his thoughts.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-02"> +<h2>Chapter II.</h2> + + + +<p>In the mean time, the young widow, Mercy Philbrick, and her old and almost +childish mother, Mercy Carr, were coming by slow and tiring stage journeys +up the dreary length of Cape Cod. For thirty years the elder woman had +never gone out of sight of the village graveyard in which her husband and +four children were buried. To transplant her was like transplanting an old +weather-beaten tree, already dead at the top. Yet the physicians had said +that the only chance of prolonging her life was to take her away from the +fierce winds of the sea. She herself, while she loved them, shrank from +them. They seemed to pierce her lungs like arrows of ice-cold steel, at +once wounding and benumbing. Yet the habit and love of the seashore life +were so strong upon her that she would never have been able to tear +herself away from her old home, had it not been for her daughter's +determined will. Mercy Philbrick was a woman of slight frame, gentle, +laughing, brown eyes, a pale skin, pale ash-brown hair, a small nose; a +sweet and changeful mouth, the upper lip too short, the lower lip much too +full; little hands, little feet, little wrists. Not one indication of +great physical or great mental strength could you point out in Mercy +Philbrick; but she was rarely ill; and she had never been known to give +up a point, small or great, on which her will had been fully set. Even the +cheerfulness of which her minister, Harley Allen, had written to Stephen, +was very largely a matter of will with Mercy. She confronted grief as she +would confront an antagonist force of any sort: it was something to be +battled with, to be conquered. Fate should not worst her: come what might, +she would be the stronger of the two. When the doctor said to her,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, I fear that your mother cannot live through another +winter in this climate," Mercy looked at him for a moment with an +expression of terror. In an instant more, the expression had given place +to one of resolute and searching inquiry.</p> + +<p>"You think, then, that she might be well in a different climate?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not well, but she might live for years in a dryer, milder air. +There is as yet no actual disease in her lungs," the doctor replied.</p> + +<p>Mercy interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"You think she might live in comparative comfort? It would not be merely +prolonging her life as a suffering invalid?" she said; adding in an +undertone, as if to herself, "I would not subject her to that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, undoubtedly," said the doctor. "She need never die of +consumption at all, if she could breathe only inland air. She will never +be strong again, but she may live years without any especial liability to +suffering."</p> + +<p>"Then I will take her away immediately," replied Mercy, in as confident +and simple a manner as if she had been proposing only to move her from one +room into another. It would not seem so easy a matter for two lonely +women, in a little Cape Cod village, without a male relative to help them, +and with only a few thousand dollars in the world, to sell their house, +break up all their life-long associations, and go out into the world to +find a new home. Associations crystallize around people in lonely and out +of the way spots, where the days are all alike, and years follow years in +an undeviating monotony. Perhaps the process might be more aptly called +one of petrifaction. There are pieces of exquisite agate which were once +soft wood. Ages ago, the bit of wood fell into a stream, where the water +was largely impregnated with some chemical matter which had the power to +eat out the fibre of the wood, and in each spot thus left empty to deposit +itself in an exact image of the wood it had eaten away. Molecule by +molecule, in a mystery too small for human eye to detect, even had a +watchful human eye been lying in wait to observe, the marvellous process +went on; until, after the lapse of nobody knows how many centuries, the +wood was gone, and in its place lay its exact image in stone,--rings of +growth, individual peculiarities of structure, knots, broken slivers and +chips; color, shape, all perfect. Men call it agatized wood, by a feeble +effort to translate the mystery of its existence; but it is not wood, +except to the eye. To the touch, and in fact, it is stone,--hard, cold, +unalterable, eternal stone. The slow wear of monotonous life in a set +groove does very much such a thing as this to human beings. To the eye +they retain the semblance of other beings; but try them by touch, that is +by contact with people, with events outside their groove, and they are +stone,--agatized men and women. Carry them where you please, after they +have reached middle or old age, and they will not change. There is no +magic water, a drop of which will restore to them the vitality and +pliability of their youth. They last well, such people,--as well, almost, +as agatized wood on museum shelves; and the most you can do for them is to +keep them well dusted.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Carr belonged, in a degree, to this order of persons. Only the +coming of Mercy's young life into the feeble current of her own had saved +it from entire stagnation. But she was already past middle age when Mercy +was born; and the child with her wonderful joyousness, and the maiden with +her wondrous cheer, came too late to undo what the years had done. The +most they could do was to interrupt the process, to stay it at that point. +The consequence was that Mrs. Carr at sixty-five was a placid sort of +middle-aged old lady, very pleasant to talk with as you would talk with a +child, very easy to take care of as you would take care of a child, but, +for all purposes of practical management or efficient force, as helpless +as a baby.</p> + +<p>When Mercy told her what the doctor had said of her health, and that they +must sell the house and move away before the winter set in, she literally +opened her mouth too wide to speak for a minute, and then gasped out like +a frightened child,--</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, don't let's do it!"</p> + +<p>As Mercy went on explaining to her the necessity of the change, and the +arrangements she proposed to make, the poor old woman's face grew longer +and longer; but, some time before Mercy had come to the end of her +explanation, the childish soul had accepted the whole thing as fixed, had +begun already to project itself in childish imaginations of detail; and to +Mercy's infinite relief and half-sad amusement, when she ceased speaking, +her mother's first words were, eagerly,--</p> + +<p>"Well, Mercy, if we go 'n the stage, 'n' I s'pose we shall hev to, don't +ye think my old brown merino'll do to wear?"</p> + +<p>Fortune favored Mercy's desire to sell the house. Stephen's friend, the +young minister, had said to himself many times, as he walked up to its +door between the quaint, trim beds of old-fashioned pinks and ladies' +delights and sweet-williams which bordered the little path, "This is the +only house in this town I want to live in." As soon as he heard that it +was for sale, he put on his hat, and fairly ran to buy it. Out of breath, +he took Mercy's hands in his, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, do you really want to sell this house?"</p> + +<p>Very unworldly were this young man and this young woman, in the matter of +sale and purchase. Adepts in traffic would have laughed, had they +overheard the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Allen, I do. I must sell it; and I am afraid I shall +have to sell it for a great deal less than it is worth," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"No, you sha'n't, Mercy! I'll buy it myself. I've always wanted it. But +why in the world do you want to sell it? Where will you live yourself? +There isn't another house in the village you'd like half so well. Is it +too large for you?" continued Mr. Allen, hurriedly. Then Mercy told him +all her plans, and the sad necessity for her making the change. The young +minister did not speak for some moments. He seemed lost in thought. Then +he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"I do believe it's a kind of Providence!" and drew a letter from his +pocket, which he had only two days before received from Stephen White. +"Mercy," he went on, "I believe I've got the very thing you want right +here;" and he read her the concluding paragraph of the letter, in which +Stephen had said: "Meantime, I am waiting as patiently as I can for a +tenant for the other half of this house. It seems to be very hard to find +just the right sort of person. I cannot take in any of the mill +operatives. They are noisy and untidy; and the bare thought of their being +just the other side of the partition would drive my mother frantic. I wish +so much I could get some people in that would be real friends for her. She +is very lonely. She never leaves her bed; and I have to be away all day."</p> + +<p>Mercy's face lighted up. She liked the sound of each word that this +unknown man wrote. Very eagerly she questioned Mr. Allen about the town, +its situation, its healthfulness, and so forth. As he gave her detail +after detail, she nodded her head with increasing emphasis, and finally +exclaimed: "That is precisely such a spot as Dr. Wheeler said we ought to +go to. I think you're right, Mr. Allen. It's a Providence. And I'd be so +glad to be good to that poor old woman, too. What a companion she'd be for +mother! that is, if I could keep them from comparing notes for ever about +their diseases. That's the worst of putting invalid old women together," +laughed Mercy with a kindly, merry little laugh.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen had visited Penfield only once. When he and Stephen were boys at +school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's +house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of +their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to +boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced +intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten +the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the +western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it +commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a +most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent +any danger from its moisture. To the south and south-west rose a fine +range of mountains, bold and sharp-cut, though they were not very high, +and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this +range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way +through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the +geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and +well-regulated planet.</p> + +<p>The town, although, as I said, it lay on the western slope of a great +river terrace, held in its site three distinctly marked plateaus. From the +two highest of these, the views were grand. It was like living on a +mountain, and yet there was the rich beauty of coloring of the river +interval. Nowhere in all New England was there a fairer country than this +to look upon, nor a goodlier one in which to live.</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen's enthusiasm in describing the beauties of the place, and +Mercy's enthusiasm in listening, were fast driving out of their minds the +thought of the sale, which had been mentioned in the beginning of their +conversation. Mercy was the first to recall it. She blushed and hesitated, +as she said,--</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Allen, we can't go, you know, until I have sold this house. Did +you really want to buy it? And how much do you think I ought to ask for +it?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed the young minister. "Dear me, what +children we are! Mercy, I don't honestly know what you ought to ask for +the house. I'll find out."</p> + +<p>"Deacon Jones said he thought, taking in the cranberry meadow, it was +worth three thousand dollars," said Mercy; "but that seems a great deal to +me: though not in a good cranberry year, perhaps," added she, ingenuously, +"for last year the cranberries brought us in seventy-five dollars, besides +paying for the picking."</p> + +<p>"And the meadow ought to go with the house, by all means," said Mr. Allen. +"I want it for color in the background, when I look at the house as I +come down from the meeting-house hill. I wouldn't like to have anybody +else own the canvas on which the picture of my home will be oftenest +painted for my eyes. I'll give you three thousand dollars for the house, +Mercy. I can only pay two thousand down, and pay you interest on the other +thousand for a year or two. I'll soon clear it off. Will that do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Allen. It will more than do," said poor +Mercy, who could not believe in such sudden good fortune; "but do you +think you ought to buy it so quick? Perhaps it wouldn't bring so much +money as that. I had not asked anybody except Deacon Jones."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen laughed. "If you don't look out for yourself sharper than this, +Mercy," he said, "in the new place 'where you're going to live, you'll +fare badly. Perhaps it may be true, as you say, that nobody else would +give you three thousand dollars for the house, because nobody might happen +to want to live in it. But Deacon Jones knows better than anybody else the +value of property here, and I am perfectly willing to give you the price +he set on the place. I had laid by this two thousand dollars towards my +house; and I could not build such a house as this, to-day, for three +thousand dollars. But really, Mercy, you must look 'out for yourself +better than this."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Mercy, looking out of the window, with an earnest +gaze, as if she were reading a writing a great way off,--"I don't know +about that. I doubt very much if looking out for one's self, as you call +it, is the best way to provide for one's self."</p> + +<p>That very night Mr. Allen wrote to Stephen; in two weeks, the whole matter +was settled, and Mercy and her mother had set out on their journey. They +carried with them but one small valise. The rest of their simple wardrobe +had gone in boxes, with the furniture, by sailing vessel, to a city which +was within three hours by rail of their new home. This was the feature of +the situation which poor Mrs. Carr could not accept. In the bottom of her +heart, she fully believed that they would never again see one of those +boxes. The contents of some which she had herself packed were of a most +motley description. In the beginning of the breaking up, while Mercy was +at her wits' end, with the unwonted perplexities of packing the whole +belongings of a house, her mother had tormented her incessantly by +bringing to her every few minutes some utterly incongruous and frequently +worthless article, and begging her to put it in at once, whatever she +might be packing. Any one who has ever packed for a long journey, with an +eager and excited child running up every minute with more and more +cumbrous toys, dogs, cats, Noah's arks, and so on, to be put in among +books and under-clothing, can imagine Mercy's despair at her mother's +restless activity.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, not in this box! Not in with the china!" would groan poor +Mercy, as her mother appeared with armfuls of ancient relics from the +garret, such as old umbrellas, bonnets, bundles of old newspapers, broken +spinning-wheels, andirons, and rolls of remains of old wall-paper, the +last of which had disappeared from the walls of the house, long before +Mercy was born. No old magpie was ever a more indiscriminate hoarder than +Mrs. Carr had been; and, among all her hoardings, there was none more +amusing than her hoarding of old wall-papers. A scrap a foot square seemed +to her too precious to throw away. "It might be jest the right size to +cover suthin' with," she would say; and, to do her justice, she did use in +the course of a year a most unexampled amount of such fragments. She had a +mania for papering and repapering and papering again every shelf, every +box, every corner she could get hold of. The paste and brush were like +toys to her; and she delighted in gay combinations, sticking on old bits +of borders in fantastic ways, in most inappropriate situations.</p> + +<p>"I do believe you'll paper the pigsty next, mother," said Mercy one day: +"there's nothing left you can paper except that." Mrs. Carr took the +suggestion in perfect good faith, and convulsed Mercy a few days later by +entering the kitchen with the following extraordinary remark,--</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's worth while to paper the pigsty. I've been looking +at it, and the boards they're so rough, the paper wouldn't lay smooth, +anyhow; and I couldn't well get at the inside o' the roof, while the pig's +in. It would look real neat, though. I'd like to do it."</p> + +<p>Mercy endured her mother's help in packing for one day. Then the +desperateness of the trouble suggested a remedy. Selecting a large, strong +box, she had it carried into the garret.</p> + +<p>"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old +lumber of all sorts which you want to carry. And, if this box isn't large +enough, you shall have two more. Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty +of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can +help you."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy went downstairs feeling half-guilty, as one does when one has +practised a subterfuge on a child.</p> + +<p>How many times that poor old woman packed and unpacked that box, nobody +could dream. All day long she trotted up and down, up and down; ransacking +closets, chests, barrels; sorting and resorting, and forgetting as fast as +she sorted. Now and then she would come across something which would rouse +an electric chain of memories in the dim chambers of her old, worn-out +brain, and she would sit motionless for a long time on the garret floor, +in a sort of trance. Once Mercy found her leaning back against a beam, +with her knees covered by a piece of faded blue Canton crape, on which her +eyes were fastened. She did not speak till Mercy touched her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my! how you scared me, child!" she exclaimed. "D'ye see this ere blue +stuff? I hed a gown o' thet once: it was drefful kind o' clingy stuff. I +never felt exzackly decent in it, somehow: it hung a good deal like a +night-gownd; but your father he bought it for the color. He traded off +some shells for it in some o' them furrin places. You wouldn't think it +now, but it used to be jest the color o' a robin's egg or a light-blue +'bachelor's button;' and your father he used to stick one o' them in my +belt whenever they was in blossom, when I hed the gownd on. He hed a heap +o' notions about things matchin'. He brought me that gownd the v'yage he +made jest afore Caleb was born; and I never hed a chance to wear it much, +the children come so fast. It warn't re'ly worn at all, 'n' I hed it dyed +black for veils arterwards."</p> + +<p>It was from this father who used to "stick" pale-blue flowers in his +wife's belt, and whose love of delicate fabrics and tints made him +courageous enough to lead her draped in Canton crape into the unpainted +Cape Cod meeting-house, where her fellow-women bristled in homespun, that +Mercy inherited all the artistic side of her nature. She knew this +instinctively, and all her tenderest sentiment centred around the vague +memory she retained of a tall, dark-bearded man, who, when she was only +three years old, lifted her in his arms, called her his "little Mercy," +and kissed her over and over again. She was most loyally affectionate to +her mother, but the sentiment was not a wholly filial one. There was too +much reversal of the natural order of the protector and the protected in +it; and her life was on too different a plane of thought, feeling, and +interest from the life of the uncultured, undeveloped, childish, old +woman. Yet no one who saw them together would have detected any trace of +this shortcoming in Mercy's feeling towards her mother. She had in her +nature a fine and lofty fibre of loyalty which could never condescend even +to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all +consciousness of the possibility of any other course. This is a sort of +organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower +of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death +itself. It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men +and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be +of a loving nature. The cheaper and less lasting types of love are so much +louder of voice and readier of phrase, as in cloths cheap fabrics, poor to +wear, are often found printed in gay colors and big patterns.</p> + +<p>The day before they left home, Mercy, becoming alarmed by a longer +interval than usual without any sound from the garret, where her mother +was still at work over her fantastic collections of old odds and ends, ran +up to see what it meant.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was on her knees before a barrel, which had held rags and +papers. The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor. She had +leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Mother! mother! what is the matter?" exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for +she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry. Without speaking, +Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory. It was of a creamy +yellow, and shone like satin: a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from +it. As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window, +and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left.</p> + +<p>"What a lovely bit of carving! What is it, mother? Why does it make you +cry?" asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory.</p> + +<p>"It's Caley's whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience +Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, +an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought +that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I +was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum +in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every +mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the +next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n +yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed +that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--"</p> + +<p>"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle +all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink +rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one +o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer +ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus +used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth +an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old. But by the time he +was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could. And his father he'd +just lay back 'n his chair, and laugh 'n' laugh, 'n' call out, 'Blow away, +my hearty!' Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago'n yesterday. I wish I'd +ha' known. I wa'n't never friends with Patience any more arter that. I +never misgave me but what she'd got the whistle. It was such a curious +cut thing, and cost a heap o' money. Your father wouldn't never tell what +he gin for 't. Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday," and the +old woman wiped her eyes on her apron, and struggling up on her feet took +the whistle again from Mercy's hands.</p> + +<p>"How old would my brother Caley be now, if he had lived, mother?" said +Mercy, anxious to bring her mother gently back to the present.</p> + +<p>"Well, let me see, child. Why, Caley--Caley, he'd be--How old am I, Mercy? +Dear me! hain't I lost my memory, sure enough, except about these ere old +things? They seem's clear's daylight."</p> + +<p>"Sixty-five last July, mother," said Mercy. "Don't you know I gave you +your new specs then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, child,--yes. Well, I'm sixty-five, be I? Then Caley,--Caley, +he'd be, let me see--you reckon it, Mercy. I wuz goin' on nineteen when +Caley was born."</p> + +<p>"Why, mother," exclaimed Mercy, "is it really so long ago? Then my brother +Caleb would be forty-six years old now!" and mercy took again in her hand +the yellow ivory whistle, and ran her fingers over the faded and frayed +pink ribbon, and looked at it with an indefinable sense of its being a +strange link between her and a distant past, which, though she had never +shared it, belonged to her by right. Hardly thinking what she did, she +raised the whistle to her lips, and blew a loud, shrill whistle on it. Her +mother started. "O Mercy, don't, don't!" she cried. "I can't bear to hear +it."</p> + +<p>"Now, mother, don't you be foolish," said Mercy, cheerily. "A whistle's a +whistle, old or young, and made to be whistled with. We'll keep this to +amuse children with: you carry it in your pocket. Perhaps we shall meet +some children on the journey; and it'll be so nice for you to pop this out +of your pocket, and give it to them to blow."</p> + +<p>"So it will, Mercy, I declare. That 'ud be real nice. You're a +master-piece for thinkin' o' things." And, easily diverted as a child, the +old woman dropped the whistle into her deep pocket, and, forgetting all +her tears, returned to her packing.</p> + +<p>Not so Mercy. Having attained her end of cheering her mother, her own +thoughts reverted again and again all day long, and many times in after +years, whenever she saw the ivory whistle, to the strange picture of the +lonely old woman in the garret coming upon her first-born child's first +toy, lost for forty years; the picture, too, of the history of the quaint +piece of carving itself; the day it was slowly cut and chiselled by a +patient and ill-paid toiler in some city of China; its voyage in the +keeping of the ardent young husband hastening home to welcome his first +child; its forty years of silence and darkness in the old garret; and then +its return to life and light and sound, in the hands and lips of new +generations of children.</p> + +<p>The journey which Mercy had so much dreaded was unexpectedly pleasant. +Mrs. Carr proved an admirable traveller with the exception of her +incessant and garrulous anxiety about the boxes which had been left behind +on the deck of the schooner "Maria Jane," and could not by any +possibility overtake them for three weeks to come. She was, in fact, so +much of a child that she was in a state of eager delight at every new +scene and person. Her childishness proved the best of claims upon every +one's courtesy. Everybody was ready to help "that poor sweet old woman;" +and she was so simply and touchingly grateful for the smallest kindness +that everybody who had helped her once wanted to help her again. More than +one of their fellow-travellers remembered for a long time the bright-faced +young woman with her childish mother, and wondered where they could have +been going, and what was to be their life.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, they +entered the beautiful river interval, through which the road to their new +home lay. Mercy sat with her face almost pressed against the panes of the +car-windows, eagerly scanning every feature of the landscape, to her so +new and wonderful. To the dweller by the sea, the first sight of mountains +is like the sight of a new heavens and a new earth. It is a revelation of +a new life. Mercy felt strangely stirred and overawed. She looked around +in astonishment at her fellow-passengers, not one of whom apparently +observed that on either hand were stretching away to the east and the west +fields that were, even in this late autumn, like carpets of gold and +green. Through these fertile meadows ran a majestic river, curving and +doubling as if loath to leave such fair shores. The wooded mountains +changed fast from green to purple, from purple to dark gray; and almost +before Mercy had comprehended the beauty of the region, it was lost from +her sight, veiled in the twilight's pale, indistinguishable tints. Her +mother was fast asleep in her seat. The train stopped every few moments at +some insignificant station, of which Mercy could see nothing but a narrow +platform, a dim lantern, and a sleepy-looking station-master. Slowly, one +or two at a time, the passengers disappeared, until she and her mother +were left alone in the car. The conductor and the brakeman, as they passed +through, looked at them with renewed interest: it was evident now that +they were going through to the terminus of the road.</p> + +<p>"Goin' through, be ye?" said the conductor. "It'll be dark when we get in; +an' it's beginnin' to rain. 'S anybody comin' to meet ye?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mercy, uneasily. "Will there not be carriages at the depot? We +are going to the hotel. I believe there is but one."</p> + +<p>"Well, there may be a kerridge down to-night, an' there may not: there's +no knowin'. Ef it don't rain too hard, I reckon Seth'll be down."</p> + +<p>Mercy's sense of humor never failed her. She laughed heartily, as she +said,--</p> + +<p>"Then Seth stays away, does he, on the nights when he would be sure of +passengers?"</p> + +<p>The conductor laughed too, as he replied,---</p> + +<p>"Well, 'tisn't quite so bad's that. Ye see this here road's only a piece +of a road. It's goin' up through to connect with the northern roads; but +they 've come to a stand-still for want o' funds, an' more 'n half the +time I don't carry nobody over this last ten miles. Most o' the people +from our town go the other way, on the river road. It's shorter, an' some +cheaper. There isn't much travellin' done by our folks, anyhow. We're a +mighty dead an' alive set up here. Goin' to stay a spell?" he continued, +with increasing interest, as he looked longer into Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>"Probably," said Mercy, in a grave tone, suddenly recollecting that she +ought not to talk with this man as if he were one of her own village +people. The conductor, sensitive as are most New England people, spite of +their apparent familiarity of address, to the least rebuff, felt the +change in Mercy's tone, and walked away, thinking half surlily, "She +needn't put on airs. A schoolma'am, I reckon. Wonder if it can be her +that's going to teach the Academy?"</p> + +<p>When they reached the station, it was, as the conductor had said, very +dark; and it was raining hard. For the first time, a sense of her +unprotected loneliness fell upon Mercy's heart. Her mother, but +half-awake, clung nervously to her, asking purposeless and incoherent +questions. The conductor, still surly from his fancied rebuff at Mercy's +hands, walked away, and took no notice of them. The station-master was +nowhere to be seen. The two women stood huddling together under one +umbrella, gazing blankly about them.</p> + +<p>"Is this Mrs. Philbrick?" came in clear, firm tones, out of the darkness +behind them; and, in a second more, Mercy had turned and looked up into +Stephen White's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good you were to come and meet us!" exclaimed Mercy. "You are Mr. +Allen's friend, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Stephen, curtly. "But I did not come to meet you. You must not +thank me. I had business here. However, I made the one carriage which the +town boasts, wait, in case you should be here. Here it is!" And, before +Mercy had time to analyze or even to realize the vague sense of +disappointment she felt at his words, she found herself and her mother +placed in the carriage, and the door shut.</p> + +<p>"Your trunks cannot go up until morning," he said, speaking through the +carriage window; "but, if you will give me your checks, I will see that +they are sent."</p> + +<p>"We have only one small valise," said Mercy: "that was under our seat. The +brakeman said he would take it out for us; but he forgot it, and so did +I."</p> + +<p>The train was already backing out of the station. Stephen smothered some +very unchivalrous words on his lips, as he ran out into the rain, overtook +the train, and swung himself on the last car, in search of the "one small +valise" belonging to his tenants. It was a very shabby valise: it had made +many a voyage with its first owner, Captain Carr. It was a very little +valise: it could not have held one gown of any of the modern fashions.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," thought Stephen, as he put it into the carriage at Mercy's +feet, "what sort of women are these I've taken under my roof! I expect +they'll be very unpleasing sights to my eyes. I did hope she'd be +good-looking." How many times in after years did Stephen recall with +laughter his first impressions of Mercy Philbrick, and wonder how he could +have argued so unhesitatingly that a woman who travelled with only one +small valise could not be good-looking.</p> + +<p>"Will you come to the house to-morrow?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," replied Mercy, "not for three or four weeks yet. Our furniture +will not be here under that time."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Stephen, "I had not thought of that. I will call on you at the +hotel, then, in a day or two."</p> + +<p>His adieus were civil, but only civil: that most depressing of all things +to a sensitive nature, a kindly indifference, was manifest in every word +he said, and in every tone of his voice.</p> + +<p>Mercy felt it to the quick; but she was ashamed of herself for the +feeling. "What business had I to expect that he was going to be our +friend?" she said in her heart. "We are only tenants to him."</p> + +<p>"What a kind-spoken young man he is, to be sure, Mercy!" said Mrs. Carr.</p> + +<p>So all-sufficient is bare kindliness of tone and speech to the unsensitive +nature.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother, he was very kind," said Mercy; "but I don't think we shall +ever know him very well."</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy, why not?" exclaimed her mother. "I should say he was most +uncommon friendly for a stranger, running back after our valise in the +rain, and a goin' to call on you to oncet."</p> + +<p>Mercy made no reply. The carriage rolled along over the rough and muddy +road. It was too dark to see any thing except the shadowy black shapes of +houses, outlined on a still deeper blackness by the light streaming from +their windows. There is no sight in the world so hard for lonely, homeless +people to see, as the sight of the lighted windows of houses after +nightfall. Why houses should look so much more homelike, so much more +suggestive of shelter and cheer and companionship and love, when the +curtains are snug-drawn and the doors shut, and nobody can look in, though +the lights of fires and lamps shine out, than they do in broad daylight, +with open windows and people coming and going through open doors, and a +general air of comradeship and busy living, it is hard to see. But there +is not a lonely vagabond in the world who does not know that they do. One +may see on a dark night many a wistful face of lonely man or lonely woman, +hurrying resolutely past, and looking away from, the illumined houses +which mean nothing to them except the keen reminder of what they are +without. Oh, the homeless people there are in this world! Did anybody ever +think to count up the thousands there are in every great city, who live in +lodgings and not in homes; from the luxurious lodger who lodges in the +costliest rooms of the costliest hotel, down to the most poverty-stricken +lodger who lodges in a corner of the poorest tenement-house? Homeless all +of them; their common vagabondage is only a matter of degrees of decency. +All honor to the bravery of those who are homeless because they must be, +and who make the best of it. But only scorn and pity for those who are +homeless because they choose to be, and are foolish enough to like it.</p> + +<p>Mercy had never before felt the sensation of being a homeless wanderer. +She was utterly unprepared for it. All through the breaking up of their +home and the preparations for their journey, she had been buoyed up by +excitement and anticipation. Much as she had grieved to part from some of +the friends of her early life, and to leave the old home in which she was +born, there was still a certain sense of elation in the prospect of new +scenes and new people. She had felt, without realizing it, a most +unreasonable confidence that it was to be at once a change from one home +to another home. In her native town, she had had a position of importance. +Their house was the best house in the town; judged by the simple standards +of a Cape Cod village, they were well-to-do. Everybody knew, and everybody +spoke with respect and consideration, of "Old Mis' Carr," or, as she was +perhaps more often called, "Widder Carr." Mercy had not thought--in her +utter inexperience of change, it could not have occurred to her--what a +very different thing it was to be simply unknown and poor people in a +strange place. The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly, +as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night. +Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the +thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the +home-lights deepened her sense of desolation. Every gust of rain that beat +on the carriage roof and windows made her feel more and more like an +outcast. She never forgot these moments. She used to say that in them she +had lived the whole life of the loneliest outcast that was ever born. Long +years afterward, she wrote a poem, called "The Outcast," which was so +intense in its feeling one could have easily believed that it was written +by Ishmael. When she was asked once how and when she wrote this poem, she +replied, "I did not write it: I lived it one night in entering a strange +town." In vain she struggled against the strange and unexpected emotion. A +nervous terror of arriving at the hotel oppressed her more and more; +although, thanks to Harley Allen's thoughtfulness, she knew that their +rooms were already engaged for them. She felt as if she would rather drive +on and on, in all the darkness and rain, no matter where, all night long, +rather than enter the door of the strange and public house, in which she +must give her name and her mother's name on the threshold.</p> + +<p>When the carriage stopped, she moved so slowly to alight that her mother +exclaimed petulantly,--</p> + +<p>"Dear me, child, what's the matter with you? Ain't you goin' to git out? +Ain't this the tavern?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother, this is our place," said Mercy, in a low voice, unlike her +usual cheery, ringing tones, as she assisted her mother down the clumsy +steps from the old-fashioned, high vehicle. "They're expecting us: it is +all right." But her voice and face belied her words. She moved all +through the rest of the evening like one in a dream. She said little, but +busied herself in making her mother as comfortable as it was possible to +be in the dingy and unattractive little rooms; and, as soon as the tired +old woman had fallen asleep, Mercy sat down on the floor by the window, +and leaning her head on the sill cried hard.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-03"> +<h2>Chapter III.</h2> + + + +<p>The next morning the sun shone, and Mercy was herself again. Her +depression of the evening before seemed to her so causeless, so +inexplicable, that she recalled it almost with terror, as one might a +temporary insanity. She blushed to think of her unreasonable sensitiveness +to the words and tones of Stephen White. "As if it made any sort of +difference to mother and to me whether he were our friend or not. He can +do as he likes. I hope I'll be out when he calls," thought Mercy, as she +stood on the hotel piazza, after breakfast, scanning with a keen and eager +glance every feature of the scene. To her eyes, accustomed to the broad, +open, leisurely streets of the Cape Cod hamlet, its isolated little houses +with their trim flower-beds in front and their punctiliously kept fences +and gates, this somewhat untidy and huddled town looked unattractive. The +hotel stood on the top of one of the plateaus of which I spoke in the last +chapter. The ground fell away slowly to the east and to the south. A +poorly kept, oblong-shaped "common," some few acres in extent, lay just in +front of the hotel: it had once been fenced in; but the fences were sadly +out of repair, and two cows were grazing there this morning, as +composedly as if there were no town ordinance forbidding all running of +cattle in the streets. A few shabby old farm-wagons stood here and there +by these fences; the sleepy horses which had drawn them thither having +been taken out of the shafts, and tethered in some mysterious way to the +hinder part of the wagons. A court was in session; and these were the +wagons of lawyers and clients, alike humble in their style of equipage. On +the left-hand side of the hotel, down the eastern slope of the hill ran an +irregular block of brick buildings, no two of a height or size, The block +had burned down in spots several times, and each owner had rebuilt as much +or as little as he chose, which had resulted in as incoherent a bit of +architecture as is often seen. The general effect, however, was of a +tendency to a certain parallelism with the ground line: so that the block +itself seemed to be sliding down hill; the roof of the building farthest +east being not much above the level of the first story windows in the +building farthest west. To add to the queerness of this "Brick Row," as it +was called, the ingenuity of all the sign-painters of the region had been +called into requisition. Signs alphabetical, allegorical, and symbolic; +signs in black on white, in red on black, in rainbow colors on tin; signs +high up, and signs low down; signs swung, and signs posted,--made the +whole front of the Row look at a little distance like a wall of +advertisements of some travelling menagerie. There was a painted yellow +horse with a fiery red mane, which was the pride of the heart of Seth +Nims, the livery-stable keeper; and a big black dog's head with a gay +collar of scarlet and white morocco, which was supposed to draw the custom +of all owners of dogs to "John Locker, harness-maker." There was a +barber's pole, and an apothecary's shop with the conventional globes of +mysterious crimson and blue liquids in the window; and, to complete the +list of the decorations of this fantastic front, there had been painted +many years ago, high up on the wall, in large and irregular letters, the +sign stretching out over two-thirds of the row, "Miss Orra White's +Seminary for Young Ladies." Miss Orra White had been dead for several +years; and the hall in which she had taught her school, having passed +through many successive stages of degradation in its uses, had come at +last to be a lumber-room, from which had arisen many a waggish saying as +to the similarity between its first estate and its last.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the common, opposite the hotel, was a row of +dwelling-houses, which owing to the steep descent had a sunken look, as if +they were slipping into their own cellars. The grass was too green in +their yards, and the thick, matted plantain-leaves grew on both edges of +the sodden sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," thought Mercy to herself, "I am sure I hope our house is not +there." Then she stepped down from the high piazza, and stood for a moment +on the open space, looking up toward the north. She could only see for a +short distance up the winding road. A high, wood-crowned summit rose +beyond the houses, which seemed to be built higher and higher on the +slope, and to be much surrounded by trees. A street led off to the west +also: this was more thickly built up. To the south, there was again a +slight depression; and the houses, although of a better order than those +on the eastern side of the common, had somewhat of the same sunken air. +Mercy's heart turned to the north with a sudden and instinctive +recognition. "I am sure that is the right part of the town for mother," +she said. "If Mr. White's house is down in that hollow, we'll not live in +it long." She was so absorbed in her study of the place, and in her +conjectures as to their home, that she did not realize that she herself +was no ordinary sight in that street: a slight, almost girlish figure, in +a plain, straight, black gown like a nun's, with one narrow fold of +transparent white at her throat, tied carelessly by long floating ends of +black ribbon; her wavy brown hair blown about her eyes by the wind, her +cheeks flushed with the keen air, and her eyes bright with excitement. +Mercy could not be called even a pretty woman; but she had times and +seasons of looking beautiful, and this was one of them. The hostler, who +was rubbing down his horses in the door of the barn, came out +wide-mouthed, and exclaimed under his breath,--</p> + +<p>"Gosh! who's she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun +which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that +neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. +The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on +hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the +unconscious Mercy, and each, in their own way, paying tribute to her +appearance.</p> + +<p>"That's the gal thet comed last night with her mother. Darned sight +better-lookin' by daylight than she wuz then!" said the stable-boy.</p> + +<p>"Hm! boys an' men, ye 're all alike,--all for looks," said the cook, who +was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal +isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got +mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a lookin' for somebody +they're expectin'."</p> + +<p>"Steve White he was with 'em down to the depot," replied the stable-boy. +"Seth sed he handed on 'em into the kerridge, 's if they were regular +topknots, sure enough."</p> + +<p>"Hm! Seth Quin 's a fool, 'n' always wuz," replied the cook, with a +seemingly uncalled-for acerbity of tone. "I've allus observed that them +that hez the most to say about topknots hez the least idea of what +topknots really is. There ain't a touch o' topknot about that ere girl: +she's come o' real humbly people. Anybody with half an eye can see that. +Good gracious! I believe she's goin' to stand still, and let old man +Wheeler run over her. Look out there, look out, gal!" screamed the cook, +and pounded vigorously with her rolling-pin on the side of the door to +rouse Mercy's attention. Mercy turned just in time to confront a stout, +red-faced, old gentleman with a big cane, who was literally on the point +of walking over her. He was so near that, as she turned, he started back +as if she had hit him in the breast.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul, God bless my soul, miss!" he exclaimed, in his +excitement, striking his cane rapidly against the ground. "I beg your +pardon, beg pardon, miss. Bad habit of mine, very bad habit,--walk along +without looking. Walked on a dog the other day; hurt dog; tumbled down +myself, nearly broke my leg. Bad habit, miss,--bad habit; too old to +change, too old to change. Beg pardon, miss."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman mumbled these curt phrases in a series of inarticulate +jerks, as if his vocal apparatus were wound up and worked with a crank, +but had grown so rusty that every now and then a wheel would catch on a +cog. He did not stand still for a moment, but kept continually stepping, +stepping, without advancing or retreating, striking his heavy cane on the +ground at each step, as if beating time to his jerky syllables. He had +twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows, +and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and +white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable +Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied +that he was an ancient elf from the Hartz Mountains.</p> + +<p>Mercy could not refrain from laughing in his face, as she retreated a few +steps towards the piazza, and said,--</p> + +<p>"It is I who ought to beg your pardon. I had no business to be standing +stock-still in the middle of the highway like a post."</p> + +<p>"Sensible young woman! sensible young woman! God bless my soul! don't know +your face, don't know your face," said the old gentleman, peering out +from under the eaves of his eyebrows, and scrutinizing Mercy as a child +might scrutinize a new-comer into his father's house. One could not resent +it, any more than one could resent the gaze of a child. Mercy laughed +again.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, you don't know my face. I only came last night," she said.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Fine young woman! fine young woman! +glad to see you,--glad, glad. Girls good for nothing, nothing, nothing at +all, nowadays," jerked on the queer old gentleman, still shifting rapidly +from one foot to the other, and beating time continuously with his cane, +but looking into Mercy's face with so kindly a smile that she felt her +heart warm with affection towards him.</p> + +<p>"Your father come with you? Come to stay? I'd like to know ye, child. Like +your face,--good face, good face, very good face," continued the +inexplicable old man. "Don't like many people. People are wolves, wolves, +wolves. 'D like to know you, child. Good face, good face."</p> + +<p>"Can he be crazy?" thought Mercy. But the smile and the honest twinkle of +the clear blue eye were enough to counterbalance the incoherent talk: the +old man was not crazy, only eccentric to a rare degree. Mercy felt +instinctively that she had found a friend, and one whom she could trust +and lean on.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'm very glad you like my face. I like yours, +too,--you look so merry. I think I and my mother will be very glad to know +you. We have come to live here in half of Mr. Stephen White's house."</p> + +<p>"Merry, merry? Nobody calls me merry. That's a mistake, child,--mistake, +mistake. Mistake about the house, too,--mistake. Stephen White hasn't any +house,--no, no, hasn't any house. My name's Wheeler, Wheeler. Good enough +name. 'Old Man Wheeler' some think's better. I hear 'em: my cane don't +make so much noise but I hear 'em. Ha! ha! wolves, wolves, wolves! People +are all wolves, all alike, all alike. Got any money, child?" With this +last question, the whole expression of his face changed; the very features +seemed to shrink; his eyes grew dark and gleaming as they fastened on +Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>Even this did not rouse Mercy's distrust. There was something inexplicable +in the affectionate confidence she felt in this strange, old man.</p> + +<p>"Only a little, sir," she said. "We are not rich; we have only a little."</p> + +<p>"A little's a good deal, good deal, good deal. Take care of it, child. +People'll git it away from you. They're nothing but wolves, wolves, +wolves;" and, saying these words, the old man set off at a rapid pace down +the street, without bidding Mercy good-morning.</p> + +<p>As she stood watching him with an expression of ever-increasing +astonishment, he turned suddenly, planted his stick in the ground, and +called,--</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Bad habit, bad habit. Never do say +good-morning,--bad habit. Too old to change, too old to change. Bad habit, +bad habit." And with a nod to Mercy, but still not saying good-morning, +he walked away.</p> + +<p>Mercy ran into the house, breathless with amusement and wonder, and gave +her mother a most graphic account of this strange interview.</p> + +<p>"But, for all his queerness, I like him, and I believe he'll be a great +friend of ours," she said, as she finished her story.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was knitting a woollen stocking. She had been knitting woollen +stockings ever since Mercy could remember. She always kept several on hand +in different stages of incompletion: some that she could knit on in the +dark, without any counting of stitches; others that were in the process of +heeling or toeing, and required the closest attention. She had been +setting a heel while Mercy was speaking, and did not reply for a moment. +Then, pushing the stitches all into a compact bunch in the middle of one +needle, she let her work fall into her lap, and, rolling the disengaged +knitting-needle back and forth on her knee to brighten it, looked at Mercy +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said she, "queer people allers do take to each other. I don't +believe he's a bit queerer 'n you are, child." And Mrs. Carr laughed a +little laugh, half pride and half dissatisfaction. "You're jest like your +father: he'd make friends with a stranger, any day, on the street, in two +jiffeys, if he took a likin' to him; and there might be neighbors a livin' +right long 'side on us, for years an' years, thet he'd never any more 'n +jest pass the time o' day with, 'n' he wa'n't a bit stuck up, either. I +used ter ask him, often 'n' often, what made him so offish to sum folks, +when I knew he hadn't the least thing agin 'em; and he allers said, sez +he, 'Well, I can't tell ye nothin' about it, only jest this is the way 't +is: I can't talk to 'em; they sort o' shet me up, like. I don't feel +nateral, somehow, when they're round!'"</p> + +<p>"O mother!" exclaimed Mercy, "I think I must be just like father. That is +exactly the way I feel so often. When I get with some people, I feel just +as if I had been changed into somebody else. I can't bear to open my +mouth. It is like a bad dream, when you dream you can't move hand nor +foot, all the time they're in the room with me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I thank the Lord, I don't never take such notions about people," +said Mrs. Carr, settling herself back in her chair, and beginning to make +her needles fly. "Nobody don't never trouble me much, one way or the +other. For my part, I think folks is alike as peas. We shouldn't hardly +know 'em apart, if 't wa'n't for their faces."</p> + +<p>Mercy was about to reply, "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; +and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But +she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well +as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the +childish intellect to grasp.</p> + +<p>Mercy was impatient to go at once to see their new home; but she could not +induce her mother to leave the house.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy!" she exclaimed pathetically, "ef yer knew what a comfort 't was +to me jest to set still in a chair once more. It seems like heaven, arter +them pesky joltin' cars. I ain't in no hurry to see the house. It can't +run away, I reckon; and we're sure of it, ain't we? There ain't any thing +that's got to be done, is there?" she asked nervously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, mother. It is all sure. We have leased the house for one year; +and we can't move in until our furniture comes, of course. But I do long +to see what the place is like, don't you?" replied Mercy, pleadingly.</p> + +<p>"No, no, child. Time enough when we move in. 'T ain't going to make any +odds what it's like. We're goin' to live in it, anyhow. You jest go by +yourself, ef you want to so much, an' let me set right here. It don't seem +to me 's I'll ever want to git out o' this chair." At last, very +unwillingly, late in the afternoon, Mercy went, leaving her mother alone +in the hotel.</p> + +<p>Without asking a question of anybody, she turned resolutely to the north.</p> + +<p>"Even if our house is not on this street," she said to herself, "I am +going to see those lovely woods;" and she walked swiftly up the hill, with +her eyes fixed on the glowing dome of scarlet and yellow leaves which +crowned it. The trees were in their full autumnal splendor: maples, +crimson, scarlet, and yellow; chestnuts, pale green and yellow; beeches, +shining golden brown; and sumacs in fiery spikes, brighter than all the +rest. There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their +green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors. Mercy had +often read of the glories of autumn in New England's thickly wooded +regions; but she had never dreamed that it could be so beautiful as this. +Rows of young maples lined the street which led up to this wooded hill. +Each tree seemed a full sheaf of glittering color; and yet the path below +was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright. Mercy walked +lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed +brighter than all the rest. In a very short time, her hands were too full; +and in despair, like an over-laden child, she began to scatter them along +the way. She was so absorbed in her delight in the leaves that she hardly +looked at the houses on either hand, except to note with an unconscious +satisfaction that they were growing fewer and farther apart, and that +every thing looked more like country and less like town than it had done +in the neighborhood of the hotel.</p> + +<p>Presently she came to a stretch of stone wall, partly broken down, in +front of an old orchard whose trees were gnarled and moss-grown. +Blackberry-vines had flung themselves over this wall, in and out among the +stones. The leaves of these vines were almost as brilliant as the leaves +of the maple-trees. They were of all shades of red, up to the deepest +claret; they were of light green, shading into yellow, and curiously +mottled with tiny points of red; all these shades and colors sometimes +being seen upon one long runner. The effect of these wreaths and tangles +of color upon the old, gray stones was so fine that Mercy stood still and +involuntarily exclaimed aloud. Then she picked a few of the most +beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them +with the maple-leaves she had already gathered. She made a most +picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint +little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and +leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them, +her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them. She +looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and +coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange +fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them, +unaware that she was on a highway.</p> + +<p>This was the picture that Stephen White saw, as he came slowly up the road +on his way home after an unusually wearying day. He slackened his pace, +and, perceiving how entirely unconscious Mercy was of his approach, +deliberately studied her, feature, dress, attitude,--all, as +scrutinizingly as if she had been painted on canvas and hanging on a wall.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word," he said to himself, "she isn't bad-looking, after all. I'm +not sure that she isn't pretty. If she hadn't that inconceivable bonnet on +her head,--yes, she is very pretty. Her mouth is bewitching. I declare, I +believe she is beautiful," were Stephen's successive verdicts, as he drew +nearer and nearer to Mercy. Mercy was thinking of him at that very +moment,--was thinking of him with a return of the annoyance and +mortification which had stung her at intervals all day, whenever she +recalled their interview of the previous evening. Mercy combined, in a +very singular manner, some of the traits of an impulsive nature with those +of an unimpulsive one. She did things, said things, and felt things with +the instantaneous intensity of the poetic temperament; but she was quite +capable of looking at them afterward, and weighing them with the cool and +unbiassed judgment of the most phlegmatic realist. Hence she often had +most uncomfortable seasons, in which one side of her nature took the other +side to task, scorned it and berated it severely; holding up its actions +to its remorseful view, as an elder sister might chide a younger one, who +was incorrigibly perverse and wayward.</p> + +<p>"It was about as silly a thing as you ever did in your life. He must have +thought you a perfect fool to have supposed he had come down to meet you," +she was saying to herself at the very moment when the sound of Stephen's +footsteps first reached her ear, and caused her to look up. The sight of +his face at that particular moment was so startling and so unpleasant to +her that it deprived her of all self-possession. She gave a low cry, her +face was flooded with crimson, and she sprang from the wall so hastily +that her leaves and vines flew in every direction.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry I frightened you so, Mrs. Philbrick," said Stephen, quite +unconscious of the true source of her confusion. "I was just on the point +of speaking, when you heard me. I ought to have spoken before, but you +made so charming a picture sitting there among the leaves and vines that I +could not resist looking at you a little longer."</p> + +<p>Mercy Philbrick hated a compliment. This was partly the result of the +secluded life she had led; partly an instinctive antagonism in her +straightforward nature to any thing which could be even suspected of not +being true. The few direct compliments she had received had been from men +whom she neither respected nor trusted. These words, coming from Stephen +White, just at this moment, were most offensive to her.</p> + +<p>Her face flushed still deeper red, and saying curtly,--"You frightened me +very much, Mr. White; but it is not of the least consequence," she turned +to walk back to the village. Stephen unconsciously stretched out his hand +to detain her.</p> + +<p>"But, Mrs. Philbrick," he said eagerly, "pray tell me what you think of +the house. Do you think you can be contented in it?"</p> + +<p>"I have not seen it," replied Mercy, in the same curt tone, still moving +on.</p> + +<p>"Not seen it!" exclaimed Stephen, in a tone which was of such intense +astonishment that it effectually roused Mercy's attention. "Not seen it! +Why, did you not know you were on your own stone wall? There is the +house;" and Mercy, following the gesture of his hand, saw, not more than +twenty rods beyond the spot where she had been sitting, a shabby, faded, +yellow wooden house, standing in a yard which looked almost as neglected +as the orchard, from which it was only in part separated by a tumbling +stone wall.</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Stephen watched her face in silence for a moment; +then he laughed constrainedly, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Philbrick, to say outright that it is the +dismallest old barn you ever saw. That's just what I had said about it +hundreds of times, and wondered how anybody could possibly live in it. But +necessity drove us into it, and I suppose necessity has brought you to it, +too," added Stephen, sadly.</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Very deliberately her eyes scanned the building. An +expression of scorn slowly gathered on her face.</p> + +<p>"It is not so forlorn inside as it is out," said Stephen. "Some of the +rooms are quite pleasant. The south rooms in your part of the house are +very cheerful."</p> + +<p>Mercy did not speak. Stephen went on, beginning to be half-angry with this +little, unknown woman from Cape Cod, who looked with the contemptuous +glance of a princess upon the house in which he and his mother dwelt,--</p> + +<p>"You are quite at liberty to throw up your lease, Mrs. Philbrick, if you +choose. It was, perhaps, hardly fair to have let you hire the house +without seeing it."</p> + +<p>Mercy started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. White. I should not think of such a +thing as giving up the lease. I am very sorry you saw how ugly I think the +house. I do think it is the very ugliest house I ever saw," she continued, +speaking with emphatic deliberation; "but, then, I have not seen many +houses. In our village at home, all the houses are low and broad and +comfortable-looking. They look as if they had sat down and leaned back +to take their ease; and they are all neat and clean-looking, and have rows +of flower-beds from the gate to the front door. I never saw a house built +with such a steep angle to its roof as this has," said Mercy, looking up +with the instinctive dislike of a natural artist's eye at the ridgepole of +the old house.</p> + +<p>"We have to have our roofs at a sharp pitch, to let the snow slide off in +winter," said Stephen, apologetically, "we have such heavy snows here; but +that doesn't make the angle any less ugly to look at."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mercy; and her eyes still roved up and down and over the house, +with not a shadow of relenting in their expression. It was Stephen's turn +to be silent now. He watched her, but did not speak.</p> + +<p>Mercy's face was not merely a record of her thoughts: it was a photograph +of them. As plainly as on a written page held in his hand, Stephen White +read the successive phases of thought and struggle which passed through +Mercy's mind for the next five minutes; and he was not in the least +surprised when, turning suddenly towards him with a very sweet smile, she +said in a resolute tone,--</p> + +<p>"There! that's done with. I hope you will forgive my rudeness, Mr. White; +but the truth is I was awfully shocked at the first sight of the house. It +isn't your house, you know, so it isn't quite so bad for me to say so; and +I'm so glad you hate it as much as I do. Now I am never going to think +about it again,--never."</p> + +<p>"Why, can you help it, Mrs. Philbrick?" asked Stephen, in a wondering +tone. "I can't. I hate it more and more, I verily believe, each time I +come home; and I think that, if my mother weren't in it, I should burn it +down some night."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him with a certain shade of the same contempt with which +she had looked at the house; and Stephen winced, as she said coolly,--</p> + +<p>"Why, of course I can help it. I should be very much ashamed of myself if +I couldn't. I never allow myself to be distressed by things which I can't +help,--at least, that sort of thing," added Mercy, her face clouding with +the sudden recollection of a grief that she had not been able to rise +above. "Of course, I don't mean real troubles, like grief about any one +you love. One can't wholly conquer such troubles as that; but one can do a +great deal more even with these than people usually suppose. I am not sure +that it is right to let ourselves be unhappy about any thing, even the +worst of troubles. But I must hurry home now. It is growing late."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick," exclaimed Stephen, earnestly: "please come into the +house, and speak to my mother a moment. You don't know how she has been +looking forward to your coming."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I cannot possibly do that," replied Mercy. "There is no reason +why I should call on your mother, merely because we are going to live in +the same house."</p> + +<p>"But I assure you," persisted Stephen, "that it will give her the greatest +pleasure. She is a helpless cripple, and never leaves her bed. She has +probably been watching us from the window. She always watches for me. She +will wonder if I do not bring you in to see her. Please come," he said +with a tone which it was impossible to resist; and Mercy went.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White had indeed been watching them from the window; but Stephen had +reckoned without his host, or rather without his hostess, when he assured +Mercy that his mother would be so glad to see her. The wisest and the +tenderest of men are continually making blunders in their relations with +women; especially if they are so unfortunate as to occupy in any sense a +position involving a relation to two women at once. The relation may be +ever so rightful and honest to each woman; the women may be good women, +and in their right places; but the man will find himself perpetually +getting into most unexpected hot water, as many a man could testify +pathetically, if he were called upon.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White had been watching her son through the whole of his conversation +with Mercy. She could see only dimly at such a distance; but she had +discerned that it was a woman with whom he stood talking so long. It was +nearly half an hour past supper-time, and supper was Mrs. White's one +festivity in the course of the day. Their breakfast and their mid-day +dinner were too hurried meals for enjoyment, because Stephen was obliged +to make haste to the office; but with supper there was nothing to +interfere. Stephen's work for the day was done: he took great pains to +tell her at this time every thing which he had seen or heard which could +give her the least amusement. She looked forward all through her long +lonely days to the evenings, as a child looks forward to Saturday +afternoons. Like all invalids whose life has been forced into grooves, she +was impatient and unreasonable when anybody or any thing interfered with +her routine. A five minutes' delay was to her a serious annoyance, and +demanded an accurate explanation. Stephen so thoroughly understood this +exactingness on her part that he adjusted his life to it, as a +conscientious school-boy adjusts his to bells and signals, and never +trespassed knowingly. If he had dreamed that it was past tea-time, on this +unlucky night, he would never have thought of asking Mercy to go in and +see his mother. But he did not; and it was with a bright and eager face +that he threw open the door, and said in the most cordial tone,--</p> + +<p>"Mother, I have brought Mrs. Philbrick to see you."</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mrs. Philbrick?" was the rejoinder, in a tone and with a +look so chilling that poor Mercy's heart sank within her. She had all +along had an ideal in her own mind of the invalid old lady, Mr. White's +mother, to whom she was to be very good, and who was to be her mother's +companion. She pictured her as her own mother would be, a good deal older +and feebler, in a gentle, receptive, patient old age. Of so repellent, +aggressive, unlovely an old woman as this she had had no conception. It +would be hard to do justice in words to Mrs. White's capacity to be +disagreeable when she chose. She had gray eyes, which, though they had a +very deceptive trick of suffusing with tears as of great sensibility on +occasion, were capable of resting upon a person with a positively unhuman +coldness; her voice also had at these times a distinctly unhuman quality +in its tones. She had apparently no conception of any necessity of +controlling her feelings, or the expression of them. If she were pleased, +if all things went precisely as she liked, if all persons ministered to +her pleasure, well and good,--she would be graciously pleased to smile, +and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not +consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person +who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who was +responsible for her annoyance.</p> + +<p>As soon as Stephen's eyes fell on her face, on this occasion, he felt with +a sense of almost terror that he had made a fatal mistake, and he knew +instantly that it must be much later than he had supposed; but he plunged +bravely in, like a man taking a header into a pool he fears he may drown +in, and began to give a voluble account of how he had found Mrs. Philbrick +sitting on their stone wall, so absorbed in looking at the bright leaves +that she had not even seen the house. He ran on in this strain for some +minutes, hoping that his mother's mood might soften, but in vain. She +listened with the same stony, unresponsive look on her face, never taking +the stony, unresponsive eyes from his face; and, as soon as he stopped +speaking, she said in an equally stony voice,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, will you be so good as to take off your bonnet and take +tea with us? It is already long past our tea-hour!"</p> + +<p>Mercy sprang to her feet, and said impulsively, "Oh, no, I thank you. I +did not dream that it was so late. My mother will be anxious about me. I +must go. I am very sorry I came in. Good-evening."</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mrs. Philbrick," in the same slow and stony syllables, came +from Mrs. White's lips, and she turned her head away immediately.</p> + +<p>Stephen, with his face crimson with mortification, followed Mercy to the +door. In a low voice, he said, "I hope you will be able to make allowances +for my mother's manner. It is all my fault. I know that she can never bear +to have me late at meals, and I ought never to allow myself to forget the +hour. It is all my fault"</p> + +<p>Mercy's indignation at her reception was too great for her sense of +courtesy.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it was your fault at all, Mr. White," she exclaimed. +"Good-night," and she was out of sight before Stephen could think of a +word to say.</p> + +<p>Very slowly he walked back into the sitting-room. He had seldom been so +angry with his mother; but his countenance betrayed no sign of it, and he +took his seat opposite her in silence. Silence, absolute, unconquerable +silence, was the armor which Stephen White wore. It was like those +invisible networks of fine chains worn next the skin, in which many men in +the olden time passed unscathed through years of battles, and won the +reputation of having charmed lives. No one suspected the secret. To the +ordinary beholder, the man seemed accoutred in the ordinary fashion of +soldiers; but, whenever a bullet struck him, it glanced off harmlessly as +if turned back by a spell. It was so with Stephen White's silence: in +ordinary intercourse, he was social genial; he talked more than average +men talk; he took or seemed to take, more interest than men usually take +in the common small talk of average people; but the instant there was a +manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched +himself in silence. This was especially the case when he was reproached or +aroused by his mother. It was often more provoking to her than any amount +of retort or recrimination could have been. She had in her nature a +certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small +offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its +details; all the while making it out a matter of personal unkindness or +indifference to her that it should have happened. When she was in these +moods, Stephen's silence sometimes provoked her past endurance.</p> + +<p>"Can't you speak, Stephen?" she would exclaim.</p> + +<p>"What would be the use, mother?" he would say sadly. "If you do not know +that the great aim of my life is to make you happy, it is of no use for me +to keep on saying it. If it would make you any happier to keep on +discussing and discussing this question indefinitely, I would endure even +that; but it would not."</p> + +<p>To do Mrs. White justice, she was generally ashamed of these ebullitions +of unreasonable ill-temper, and endeavored to atone for them afterward by +being more than ordinarily affectionate and loving in her manner towards +Stephen. But her shame was short-lived, and never made her any the less +unreasonable or exacting when the next occasion occurred; so that, +although Stephen received her affectionate epithets and caresses with +filial responsiveness, he was never in the slightest degree deluded by +them. He took them for what they were worth, and held himself no whit +freer from constraint, no whit less ready for the next storm. By the very +fact of the greater fineness of his organization, this tyrannical woman +held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it +had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which +compelled respect. He had accepted this burden as the one great duty of +his life; and, whatever became of him, whatever became of his life, the +burden should be carried. This helpless woman, who stood to him in the +relation of mother, should be made happy. From the moment of his father's +death, he had assumed this obligation as a sacrament; and, if it lasted +his life out, he would never dream of evading or lessening it. In this +fine fibre of loyalty, Stephen White and Mercy Philbrick were alike: +though it was in him more an exalted sentiment; in her, simply an organic +necessity. In him, it would always have been in danger of taking morbid +shapes and phases; of being over-ridden and distorted at any time by +selfishness or wickedness in its object, as it had been by his selfish +mother. In Mercy, it was on a higher and healthier plane. Without being a +shade less loyal, she would be far clearer-sighted; would render, but not +surrender; would give a lifetime of service, but not a moment of +subjection. There was a shade of something feminine in Stephen's loyalty, +of something perhaps masculine in Mercy's; but Mercy's was the best, the +truest.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't allow my mother to treat a stranger like that," she thought +indignantly, as she walked away after Mrs. White's inhospitable invitation +to tea. "I wouldn't allow her. I would make her see the shamefulness of +it. What a weak man Mr. White must be!"</p> + +<p>Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have +seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression +of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of +ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had +strength, however much she might have undervalued its type.</p> + +<p>"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen, +than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward +to, all day long. You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did +you not know how late it was?"</p> + +<p>"No, mother. If I had, I should have come in."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd like to know what excuse there is for a man's not knowing what +time it is, when he has a watch in his pocket? And then you must needs +bring her in here, of all things,--when you know I hate to see people +near my meal-times, and you must have known it was near supper-time. At +any rate, watch or no watch, I suppose you didn't think you'd started to +come home in the middle of the afternoon, did you? And what did you want +her to come in for, anyhow? I'd like to know that. Answer me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Simply because I thought that it would give you pleasure to see some one, +mother. You often complain of being so lonely, of no one's coming in," +replied Stephen, in a tone which was pathetic, almost shrill, from its +effort to be patient and calm.</p> + +<p>"I wish, if you can't speak in your own voice, you wouldn't speak at all," +said the angry woman. "What makes you change your voice so?"</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. He knew very well this strange tone which sometimes +came into his voice, when his patience was tried almost beyond endurance. +He would have liked to avoid it; he was instinctively conscious that it +often betrayed to other people what he suffered. But it was beyond his +control: it seemed as if all the organs of speech involuntarily clenched +themselves, as the hand unconsciously clenches itself when a man is +enraged.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White persisted. "Your voice, when you're angry, 's enough to drive +anybody wild. I never heard any thing like it. And I'm sure I don't see +what you have to be angry at now. I should think I was the one to be +angry. You're all I've got in the world, Stephen; and you know what a life +I lead. It isn't as if I could go about, like other women; then I +shouldn't care where you spent your time, if you didn't want to spend it +with me." And tears, partly of ill-temper, partly of real grief, rolled +down the hard, unlovely, old face.</p> + +<p>This was only one evening. There are three hundred and sixty-five in a +year. Was not the burden too heavy for mortal man to carry?</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-04"> +<h2>Chapter IV.</h2> + + + +<p>Mercy said nothing to her mother of Mrs. White's rudeness. She merely +mentioned the fact of her having met Mr. White near the house, and having +gone with him, at his request, to speak to his mother.</p> + +<p>"What's she like, Mercy?" asked Mrs. Carr, eagerly. "Is she goin' to be +company for me?"</p> + +<p>"I could not tell, mother," replied Mercy, indifferently; "for it was just +their tea-hour, and I did not stay a minute,--only just to say, How d'ye +do, and Good-evening. But Mr. White says she is very lonely; people don't +go to see her much: so I should think she would be very glad of somebody +her own age in the house, to come and sit with her. She looks very ill, +poor soul. She hasn't been out of her bed, except when she was lifted, for +eight years."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I hope I'll never be that +way. What'u'd you ever do child, if I'd get to be like that?"</p> + +<p>"No danger, mother dear, of your ever being like Mrs. White," said Mercy, +with an incautious emphasis, which, however, escaped Mrs. Carr's +recognition.</p> + +<p>"Why, how can you be so sure I mightn't ever get into jest so bad a way, +child? There's none of us can say what diseases we're likely to hev or +not to hev. Now there's never been a case o' lung trouble in our family +afore mine, not 's fur back 's anybody kin trace it out; 'n' there's been +two cancers to my own knowledge; 'n' I allus hed a most awful dread o' +gettin' a cancer. There ain't no death like thet. There wuz my mother's +half-sister, Keziah,--she that married Elder Swift for her second husband. +She died o' cancer; an' her oldest boy by her first husband he hed it in +his face awful. But he held on ter life 's ef he couldn't say die, nohow; +and I tell yer, Mercy, it wuz a sight nobody'd ever forget, to see him +goin' round the street with one side o' his face all bound up, and his +well eye a rolling round, a-doin' the work o' two. He got so he couldn't +see at all out o' either eye afore he died, 'n' you could hear his +screeches way to our house. There wouldn't no laudalum stop the pain a +mite."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother! don't! don't!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is too dreadful to talk +about. I can't bear to think that any human being has ever suffered so. +Please don't ever speak of cancers again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr looked puzzled and a little vexed, as she answered, "Well, I +reckon they've got to be talked about a good deal, fust and last, 's long +'s there's so many dies on 'em. But I don't know 's you 'n' I've got any +call to dwell on 'em much. You've got dreadful quick feelin's, Mercy, +ain't you? You allus was orful feelin' for everybody when you wuz little, +'n' I don't see 's you've outgrowed it a bit. But I expect it's thet makes +you sech friends with folks, an' makes you such a good gal to your poor +old mother. Kiss me, child," and Mrs. Carr lifted up her face to be +kissed, as a child lifts up its face to its mother. She did this many +times a day; and, whenever Mercy bent down to kiss her, she put her hands +on the old woman's shoulders, and said, "Dear little mother!" in a tone +which made her mother's heart warm with happiness.</p> + +<p>It is a very beautiful thing to see just this sort of relation between an +aged parent and a child, the exact reversal of the bond, and the bond so +absolutely fulfilled. It seems to give a new and deeper sense to the word +"filial," and a new and deeper significance to the joy of motherhood or +fatherhood. Alas, that so few sons and daughters are capable of it! so few +helpless old people know the blessedness of it! No little child six years +old ever rested more entirely and confidingly in the love and kindness and +shelter and direction of its mother than did Mrs. Carr in the love and +kindness and shelter and direction of her daughter Mercy. It had begun to +be so, while Mercy was yet a little girl. Before she was fifteen years +old, she felt a responsibility for her mother's happiness, a watchfulness +over her mother's health, and even a care of her mother's clothes. With +each year, the sense of these responsibilities grew deeper; and after her +marriage, as she was denied the blessing of children, all the deep +maternal instincts of her strong nature flowed back and centred anew +around this comparatively helpless, aged child whom she called mother, and +treated with never-failing respect.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Carr first saw the house they were to live in, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"O Lor', Mercy! Is thet the house?" Then, stepping back a few steps, +shoving her spectacles high on her nose, and with her head well thrown +back, she took a survey of the building in silence. Then she turned slowly +around, and, facing Mercy, said in a droll, dry way, not uncommon with +her,--</p> + +<p>"'Bijah Jenkins's barn!"</p> + +<p>Mercy laughed outright.</p> + +<p>"So it is, mother. I hadn't thought of it. It looks just like that old +barn of Deacon Jenkins's."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Carr. "That's it, exzackly. Well, I never thought o' +offerin' to hire a barn to live in afore, but I s'pose 't'll do till we +can look about. Mebbe we can do better."</p> + +<p>"But we've taken it for a year, mother," said Mercy, a little dismayed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hev we? Well, well, I daresay it's comfortable enough; so the sun +shines in mornin's, thet's the most I care for. You'll make any kind o' +house pooty to look at inside, an' I reckon we needn't roost on the fences +outside, a-lookin' at it, any more'n we choose to. It does look, for all +the world though, like 'Bijah Jenkins's old yaller barn; 'n' thet there +jog's jest the way he jined on his cow-shed. I declare it's too +redicklus." And the old lady laughed till she had to wipe her spectacles.</p> + +<p>"It could be made very pretty, I think," said Mercy, "for all it is so +hideous now. I know just what I'd do to it, if it were mine. I'd throw +out a big bay window in that corner where the jog is, and another on the +middle of the north side, and then run a piazza across the west side, and +carry the platform round both the bay windows. I saw a picture of a house +in a book Mr. Allen had, which looked very much as this would look then. +Oh, but I'd like to do it!" Mercy's imagination was so fired with the +picture she had made to herself of the house thus altered and improved, +that she could not easily relinquish it.</p> + +<p>"But, Mercy, you don't know the lay o' the rooms, child. You don' 'no' +where that ere jog comes. Your bay window mightn't come so's't would be of +any use. Yer wouldn't build one jest to look at, would you?" said her +mother.</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure I wouldn't, if I had plenty of money," replied Mercy, +laughing. "But I have no idea of building bay windows on other people's +houses. I was only amusing myself by planning it. I'd rather have that +house, old and horrid as it is, than any house in the town. I like the +situation so much, and the woods are so beautiful. Perhaps I'll earn a lot +of money some day, and buy the place, and make it just as we like it."</p> + +<p>"You earn money, child!" said Mrs. Carr, in a tone of unqualified wonder. +"How could you earn money, I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, make bonnets or gowns, dear little mother, or teach school," said +Mercy, coloring. "Mr. Allen said I was quite well enough fitted to teach +our school at home, if I liked."</p> + +<p>"But, Mercy, child, you'd never go to do any such thing's thet, would yer +now?" said her mother, piteously. "Don't ye hev all ye want, Mercy? Ain't +there money enough for our clothes? I'm sure I don't need much; an' I +could do with a good deal less, if there was any thing you wanted, dear. +Your father he 'd never rest in his grave, ef he thought his little Mercy +was a havin' to arn money for her livin'. You didn't mean it, child, did +yer? Say yer didn't mean it, Mercy," and tears stood in the poor old +woman's eyes.</p> + +<p>It is strange what a tenacious pride there was in the hearts of our old +sea-faring men of a half century ago. They had the same feeling that kings +and emperors might have in regard to their wives and daughters, that it +was a disgrace for them to be obliged to earn money. It would be an +interesting thing to analyze this sentiment, to trace it to its roots: it +was so universal among successful sea-faring men that it must have had its +origin in some trait distinctively peculiar to their profession. All the +other women in the town or the village might eke out the family incomes by +whatever devices they pleased; but the captains' wives were to be ladies. +They were to wear silk gowns brought from many a land; they were to have +ornaments of quaint fashion, picked up here and there; they were to have +money enough in the bank to live on in quiet comfort during the intervals +when the husbands sailed away to make more. So strong was this feeling +that it crystallized into a traditionary custom of life, which even +poverty finds it hard to overcome. You shall find to-day, in any one of +the seaport cities or towns of New England, widows and daughters of +sea-captains, living, or rather seeming to live, upon the most beggarly +incomes, but still keeping up a certain pathetic sham of appearance of +being at ease. If they are really face to face with probable starvation, +they may go to some charitable institution where fine needlework is given +out, and earn a few dollars in that way. But they will fetch and carry +their work by night, and no neighbor will ever by any chance surprise them +with it in their hands. Most beautifully is this surreptitious sewing +done; there is no work in this country like it. The tiny stitches bear the +very aroma of sad and lonely leisure in them; a certain fine pride, too, +as if the poverty-constrained lady would in no wise condescend to depart +from her own standard in the matter of a single loop or stitch, no matter +to what plebeian uses the garment might come after it should leave her +hands.</p> + +<p>Mercy's deep blush when she replied to her mother's astonished inquiry, +how she could possibly earn any money, sprung from her consciousness of a +secret,--a secret so harmless in itself, that she was ashamed of having +any feeling of guilt in keeping it a secret; and yet, her fine and +fastidious honesty so hated even the semblance of concealment, that the +mere withholding of a fact, simply because she disliked to mention it, +seemed to her akin to a denial of it. If there is such a thing in a human +being as organic honesty,--an honesty which makes a lie not difficult, but +impossible, just as it is impossible for men to walk on ceilings like +flies, or to breathe in water like fishes,--Mercy Philbrick had it. The +least approach to an equivocation was abhorrent to her: not that she +reasoned about it, and submitting it to her conscience found it wicked, +and therefore hateful; but that she disliked it instinctively,--as +instinctively as she disliked pain. Her moral nerves shrank from it, just +as nerves of the body shrink from suffering; and she recoiled from the +suggestion of such a thing with the same involuntary quickness with which +we put up the hand to ward off a falling blow, or drop the eyelid to +protect an endangered eye. Physicians tell us that there are in men and +women such enormous differences in this matter of sensitiveness to +physical pain that one person may die of a pain which would be +comparatively slight to another; and this is a fact which has to be taken +very carefully into account, in all dealing with disease in people of the +greatest capacity for suffering. May there not be equally great +differences in souls, in the matter of sensitiveness to moral +hurt?--differences for which the soul is not responsible, any more than +the body is responsible for its skin's having been made thin or thick. +Will-power has nothing whatever to do with determining the latter +conditions. Let us be careful how far we take it to task for failing to +control the others. Perhaps we shall learn, in some other stage of +existence, that there is in this world a great deal of moral color +blindness, congenital, incurable; and that God has much more pity than we +suppose for poor things who have stumbled a good many times while they +were groping in darkness.</p> + +<p>People who see clearly themselves are almost always intolerant of those +who do not. We often see this ludicrously exemplified, even in the trivial +matter of near-sightedness. We are almost always a little vexed, when we +point out a distant object to a friend, and hear him reply,-- + +"No, I do not see it at all. I am near-sighted."</p> + +<p>"What! can't you see that far?" is the frequent retort, and in the pity is +a dash of impatience.</p> + +<p>There is a great deal of intolerance in the world, which is closely akin +to this; and not a whit more reasonable or righteous, though it makes +great pretensions to being both. Mercy Philbrick was full of such +intolerance, on this one point of honesty. She was intolerant not only to +others, she was intolerant to herself. She had seasons of fierce and +hopeless debating with herself, on the most trivial matters, or what would +seem so to nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand. During +such seasons as these, her treatment of her friends and acquaintances had +odd alternations of frank friendliness and reticent coolness. A sudden +misgiving whether she might not be appearing to like her friend more than +she really did would seize her at most inopportune moments, and make her +absent-minded and irresponsive. She would leave sentences abruptly +unfinished,--invitations, perhaps, or the acceptances of invitations, the +mere words of which spring readily to one's lips, and are thoughtlessly +spoken. But, in Mercy's times of conflict with herself, even these were +exaggerated in her view to monstrous deceits. She had again and again +held long conversations with Mr. Allen on this subject, but he failed to +help her. He was a good man, of average conscientiousness and average +perception: he literally could not see many of the points which Mercy's +keener analysis ferreted out, and sharpened into weapons for her own pain. +He thought her simply morbid.</p> + +<p>"Now, child," he would say,--for, although he was only a few years Mercy's +senior, he had taught her like a child for three years,--"now, child, +leave off worrying yourself by these fancies. There is not the least +danger of your ever being any thing but truthful. Nature and grace are +both too strong in you. There is no lie in saying to a person who has come +to see you in your own house, 'I am glad to see you,' for you are glad; +and, if not, you can make yourself glad, when you think how much pleasure +you can give the person by talking with him. You are glad, always, to give +pleasure to any human being, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Mercy would reply unhesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Very well. To the person who comes to see you, you give pleasure: +therefore, you are glad to see him."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Allen," would persist poor Mercy, "that is not what the person +thinks I mean. Very often some one comes to see me, who bores me so that I +can hardly keep awake. He would not be pleased if he knew that all my +cordial welcome really meant was,--'I'm glad to see you, because I'm a +benevolent person, and am willing to make my fellow-creatures happy at any +sacrifice, even at the frightful one of entertaining such a bore as you +are!' He would never come near me again, if he knew I thought that; and +yet, if I do think so, and make him think I do not, is not that the +biggest sort of a lie? Why, Mr. Allen, many a time when I have seen +tiresome or disagreeable people coming to our house, I have run away and +hid myself, so as not to be found; not in the least because I could not +bear the being bored by them, but because I could not bear the thought of +the lies I should speak, or at least act, if I saw them."</p> + +<p>"The interpretation a visitor chooses to put upon our kind cordiality of +manner to him is his own affair, not ours, Mercy. It is a Christian duty +to be cordial and kindly of manner to every human being: any thing less +gives pain, repels people from us, and hinders our being able to do them +good. There is no more doubt of this than of any other first principle of +Christian conduct; and I am very sorry that these morbid notions have +taken such hold of you. If you yield to them, you will make yourself soon +disliked and feared, and give a great deal of needless pain to your +neighbors."</p> + +<p>It was hard for Mr. Allen to be severe with Mercy, for he loved her as if +she were his younger sister; but he honestly thought her to be in great +danger of falling into a chronic morbidness on this subject, and he +believed that stern words were most likely to convince her of her mistake. +It was a sort of battle, however,--this battle which Mercy was forced to +fight,--in which no human being can help another, unless he has first been +through the same battle himself. All that Mr. Allen said seemed to Mercy +specious and, to a certain extent, trivial: it failed to influence her, +simply because it did not so much as recognize the point where her +difficulty lay.</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Allen tries till he dies, he will never convinc me that it is not +deceiving people to make them think you're glad to see them when you're +not," Mercy said to herself often, as, with flushed cheeks and tears in +her eyes, she walked home after these conversations. "He may make me think +that it is right to deceive them rather than to make them unhappy. It +almost seems as if it must be; yet, if we once admitted that, where +should we ever stop? It seems to me that would be a very dangerous +doctrine. A lie's a lie, let whoever will call it fine names, and pass it +off as a Christian duty The Bible does not say, 'Thou shalt not lie, +except when it is necessary to lie, to avoid hurting thy neighbor's +feelings,' It says, 'Thou shalt not lie.' Oh, what a horrible word 'lie' +is! It stings like a short, sharp stroke with a lash." And Mercy would +turn away from the thought with a shudder, and resolutely force hersef to +think of something else. Sometimes she would escape from the perplexity +for weeks: chance would so favor her, that no opportunity for what she +felt to be deceit would occur; but, in these intervals of relief, her +tortured conscience seemed only to renew its voices, and spring upon her +all the more fiercely on the next occasion. The effect, of all these +indecisive conflicts upon Mercy's character had not been good. They had +left her morally bruised, and therefore abnormally sensitive to the least +touch. She was in danger of becoming either a fanatic for truth, or +indifferent to it. Paradoxcal as it may seem, she was in almost as much +danger of the one as of the other. But always, when our hurts are fast +healing without help, the help comes. It is probable that there is to-day +on the earth a cure, either in herb or stone or spring, for every ill +which men's bodies can know. Ignorance and accident may hinder us long +from them, but sooner or later the race shall come to possess them all. So +with souls. There is the ready truth, the living voice, the warm hand, or +the final experience, waiting for each soul's need. We do not die till we +have found them. There were yet to enter into Mercy Philbrick's life a new +light and a new force, by the help of which she would see clearly and +stand firm. + +The secret which she had now for nearly a year kept from her mother was a +very harmless one. To people of the world, it would appear so trivial a +thing, that the conscience which could feel itself wounded by reticence on +such a point would seem hardly worth a sneer. Mr. Allen, who had been +Mercy's teacher for three years, had early seen in her a strong poetic +impulse, and had fostered and stimulated it by every means in his power. +He believed that in the exercise of this talent she would find the best +possible help for her loneliness and comfort for her sorrow. He recognized +clearly that, to so exceptional a nature as Mercy's, a certain amount of +isolation was inevitable, all through her life, however fortunate she +might be in entering into new and wider relations. The loneliness of +intense individuality is the loneliest loneliness in the world,--a +loneliness which crowds only aggravate, and which even the closest and +happiest companionship can only in part cure. The creative faculty is the +most inalienable and uncontrollable of individualities. It is at once its +own reward and its own penalty: until it has conquered the freedom of its +own city, in which it must for ever dwell, more or less apart, it is only +a prisoner in the cities of others. All this Mr. Allen felt for Mercy, +recognized in Mercy. He felt and recognized it by the instinct of love, +rather than by any intellectual perception. Intellectually, he was, in +spite of his superior culture, far Mercy's inferior. He had been brave +enough and manly enough to recognize this, and also to recognize what it +took still more manliness to recognize,--that she could never love a man +of his temperament. It would have been very easy for him to love Mercy. He +was not a man of a passionate nature; but he felt himself strangely +stirred whenever he looked into her sensitive, orchid-like face. He felt +in every fibre of him that to have the whole love of such a woman would be +bewildering joy; yet never for one moment did he allow himself to think of +seeking it. "I might make her think she loved me, perhaps," he said to +himself. "She is so lonely and sad, and has seen so few men; but it would +be base. She needs a nature totally different from mine, a life unlike the +life I shall lead. I will never try to make her love me. And he never did. +He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly, +and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to +her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife. No +doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged +bond. It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence +and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month +by month. Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely +together a year or two longer. The change could have been in but one +direction. They loved each other too much to ever love less: they might +have loved more; and Mercy's life had been more peaceful, her heart had +known a truer content, if she had never felt any stronger emotion than +that which Harley Allen's love would have roused in her bosom. But his +resolution was inexorable. His instinct was too keen, his will too strong: +he compelled all his home-seeking, wife-loving thoughts to turn away from +Mercy; and, six months after her departure, he had loyally and lovingly +promised to be the husband of another. In Mercy's future he felt an +intense interest; he would never cease to watch over her, if she would let +him; he would guide, mould, and direct her, until the time came--he knew +it would come--when she had outgrown his help, and ascended to a plane +where he could no longer guide her. His greatest fear was lest, from her +overflowing vitality and keen sensuous delight in all the surface +activities and pleasures of life, the intellectual side of her nature +should be kept in the background and not properly nourished. He had +compelled her to study, to think, to write. Who would do this for her in +the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he, +while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one. +He was too dreamy and pleasure-loving himself to be a spur to others. A +vague wonder, almost like a presentiment, haunted his thoughts continually +as to the nature of the relation which would exist between Stephen and +Mercy. One day he wrote a long letter to Stephen, telling him all about +Mercy,--her history; her peculiarities, mental and moral; her great need +of mental training; her wonderful natural gifts. He closed his letter in +these words:--</p> + +<p>"There is the making of a glorious woman and, I think, a true poet in this +girl; but whether she ever makes either will depend entirely upon the +hands she falls into. She has a capacity for involuntary adaptation of +herself to any surroundings, and for an unconscious and indomitable +loyalty to the every-day needs of every-day life, which rarely go with the +poetic temperament. She would contentedly make bread and do nothing else, +till the day of her death, if that seemed to be the nearest and most +demanded duty. She would be heartily faithful and joyous every day, in +intercourse with only common and uncultivated people, if fate sets her +among them. She seems to me sometimes to be more literally a child of God, +in the true and complete sense of the word 'child,' than any one I ever +knew. She takes every thing which comes to her just as a happy and good +little child takes every thing that is given to him, and is pleased with +all; yet she is not at all a religious person. I am often distressed by +her lack of impulse to worship. I think she has no strong sense of a +personal God; yet her conscience is in many ways morbidly sensitive. She +is a most interesting and absorbing person,--one entirely unique in my +experience. Living with her, as you will, it will be impossible for you +not to influence her strongly, one way or the other; and I want to enlist +your help to carry on the work I have begun. She owes it to herself and to +the world not to let her mind be inactive. I am very much mistaken if she +has not within her the power to write poems, which shall take place among +the work that lasts."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen read this letter over several times, and then, with a gesture of +impatience, tore the sheets down the middle, and threw them into the fire, +exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! as if there were any use in sending a man a portrait of a woman he +is to see every day. If Stephen is the person to amount to any thing in +her life, he will recognize her. If he is not, all my descriptions of her +will be thrown away. It is best to let things take their own course."</p> + +<p>After some deliberation, he decided to take a step, which he would never +have taken, had Mercy not been going away from his influence,--a step +which he had again and again said to himself he would hot risk, lest the +effect might be to hinder her intellectual growth. He sent two of her +poems to a friend of his, who was the editor of one of the leading +magazines in the country. The welcome they met exceeded even his +anticipations. By the very next mail, he received a note from his friend, +enclosing a check, which to Harley Allen's inexperience of such matters +seemed disproportionately large. "Your little Cape Cod girl is a wonder, +indeed," wrote the editor. "If she can keep on writing such verse as this, +she will make a name for herself. Send us some more: we'll pay her well +for it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen was perplexed. He had not once thought of the verses being paid +for. He had thought that to see her poems in print might give Mercy a new +incentive to work, might rouse in her an ambition, which would in part +take the place of the stimulus which his teachings had given her. He very +much disliked to tell her what he had done, and to give to her the money +she had unwittingly earned. He feared that she would resent it; he feared +that she would be too elated by it; he feared a dozen different things in +as many minutes, as he sat turning the check over and over in his hands. +But his fears were all unfounded. Mercy had too genuine an artistic nature +to be elated, too much simplicity to be offended. Her first emotion was +one of incredulity; her second, of unaffected and humble wonder that any +verses of hers should have been so well spoken of; and her next, of +childlike glee at the possibility of her earning any money. She had not a +trace of the false pride which had crystallized in her mother's nature +into such a barrier against the idea of a paid industry.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed, "is it really possible? Do you think the +verses were really worth it? Are you quite sure the editor did not send +the money because the verses were written by a friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>Harley Allen laughed.</p> + +<p>"Editors are not at all likely, Mercy," he said, "to pay any more for +things than the things are worth. I think you will some day laugh +heartily, as you look back upon the misgivings with which you received the +first money earned by your pen. If you will only work faithfully and +painstakingly, you can do work which will be much better paid than this."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"Oh! oh! Then I can have books and pictures, and take journeys," she said +in a tone of such ecstasy that Mr. Allen was surprised.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy," he replied, "I did not know you were such a discontented +girl. Have you always longed for all these things?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not discontented, Mr. Allen," answered Mercy, a little proudly. "I +never had a discontented moment in my life. I'm not so silly. I have never +yet seen the day which did not seem to me brimful and running over with +joys and delights; that is, except when I was for a little while bowed +down by a grief nobody could bear up under," she added, with a sudden +drooping of every feature in her expressive face, as she recalled the one +sharp grief of her life. "I don't see why a distinct longing for all sorts +of beautiful things need be in the least inconsistent with absolute +content. In fact, I know it isn't; for I have both."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen was not enough of an idealist to understand this. He looked +puzzled, and Mercy went on,--</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Allen, I should like to have our home perfectly beautiful, just +like the most beautiful houses I have read about in books. I should like +to have the walls hung full of pictures, and the rooms filled full of +books; and I should like to have great greenhouses full of all the rare +and exquisite flowers of the whole world. I'd like one house like the +house you told me of, full of all the orchids, and another full of only +palms and ferns. I should like to wear always the costliest of silks, very +plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and +laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should +like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people +around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care +just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures, +and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure +that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr. +Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became +suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look +she had never seen on his face before.</p> + +<p>"Of your future life, Mercy,--of your future life. I am wondering what it +will be, and if the dear Lord will carry you safe through all the +temptations which the world must offer to one so sensitive as you are to +all its beauties," replied Mr. Allen, sadly. Mercy was displeased. She was +always intolerant of this class of references to the Lord. Her sense of +honesty took alarm at them. In a curt and half-petulant tone, she +answered,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose ministers have to say such things, Mr. Allen; but I wish you +wouldn't say them to me. I do not think that the Lord made the beautiful +things in this world for temptations; and I believe he expects us to keep +ourselves out of mischief, and not throw the responsibility on to him!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy, Mercy! don't say such things! They sound irreverent: they +shock me!" exclaimed Mr. Allen, deeply pained by Mercy's tone and words.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry to shock you, Mr. Allen," replied Mercy, in a gentler +tone. "Pray forgive me. I do not think, however, there is half as much +real irreverence in saying that the Lord expects us to look out for +ourselves and keep out of mischief as there is in teaching that he made a +whole world full of people so weak and miserable that they couldn't look +after themselves, and had to be lifted along all the time."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen shook his head, and sighed. When Mercy was in this frame of +mind, it was of no use to argue with her. He returned to the subject of +her poetry.</p> + +<p>"If you will keep on reading and studying, Mercy, and will compel yourself +to write and rewrite carefully, there is no reason why you should not have +a genuine success as a writer, and put yourself in a position to earn +money enough to buy a great many comforts and pleasures for yourself, and +your mother also," he said.</p> + +<p>At the mention of her mother, Mercy started, and exclaimed irrelevantly,--</p> + +<p>"Dear me! I never once thought of mother."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen looked, as well he might, mystified. "Never once thought of her! +What do you mean, Mercy?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean I never once thought about telling her about the money. She +wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"Why not? I should think she would not only like the money, but be very +proud of your being able to earn it in such a way."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that might make a difference," said Mercy, reflectively: "it +would seem quite different to her from taking in sewing, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should think so," laughed Mr. Allen. "Very different, indeed."</p> + +<p>"But it's earning money, working for money, all the same," continued +Mercy; "and you haven't the least idea how mother feels about that. Father +must have been full of queer notions. She got it all from him. But I can't +see that there is any difference between a woman's taking money for what +she can do, and a man's taking money for what he can do. I can do sewing, +and you can preach; and of the two, if people must go without one or the +other, they could do without sermons better than without clothes,--eh, Mr. +Allen?" and Mercy laughed mischievously. "But once when I told mother I +believed I would turn dressmaker for the town, I knew I could earn ever so +much money, besides doing a philanthropy in getting some decent gowns into +the community, she was so horrified and unhappy at the bare idea that I +never have forgotten it. It is just so with ever so many women here. They +would rather half-starve than do any thing to earn money. For my part, I +think it is nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mercy,--certainly it is," replied Mr. Allen, anxious lest this +new barrier should come between Mercy and her work. "It is only a +prejudice. And you need never let your mother know any thing about it. +She is so old and feeble it would not be worth while to worry her."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes grew dark and stern as she fixed them on Mr. Allen. "I wonder +I believe any thing you say, Mr. Allen. How many things do you keep back +from me, or state differently from what they are, to save my feelings? or +to adapt the truth to my feebleness, which is not like the feebleness of +old age, to be sure, but is feebleness in comparison with your knowledge +and strength? I hate, hate, hate, your theories about deceiving people. I +shall certainly tell my mother, if I keep on writing, and am paid for it," +she said impetuously.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Of course, if you think it wrong to leave her in ignorance +about it, you must tell her. I myself see no reason for your mentioning +the fact, unless you choose to. You are a mature and independent woman: +she is old and childish. The relation between you is really reversed. You +are the mother, and she the child. Suppose she had become a writer when +you were a little girl: would it have been her duty to tell you of it?" +replied Mr. Allen.</p> + +<p>"I don't care! I shall tell her! I never have kept the least thing from +her yet, and I don't believe I ever will," said Mercy. "You'll never make +me think it's right, Mr. Allen. What a good Jesuit you'd have made, +wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen colored. "Oh, child, how unjust you are!" he exclaimed. "But it +must be all my stupid way of putting things. One of these days, you'll see +it all differently."</p> + +<p>And she did. Firm as were her resolutions to tell her mother every thing, +she could not find courage to tell her about the verses and the price paid +for them. Again and again she had approached the subject, and had been +frightened back,--sometimes by her own unconquerable dislike to speaking +of her poetry; sometimes, as in the instance above, by an outbreak on her +mother's part of indignation at the bare suggestion of her earning money. +After that conversation, Mercy resolved within herself to postpone the day +of the revelation, until there should be more to tell and more to show.</p> + +<p>"If ever I have a hundred dollars, I'll tell her then," she thought. "So +much money as that would make it seem better to her. And I will have a +good many verses by that time to read to her." And so the secret grew +bigger and heavier, and yet Mercy grew more used to carrying it, until she +herself began to doubt whether Mr. Allen were not right, after all; and if +it would not be a pity to trouble the feeble old heart with a needless +perplexity and pain.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-05"> +<h2>Chapter V.</h2> + + + +<p>When Stephen White saw his new tenants' first preparations for moving into +his house, he was conscious of a strangely mingled feeling, half +irritation, and half delight. Four weeks had passed since the unlucky +evening on which he had taken Mercy to his mother's room, and he had not +seen her face again. He had called at the hotel twice, but had found only +Mrs. Carr at home. Mercy had sent a messenger with only a verbal message, +when she wished the key of the house.</p> + +<p>She had an undefined feeling that she would not come into any relation +with Stephen White, if it could be avoided. She was heartily glad that she +had not been in the house when he called. And yet, had she been in the +habit of watching her own mental states, she would have discovered that +Stephen White was very much in her thoughts; that she had come to +wondering why she never met him in her walks; and, what was still more +significant, to mistaking other men for him, at a distance. This is one of +the oddest tricks of a brain preoccupied with the image of one human +being. One would think that it would make the eye clearer-sighted, +well-nigh infallible, in the recognition of the loved form. Not at all. +Waiting for her lover to appear, a woman will stand wearily watching at a +window, and think fifty times in sixty minutes that she sees him coming. +Tall men, short men, dark men, light men; men with Spanish cloaks, and men +in surtouts,--all wear, at a little distance, a tantalizing likeness to +the one whom they in no wise resemble.</p> + +<p>After such a watching as this, the very eye becomes disordered, as after +looking at a bright color it sees a spectrum of a totally different tint; +and, when the long looked-for person appears, he himself looks unnatural +at first, and strange. How well many women know this curious fact in +love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly +enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon. +Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks +quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never +doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes +were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he +and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an +important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of +unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a +myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are +constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have +the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings. +Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the +ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected.</p> + +<p>When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at +his mother's window. It was just at dusk.</p> + +<p>"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowly towards her son, and spoke in the +measured syllables and unvibrating tone which always marked her utterance +when she was displeased.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you are under any obligation to do that? Suppose they had +hired a house of you in some other part of the town: would you have felt +called upon to pay them that attention? I do not know what the usual +duties of a landlord are. You know best."</p> + +<p>Stephen colored. This was the worst of his mother's many bad traits,--an +instinctive, unreasoning, and unreasonable jealousy of any mark of +attention or consideration shown to any other person than herself, even if +it did not in the smallest way interfere with her comfort; and this cold, +sarcastic manner of speaking was, of all the forms of her ill-nature, the +one he found most unbearable. He made no reply, but stood still at the +window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she +helped her mother out of, and down from, the antiquated old carriage, and +carried parcel after parcel and laid them on the doorstep.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White continued in the same sarcastic tone,--</p> + +<p>"Pray go and help move all their baggage in, Stephen, if it would give you +any pleasure. It is nothing to me, I am sure, if you choose to be all the +time doing all sorts of things for everybody. I don't see the least +occasion for it, that's all."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me only common neighborliness and friendly courtesy, mother," +replied Stephen, gently. "But you know you and I never agree upon such +points. Our views are radically different, and it is best not to discuss +them."</p> + +<p>"Views!" ejaculated Mrs. White, in a voice more like the low growl of some +animal than like any sound possible to human organs. "I don't want to hear +any thing about 'views' about such a trifle. Why don't you go, if you want +to, and be done with it?"</p> + +<p>"It is too late now," answered Stephen, in the same unruffled tone. "They +have gone in, and the carriage is driving off."</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps they would like to have you put down their carpets for +them, or open their boxes," sneered Mrs. White, still with the same +intolerable sarcastic manner. "I don't doubt they could find some use for +your services."</p> + +<p>"O mother, don't!" pleaded Stephen, "please don't. I do not wish to go +near them or ever see them, if it will make you any less happy. Do let us +talk of something else."</p> + +<p>"Who ever said a word about your not going near them, I'd like to know? +Have I ever tried to shut you up, or keep you from going anywhere you +wanted to? Answer me that, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, mother," answered Stephen, "you never have. But I wish I could make +you happier."</p> + +<p>"You do make me very happy, Steve," said Mrs. White, mollified by the +gentle answer. "You're a good boy, and always was; but it does vex me to +see you always so ready to be at everybody's beck and call; and, where +it's a woman, it naturally vexes me more. You wouldn't want to run any +risk of being misunderstood, or making a woman care about you more than +she ought."</p> + +<p>Stephen stared. This was a new field. Had his mother gone already thus far +in her thoughts about Mercy Philbrick? And was her only thought of the +possibility of the young woman's caring for him, and not in the least of +his caring for her?</p> + +<p>And what would ever become of the peace of their daily life, if this kind +of jealousy--the most exacting, most insatiable jealousy in the +world--were to grow up in her heart? Stephen was dumb with despair. The +apparent confidential friendliness and assumption of a tacit understanding +and agreement between him and her on the matter, with which his mother had +said, "You wouldn't want to be misunderstood, or make a woman care more +for you than she ought," struck terror to his very soul. The apparent +amicableness of her remark at the present moment did not in the least +blind him to the enormous possibilities of future misery involved in such +a train of feeling and thought on her part. He foresaw himself involved in +a perfect network of espionage and cross-questioning and suspicion, in +comparison with which all he had hitherto borne at his mother's hands +would seem trivial. All this flashed through his mind in the brief +instant that he hesitated before he replied in an off-hand tone, which for +once really blinded his mother,--</p> + +<p>"Goodness, mother! whatever put such ideas into your head? Of course I +should never run any such risk as that."</p> + +<p>"A man can't possibly be too careful," remarked Mrs. White, sententiously. +"The world's full of gossiping people, and women are very impressionable, +especially such high-strung women as that young widow. A man can't +possibly be too careful. Read me the paper now, Stephen."</p> + +<p>Stephen was only too thankful to take refuge in and behind the newspaper. +A newspaper had so often been to him a shelter from his mother's eyes, a +protection from his mother's tongue, that, whenever he saw a storm or a +siege of embarrassing questioning about to begin, he looked around for a +newspaper as involuntarily as a soldier feels in his belt for his pistol. +He had more than once smiled bitterly to himself at the consciousness of +the flimsy bulwark; but he found it invaluable. Sometimes, it is true, her +impatient instinct made a keen thrust at the truth, and she would say +angrily,--</p> + +<p>"Put down that paper! I want to see your face when I speak to you;" but +his reply, "Why, mother, I am reading. I was just going to read something +aloud to you," would usually disarm and divert her. It was one of her +great pleasures to have him read aloud to her. It mattered little what he +read: she was equally interested in the paragraphs of small local news, +and in the telegraphic summaries of foreign affairs. A revolt in a +distant European province, of which she had never heard even the name, was +neither more nor less exciting to her than the running away of a heifer +from the premises of an unknown townsman.</p> + +<p>All through the evening, the sounds of moving of furniture, and brisk +going up and down stairs, came through the partition, and interrupted +Stephen's thoughts as much as they did his mother's. They had lived so +long alone in the house in absolute quiet, save for the semi-occasional +stir of Marty's desultory house-cleaning, that these sounds were +disturbing, and not pleasant to hear. Stephen did not like them much +better than his mother did; and he gave her great pleasure by remarking, +as he bade her good-night,--</p> + +<p>"I suppose those people next door will get settled in a day or two, and +then we can have a quiet evening again."</p> + +<p>"I should hope so," replied his mother. "I should think that a caravan of +camels needn't have made so much noise. It's astonishing to me that folks +can't do things without making a racket; but I think some people feel +themselves of more consequence when they're making a great noise."</p> + +<p>The next morning, as Stephen was bidding his mother good-morning, he +accidentally glanced out of the window, and saw Mercy walking slowly away +from the house with a little basket on her arm.</p> + +<p>"She'll go to market every morning," he thought to himself. "I shall see +her then."</p> + +<p>Not the slightest glance of Stephen's eye ever escaped his mother's +notice.</p> + +<p>"Ah! there goes the lady," she said. "I wonder if she is always going down +town at this hour? You will have to manage to go either earlier or later, +or else people will begin to talk about you."</p> + +<p>Stephen White had one rule of conduct: when he was uncertain what to do, +not to do any thing. He broke it in this instance, and had reason to +regret it long. He spoke impulsively on the instant, and revealed to +mother his dawning interest in Mercy, and planted then and there an +ineffaceable germ of distrust in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Now, mother," he said, "what's the use of you beginning to set up this +new worry? Mrs. Philbrick is a widow, and very sad and lonely. She is the +friend of my friend, Harley Allen; and I am in duty bound to show her some +attention, and help her if I can. She is also a bright, interesting +person; and I do not know so many such that I should turn my back on one +under my own roof. I have not so many social pleasures that I should give +up this one, just on account of a possible gossip about it."</p> + +<p>Silence would have been wiser. Mrs. White did not speak for a moment or +two; then she said, in a slow and deliberate manner, as if reflecting on a +problem,--"You enjoy Mrs. Philbrick's society, then, do you, Stephen? How +much have you seen of her?"</p> + +<p>Still injudicious and unlike himself, Stephen answered, "Yes, I think I +shall enjoy it very much, and I think you will enjoy it more than I shall; +for you may see great deal of her. I have only seen her once, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose she will care any thing about me," replied Mrs. White, +with an emphasis on the last personal pronoun which spoke volumes. "Very +few people do."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. It had just dawned on his consciousness that he had +been blundering frightfully, and his mind stood still for a moment, as a +man halts suddenly, when he finds himself in a totally wrong road. To turn +short about is not always the best way of getting off a wrong road, though +it may be the quickest way. Stephen turned short about, and exclaimed with +a forced laugh, "Well, mother, I don't suppose it will make any great +difference to you, if she doesn't. It is not a matter of any moment, +anyhow, whether we see any thing of either of them or not. I thought she +seemed a bright, cheery sort of body, that's all. Good-by," and he ran out +of the house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White lay for a long time with her eyes fixed on the wall. The +expression of her face was of mingled perplexity and displeasure. After a +time, these gave place to a more composed and defiant look. She had taken +her resolve, had marked out her line of conduct.</p> + +<p>"I won't say another word to Stephen about her," she thought. "I'll just +watch and see how things go. Nothing can happen in this house without my +knowing it."</p> + +<p>The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last +clause of her soliloquy.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own +little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of +Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma. +Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail +a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a +complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high, +old-fashioned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their +sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her +father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him.</p> + +<p>"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, +as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It +looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such +clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a +jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized +the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all +were,--cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the +doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch +outline.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp, +jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk. +She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who +was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot +to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're +ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you, +if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People +are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your +face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin' +at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash, +trash! People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the +muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on +the way."</p> + +<p>"Broken? Clock broken? Mend it, mend it, child. I'll show you a good man, +not this feller in here,--he's only good for outsides. Holler sham, holler +sham! What kind o' clock was it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the worst of it. It was an old clock my grandfather brought +from Holland. It reached up to the ceiling, and had beautiful carved work +on it. But it's in five hundred pieces, I do believe. A heavy box crushed +it. Even the brass work inside is all jammed and twisted. Our things came +by sea," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Come on, come on! I'll show you," exclaimed +the eccentric old man, starting off at a quick pace. Mercy did not stir. +Presently, he looked back, wheeled, and came again so near that he nearly +trod on her gown.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Didn't tell her,--bad habit, bad habit. Never do make +people understand. Come on, child,--come on! I've got a clock like yours. +Don't want it. Never use it. Run down twenty years ago. Guess we can find +it. Come on, come on!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Wheeler," said Mercy, half-frightened at his manner, yet +trusting him in spite of herself, "do you really want to sell the clock? +If you have no use for it, I'd be very glad to buy it of you, if it looks +even a little like our old one. I will bring my mother to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Fine young woman! fine young woman! Good face. Never mistaken in a face +yet. Don't sell clocks: never sold a clock yet. I'll give yer the clock, +if yer like it. Come on, child,--come on!" and he laid his hand on Mercy's +arm and drew her along.</p> + +<p>Mercy held back. "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "You're very kind. +But I think my mother would not like to have you give us a clock. I will +buy it of you; but I really cannot go with you now. Tell me where the +clock is, and I will come with my mother to see it."</p> + +<p>The old man stamped his foot and his cane both with impatience. "Pshaw! +pshaw!" he said: "women all alike, all alike." Then with an evident effort +to control his vexation, and speak more slowly, he said, "Can't you see +I'm an old man, child? Don't pester me now. Come, on, come on! I tell you +I want to show yer that clock. Give it to you 's well 's not. Stood in the +lumber-room twenty years. Come on, come on! It's right up here, ten +steps." And again he took Mercy by the arm. Reluctantly she followed him, +thinking to herself, "Oh, what a rash thing this is to do! How do I know +but he really is crazy?"</p> + +<p>He led the way up an outside staircase at the end of the Brick Row, and, +after fumbling a long time in several deep pockets, produced a huge rusty +iron key, and unlocked the door at the head of the stairs. A very strange +life that key had led in pockets. For many years it had slept under Miss +Orra White's maidenly black alpacas, and had been the token of confinement +and of release to scores of Miss Orra's unruly pupils; then it had had an +interval of dignified leisure, lifted to the level of the Odd Fellows +regalia, and only used by them on rare occasions. For the last ten years, +however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's +lumber-room. If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and +speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in +keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might +have indulged in fine conjectures, and have passed its lifetime in a state +of chronic bewilderment. Each time that the door of this old storehouse +opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing +no relation to any thing that had preceded it. "Old Man Wheeler" added to +all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts. +He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody. He drove hard +bargains, and was inexorable as to dates. When a debtor came, pleading for +a short delay on a payment, the old man had but one reply,--</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! What yer got? what yer got? Gie me somethin', gie me +somethin'. Settle, settle, settle! Gie me any thin' yer got. Settle, +settle, settle!" The consequences of twenty years' such traffic as this +can more easily be imagined than described. The room was piled from floor +to roof with its miscellaneous collections: junk-shops, pawnbrokers' +cellars, and old women's garrets seemed all to have disgorged themselves +here. A huge stack of calico comforters, their tufts gray with dust and +cobwebs, lay on top of two old ploughs, in one corner: kegs of nails, +boxes of soap, rolls of leather, harnesses stiff and cracking with age, +piles of books, chairs, bedsteads, andirons, tubs, stone ware, crockery +ware, carpets, files of old newspapers, casks, feather-beds, jars of +druggists' medicines, old signboards, rakes, spades, school-desks,--in +short, all things that mortal man ever bought or sold,--were here, packed +in piles and layers, and covered with dust as with a gray coverlid. At +each foot-fall on the loose boards of the floor, clouds of stifling dust +arose, and strange sounds were heard in and behind the piles of rubbish, +as if all sorts of small animals might be skurrying about, and giving +alarms to each other.</p> + +<p>Mercy stood still on the threshold, her face full of astonishment. The +dust made her cough; and at first she could hardly see which way to step. +The old man threw down his cane, and ran swiftly from corner to corner, +and pile to pile, peering around, pulling out first one thing and then +another. He darted from spot to spot, bending lower and lower, as he grew +more impatient in his search, till he looked like a sort of human weasel +gliding about in quest of prey.</p> + +<p>"Trash, trash, nothin' but trash!" he muttered to himself as he ran. "Burn +it up some day. Trash, trash!"</p> + +<p>"How did you get all these queer things together, Mr. Wheeler?" Mercy +ventured to say at last "Did you keep a store?"</p> + +<p>The old man did not reply. He was tugging away at a high stack of rolls of +undressed leather, which reached to the ceiling in one corner. He pulled +them too hastily, and the whole stack tumbled forward, and rolled heavily +in all directions, raising a suffocating dust, through which the old man's +figure seemed to loom up as through a fog, as he skipped to the right and +left to escape the rolling bales.</p> + +<p>"O Mr. Wheeler!" cried Mercy, "are you hurt?"</p> + +<p>He laughed a choked laugh, more like a chuckle than like a laugh.</p> + +<p>"He! he! child. Dust don't hurt me. Goin' to return to 't presently. Made +on 't! made on 't! Don't see why folks need be so 'fraid on 't! He! he! 'T +is pretty choky, though." And he sat down on one of the leather rolls, and +held his sides through a hard coughing fit. As the dust slowly subsided, +Mercy saw standing far back in the corner, where the bales of leather had +hidden it, an old-fashioned clock, so like her own that she gave a low cry +of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that the clock you meant, Mr. Wheeler?" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, that's it. Nice old clock. Took it for debt. Cost me more'n +'t's wuth. As fur that matter, 'tain't wuth nothin' to me. Wouldn't hev it +in the house 'n' more than I'd git the town 'us tower in for a clock. D'ye +like it, child? Ye can hev it's well's not. I'd like to give it to ye."</p> + +<p>"I should like it very much, very much indeed," replied Mercy. "But I +really cannot think of taking it, unless you let us pay for it."</p> + +<p>The old man sprung to his feet with such impatience that the leather bale +rolled away from him, and he nearly lost his balance. Mercy sprang forward +and caught him.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Don't pester me, child! Don't you see I'm +an old man? I tell ye I'll give ye the clock, an' I won't sell it ter +ye,--won't, won't, won't," and he picked up his cane, and stood leaning +upon it with both his hands clasped on it, and his head bent forward, +eagerly scanning Mercy's face. She hesitated still, and began to speak +again.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Wheeler,"--</p> + +<p>"Don't 'but' me. There ain't any buts about it. There's the clock. Take +it, child,--take it, take it, take it, or else leave it, just's you like. +I ain't a-goin' to saddle ye with it; but I think ye'd be very silly not +to take it,--silly, silly."</p> + +<p>Mercy began to think so too. The clock was its own advocate, almost as +strong as the old man's pleading.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "I will take the clock, though I don't +know what my mother will say. It is a most valuable present. I hope we +can do something for you some day."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the old man. "Just like all the rest o' the +world. Got no faith,--can't believe in gettin' somethin' for nothin'. +You're right, child,--right, right. 'S a general thing, people are cheats, +cheats, cheats. Get all your money away,--wolves, wolves, wolves! Stay +here, child, a minute. I'll get two men to carry it." And, before Mercy +realized his intention, he had shut the door, locked it, and left her +alone in the warehouse. Her first sensation was of sharp terror; but she +ran to the one window which was accessible, and, seeing that it looked out +on the busiest thoroughfare of the town, she sat down by it to await the +old man's return. In a very few moments, she heard the sounds of steps on +the stairs, the door was thrown open, and the old man, still talking to +himself in muttered tones, pushed into the room two ragged vagabonds whom +he had picked up on the street.</p> + +<p>They looked as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With +gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Come in, come in! What 're ye 'bout? Earn yer money, earn yer money!" +exclaimed the old man, pointing to the clock, and bidding them take it up +and carry it out.</p> + +<p>"Now mind! Quarter a piece, quarter a piece,--not a cent more. Do ye +understand? Hark 'e! do ye understand? Not a cent more," he said, +following them out of the door. Then turning to Mercy, he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Forgot you, child. Come on, come on! I'll +go with you, else those rascals will cheat you. Men are wolves, wolves, +wolves. They're to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece. +But I'll come on with you. Got half a dollar?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," laughed Mercy, much pleased that the old man was willing she +should pay the porters. "Oh, yes, I have my portemonnaie here," holding it +up. "This is the cheapest clock ever sold, I think; and you are very good +to let me pay the men."</p> + +<p>The old man looked at her with a keen, suspicious glance.</p> + +<p>"Good? eh! good? Why, ye didn't think I was goin' to give ye money, did +ye? Oh, no, no, no! Not money. Never give money."</p> + +<p>This was very true. It would probably have cost him a severer pang to give +away fifty cents than to have parted with the entire contents of the +storehouse. Mercy laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. Wheeler," she said, "you have given me just the same as money. +Such a clock as this must have cost a good deal, I am sure."</p> + +<p>"No, no, child! It's very different, different. Clock wasn't any use to +me, wasn't wuth any thin'. Money's of use, use, use. Can't have enough +on't. People get it all away from you. They're wolves, wolves, wolves," +replied the old man, running along in advance of Mercy, and rapping one of +the men who were carrying the clock, sharply on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Keep your end up there! keep it up! I won't pay you, if you don't carry +your half," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>It was a droll procession, and everybody turned to look at it: the two +ragged men carrying the quaint-fashioned old clock, from which the dust +shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it: +following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and +excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in +an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or +chastise the bearers of the clock. The eccentric old fellow used his cane +as freely as if it had been a hand. There were few boys in town who had +not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances knew the touch of +it far better than they knew the grip of his fingers. It "saved steps," he +used to say; though of steps the old man seemed any thing but chary, as he +was in the habit of taking them perpetually, without advancing or +retreating, changing from one foot to the other, as uneasily as a goose +does.</p> + +<p>Stephen White happened to be looking out of the window, when this unique +procession of the clock passed his office. He could not believe what he +saw. He threw up the window and leaned out, to assure himself that he was +not mistaken. Mercy heard the sound, looked up, and met Stephen's eye. She +colored violently, bowed, and involuntarily quickened her pace. Her +companion halted, and looked up to see what had arrested her attention. +When he saw Stephen's face, he said,--</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" and turned again to look at Mercy. The bright color had not yet +left her cheek. The old man gazed at her angrily for a moment, then +stopped short, planted his cane on the ground, and said in a loud tone, +all the while peering into her face as if he would read her very +thoughts,--</p> + +<p>"Don't you know that Steve White isn't good for any thin'? Poor stock, +poor stock! Father before him poor stock, too. Don't you go to lettin' him +handle your money, child. Mind now! I'll be a good friend to you, if +you'll do 's I say; but, if Steve White gets hold on you, I'll have +nothin' to do with you. Mind that, eh? eh?"</p> + +<p>Mercy had a swift sense of angry resentment at these words; but she +repelled it, as she would have resisted the impulse to be angry with a +little child.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wheeler," she said with a gentle dignity of tone, which was not +thrown away on the old man, "I do not know why you should speak so to me +about Mr. White. He is almost an entire stranger to me as yet. We live in +his house; but we do not know him or his mother yet, except in the most +formal way. He seems to be a very agreeable man," she added with a little +tinge of perversity.</p> + +<p>"Hm! hm!" was all the old man's reply; and he did not speak again till +they reached Mercy's gate. Here the clock-carriers were about to set their +burden down. Mr. Wheeler ran towards them with his cane outstretched.</p> + +<p>"Here! here! you lazy rascals! Into the house! into the house, else you +don't get any quarter!</p> + +<p>"Well I came along, child,--well I came along. They'd ha' left it right +out doors here. Cheats! People are all cheats, cheats, cheats," he +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Into the house, without a pause, without a knock, into poor bewildered +Mrs. Carr's presence he strode, the men following fast on his steps, and +Mercy unable to pass them.</p> + +<p>"Where'll you have it? Where'll you have it, child? Bless my soul! where's +that girl!" he exclaimed, looking back at Mercy, who stood on the front +doorstep, vainly trying to hurry in to explain the strange scene to her +mother. Mrs. Carr was, as usual, knitting. She rose up suddenly, confused +at the strange apparitions before her, and let her knitting fall on the +floor. The ball rolled swiftly towards Mr. Wheeler, and tangled the yarn +around his feet. He jumped up and down, all the while brandishing his +cane, and muttering, "Pshaw! pshaw! Damn knitting! Always did hate the +sight on't." But, kicking out to the right and the left vigorously, he +soon snapped the yarn, and stood free.</p> + +<p>"Mother! mother!" called Mercy from behind, "this is the gentleman I told +you of,--Mr. Wheeler. He has very kindly given us this beautiful clock, +almost exactly like ours."</p> + +<p>The sound of Mercy's voice reassured the poor bewildered old woman, and, +dropping her old-fashioned courtesy, she said timidly,--</p> + +<p>"Pleased to see you, sir. Pray take a chair."</p> + +<p>"Chair? chair? No, no! Never do sit down in houses,--never, never. +Where'll you have it, mum? Where'll you have it?</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare put that down! Wait till you are told to, you lazy +rascals!" he exclaimed, lifting his cane, and threatening the men who were +on the point of setting the clock down, very naturally thinking they might +be permitted at last to rest a moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Wheeler!" said Mercy, "let them put it down anywhere, please, for +the present. I never can tell at first where I want a thing to stand. I +shall have to try it in different corners before I am sure," and Mercy +took out her portemonnaie, and came forward to pay the bearers. As she +opened it, the old man stepped nearer to her, and peered curiously into +her hand. The money in the portemonnaie was neatly folded and assorted, +each kind by itself, in a separate compartment. The old man nodded, and +muttered to himself, "Fine young woman! fine young woman! Business, +business!--Who taught you, child, to sort your money that way?" he +suddenly asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, no one taught me," replied Mercy. "I found that it saved time not to +have to fumble all through a portemonnaie for a ten-cent piece. It looks +neater, too, than to have it all in a crumpled mass," she added, smiling +and looking up in the old man's face. "I don't like disorder. Such a place +as your store-room would drive me crazy."</p> + +<p>The old man was not listening. He was looking about the room with a +dissatisfied expression of countenance. In a few moments, he said +abruptly,--</p> + +<p>"'S this all the furniture you've got?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr colored, and looked appealingly at Mercy; but Mercy laughed, +and replied as she would have answered her own grandfather,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not all we have! We have five more rooms furnished. It is all we +have for this room, however. These rooms are all larger than our rooms +were at home, and so the things look scanty. But I shall get more by +degrees."</p> + +<p>"Hm! hm! Want any thing out o' my lumber-room? Have it's well's not. +Things no good to anybody."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Wheeler. We have all we need. I could not think of +taking any thing more from you. We are under great obligation to you now +for the clock," said Mercy; and Mrs. Carr bewilderedly ejaculated, "Oh, +no, sir,--no, sir! There isn't any call for you to give us any thin'."</p> + +<p>While they were speaking, the old man was rapidly going out of the house; +with quick, short steps like a child, and tapping his cane on the floor at +every step. In the doorway he halted a moment, and, without looking back, +said, "Well, well, let me know, if you do want any thing. Have it's well's +not," and he was gone.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy! he's crazy, sure's you're alive. You'll get took up for hevin' +this clock. Whatever made you take it, child?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, +walking round and round the clock, and dusting it here and there with a +corner of her apron.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, I am sure I don't know. I couldn't seem to help it: he was +so determined, and the clock was such a beauty. I don't think he is crazy. +I think he is simply very queer; and he is ever, ever so rich. The clock +isn't really of any value to him; that is, he'd never do any thing with +it. He has a huge room half as big as this house, just crammed with +things, all sorts of things, that he took for debts; and this clock was +among them. I think it gave the old man a real pleasure to have me take +it; so that is one more reason for doing it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know best, Mercy," said Mrs. Carr, a little sadly; "but I can't +quite see it's you do. It seems to me amazin' like a charity. I wish he +hadn't never found you out."</p> + +<p>"I don't, mother. I believe he is going to be my best crony here," said +Mercy, laughing; "and I'm sure nobody can say any thing ill-natured about +such a crony as he would be. He must be seventy years old, at least."</p> + +<p>When Stephen came home that night, he received from his mother a most +graphic account of the arrival of the clock. She had watched the +procession from her window, and had heard the confused sounds of talking +and moving of furniture in the house afterward. Marty also had supplied +some details, she having been surreptitiously overlooking the whole +affair.</p> + +<p>"I must say," remarked Mrs. White, "that it looks very queer. Where did +she pick up Old Man Wheeler? Who ever heard of his being seen walking with +a woman before? Even as a young man, he never would have any thing to do +with them; and it was always a marvel how he got married. I used to know +him very well."</p> + +<p>"But, mother," urged Stephen, "for all we know, they may be relations or +old friends of his. You forget that we know literally nothing about these +people. So far from being queer, it may be the most natural thing in the +world that he should be helping her fit up her house."</p> + +<p>But in his heart Stephen thought, as his mother did, that it was very +queer.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-06"> +<h2>Chapter VI.</h2> + + + +<p>The beautiful white New England winter had set in. As far as the eye could +reach, nothing but white could be seen. The boundary, lines of stone walls +and fences were gone, or were indicated only by raised and rounded lines +of the same soft white. On one side of these were faintly pencilled dark +shadows in the morning and in the afternoon; but at high noon the fields +were as unbroken a white as ever Arctic explorer saw, and the roads shone +in the sun like white satin ribbons flung out in all directions. The +groves of maple and hickory and beech were bare. Their delicate gray tints +spread in masses over the hillsides like a transparent, gray veil, through +which every outline of the hills was clear, but softened. The massive +pines and spruces looked almost black against the white of the snow, and +the whole landscape was at once shining and sombre; an effect which is +peculiar to the New England winter in the hill country, and is always +either very depressing or very stimulating to the soul. Dreamy and inert +and phlegmatic people shiver and huddle, see only the sombreness, and find +the winter one long imprisonment in the dark. But to a joyous, brisk, +sanguine soul, the clear, crisp, cold air is like wine; and the whiteness +and sparkle and shine of the snow are like martial music, a constant +excitement and spell.</p> + +<p>Mercy's soul thrilled within her with new delight and impulse each day. +The winter had always oppressed her before. On the seashore, winter means +raw cold, a pale, gray, angry ocean, fierce winds, and scanty wet snows. +This brilliant, frosty air, so still and dry that it never seemed cold, +this luxuriance of snow piled soft and high as if it meant shelter and +warmth,--as indeed it does,--were very wonderful to Mercy. She would have +liked to be out of doors all day long: it seemed to her a fairer than +summer-time. She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters +far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in +sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of +the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns +and shining clumps of the hepatica. It was a startling sight on a December +day, when the snow was lying many inches deep, to come suddenly on Mercy +walking in the middle of the road, her hands filled with green ferns and +mosses and vines. There were three different species of ground-pine in +these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of +laurel. What wealth for a lover of wild, out-door things! Each day Mercy +bore home new treasures, until the house was almost as green and fragrant +as a summer wood. Day after day, Mrs. White, from her point of observation +at her window, watched the lithe young figure coming down the road, +bearing her sheaves of boughs and vines, sometimes on her shoulder, as +lightly and gracefully as a peasant girl of Italy might bear her poised +basket of grapes. Gradually a deep wonder took possession of the lonely +old woman's soul.</p> + +<p>"Whatever can she do with all that green stuff?" she thought. "She's +carried in enough to trim the 'Piscopal church twice over."</p> + +<p>At last she shared her perplexity with Marty.</p> + +<p>"Marty," said she one day, "have you ever seen Mrs. Philbrick come into +the house without somethin' green in her hands? What do you suppose she's +goin' to do with it all?"</p> + +<p>"Lord knows," answered Marty. "I've been a speckkerlatin' about that very +thing myself. They can't be a brewin' beer this time o' year; but I see +her yesterday with her hands full o' pyroly."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would make an errand in there, Marty," said Mrs. White, "and +see if you can any way find out what it's all for. She's carried in pretty +near a grove of pine-trees, I should say."</p> + +<p>The willing Marty went, and returned with a most surprising tale. Every +room was wreathed with green vines. There were evergreen trees in boxes; +the window-seats were filled with pots of green things growing; waving +masses of ferns hung down from brackets on the walls.</p> + +<p>"I jest stood like a dumb critter the minnit I got in," said Marty. "I +didn't know whether I wuz in the house or out in the woods, the whole +place smelled o' hemlock so, an' looked so kind o' sunny and shady all ter +oncet.--I jest wished Steve could see it. He'd go wild," added the +unconsciously injudicious Marty.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White's face darkened instantly.</p> + +<p>"It must be very unwholesome to have rooms made so dark and damp," she +said. "I should think people might have more sense."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wa'n't dark a mite!" interrupted Marty, eagerly. "There wuz a +blazin' fire on the hearth in the settin'-room, an' the sun a-streamin' +into both the south winders. It made shadders on the floor, jest as it +does in the woods. I'd jest ha' liked to set down there a spell, and not +do nothin' but watch 'em."</p> + +<p>At this moment, a low knock at the door interrupted the conversation. +Marty opened the door, and there stood Mercy herself, holding in her hands +some wreaths of laurel and pine, and a large earthen dish with ferns +growing in it. It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy +all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung +cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, +lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and +wondered if she would have any Christmas evergreens to brighten her room.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose a man would ever think of such things," thought Mercy. +"I've a great mind to carry her in some. I'll never muster courage to go +in there, unless I go to carry her something; and I may as well do it +first as last. Perhaps she doesn't care any thing about things from the +woods; but I think they may do her good without her knowing it. Besides, I +promised to go." It was now ten days since Stephen, meeting Mercy in the +town one day, had stopped, and said to her, in a half-sad tone which had +touched her,--</p> + +<p>"Do you really never mean to come again to see my mother? I do assure you +it would be a great kindness."</p> + +<p>His tone conveyed a great deal,--his tone and his eyes. They said as +plainly as words could have said,--</p> + +<p>"I know that my mother treated you abominably, I know she is very +disagreeable; but, after all, she is helpless and alone, and if you could +only once get her to like you, and would come and see her now and then, it +would be a kindness to her, and a great help to me; and I do yearn to know +you better; and I never can, unless you will begin the acquaintance by +being on good terms with my mother."</p> + +<p>All this Stephen's voice and eyes had said to Mercy's eyes and heart, +while his lips, pronounced the few commonplace words which were addressed +to her ear. All this Mercy was revolving in her thoughts, as she deftly +and with almost a magic touch laid the soft mosses in the earthen dish, +and planted them thick with ferns and hepatica and partridge-berry vines +and wintergreen. But all she was conscious of saying to herself was, "Mr. +White asked me to go; and it really is not civil not to do it, and I may +as well have it over with."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. White's eyes first fell on Mercy in the doorway, they rested on +her with the same cold gaze which had so repelled her on their first +interview. But no sooner did she see the dish of mosses than her face +lighted up, and exclaiming, "Oh, where did you get those partridge-berry +vines?" she involuntarily stretched out her hands. The ice was broken. +Mercy felt at home at once, and at once conceived a true sentiment of +pity for Mrs. White, which never wholly died out of her heart. Kneeling on +the floor by her bed, she said eagerly,--</p> + +<p>"I am so glad you like them, Mrs. White. Let me hold them down low, where +you can look at them."</p> + +<p>Some subtle spell must have linked itself in Mrs. White's brain with the +dainty red partridge berries. Her eyes filled with tears, as she lifted +the vines gently in her fingers, and looked at them. Mercy watched her +with great surprise; but with the quick instinct of a poet's temperament +she thought, "She hasn't seen them very likely since she was a little +girl."</p> + +<p>"Did you use to like them when you were a child, Mrs. White?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I used to pick them when I was young," replied Mrs. White, +dreamily,--"when I was young: not when I was a child, though. May I have +one of them to keep?" she asked presently, still holding an end of one of +the vines in her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I brought them in for you, for Christmas," exclaimed Mercy. "They are +all for you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White was genuinely astonished. No one had ever done this kind of +thing for her before. Stephen always gave her on her birthday and on +Christmas a dutiful and somewhat appropriate gift, though very sorely he +was often puzzled to select a thing which should not jar either on his own +taste or his mother's sense of utility. But a gift of this kind, a simple +little tribute to her supposed womanly love of the beautiful, a thoughtful +arrangement to give her something pleasant to look upon for a time, no +one had ever before made. It gave her an emotion of real gratitude, such +as she had seldom felt.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, indeed,--very," she said with emphasis, and in a +gentler tone than Mercy had before heard from her lips. "I shall have a +great deal of comfort out of it."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy set the dish on a small table, and hung up the wreaths in the +windows. As she moved about the room lightly, now and then speaking in her +gay, light-hearted voice, Mrs. White thought to herself,--</p> + +<p>"Steve was right. She is a wonderful cheery body." And, long after Mercy +had gone, she continued to think happily of the pleasant incident of the +fresh bright face and the sweet voice. For the time being, her jealous +distrust of the possible effect of these upon her son slumbered.</p> + +<p>When Stephen entered his mother's room that night, his heart gave a sudden +bound at the sight of the green wreaths and the dish of ferns. He saw them +on fhe first instant after opening the door; he knew in the same instant +that the hands of Mercy Philbrick must have placed them there; but, also, +in that same brief instant came to him an involuntary impulse to pretend +that he did not observe them; to wait till his mother should have spoken +of them first, that he might know whether she were pleased or not by the +gift. So infinitely small are the first beginnings of the course of deceit +into which tyranny always drives its victim. It could not be called a +deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed +in a room. No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit: for when +Mrs. White said, "Why, Stephen, you haven't noticed the greens! Look in +the windows!" his exclamation of apparent surprise, "Why, how lovely! +Where did they come from?" was a lie. It did not seem so, however, to +Stephen. It seemed to him simply a politic suppression of a truth, to save +his mother's feelings, to avoid a possibility of a war of words. Mercy +Philbrick, under the same circumstances, would have replied,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I saw them as soon as I came in. I was waiting for you to tell +me about them," and even then would have been tortured by her conscience, +because she did not say why she was waiting.</p> + +<p>While his mother was telling him of Mercy's call, and of the report Marty +had brought back of the decorations of the rooms, Stephen stood with his +face bent over the ferns, apparently absorbed in studying each leaf +minutely; then he walked to the windows and examined the wreaths. He felt +himself so suddenly gladdened by these tokens of Mercy's presence, and by +his mother's evident change of feeling towards her, that he feared his +face would betray too much pleasure; he feared to speak, lest his voice +should do the same thing. He was forced to make a great effort to speak in +a judiciously indifferent tone, as he said,--</p> + +<p>"Indeed, they are very pretty. I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; +and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas +Eve. I wish we had something to send in to them, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've been thinking," said his mother, "that we might ask them to +come in and take dinner with us to-morrow. Marty's made some capital +mince-pies, and is going to roast a turkey. I don't believe they'll be +goin' to have any thing better, do you, Stephen?"</p> + +<p>Stephen walked very suddenly to the fire, and made a feint of rearranging +it, that he might turn his face entirely away from his mother's sight. He +was almost dumb with astonishment. A certain fear mingled with it. What +meant this sudden change? Did it portend good or evil? It seemed too +sudden, too inexplicable, to be genuine. Stephen had yet to learn the +magic power which Mercy Philbrick had to compel the liking even of people +who did not choose to like her.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, mother," he said, "that would be very nice. It is a long time +since we had anybody to Christmas dinner."</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose you run in after tea and ask them," replied Mrs. White, in +the friendliest of tones.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll go," answered Stephen, feeling as if he were a man talking in a +dream. "I have been meaning to go in ever since they came."</p> + +<p>After tea, Stephen sat counting the minutes till he should go. To all +appearances, he was buried in his newspaper, occasionally reading a +paragraph aloud to his mother. He thought it better that she should remind +him of his intention to go; that the call should be purely at her +suggestion. The patience and silence with which he sat waiting for her to +remember and speak of it were the very essence of deceit again,--twice in +this one hour an acted lie, of which his dulled conscience took no note +or heed. Fine and impalpable as the meshes of the spider's-web are the +bands and bonds of a habit of concealment; swift-growing, too, and in +ever-widening circles, like the same glittering net woven for death.</p> + +<p>At last Mrs. White said, "Steve, I think it's getting near nine o'clock. +You'd better go in next door before it's any later."</p> + +<p>Stephen pulled out his watch. By his own sensations, he would have said +that it must be midnight.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is half-past eight. I suppose I had better go now," he said, and +bade his mother good-night.</p> + +<p>He went out into the night with a sense of ecstasy of relief and joy. He +was bewildered at himself. How this strong sentiment towards Mercy +Philbrick had taken possession of him he could not tell. He walked up and +down in the snowy path in front of the house for some minutes, questioning +himself, sounding with a delicious dread the depths of this strange sea in +which he suddenly found himself drifting. He went back to the day when +Harley Allen's letter first told him of the two women who might become his +tenants. He felt then a presentiment that a new element was to be +introduced into his life; a vague, prophetic sense of some change at hand. +Then came the first interview, and his sudden disappointment, which he now +blushed to recollect. It seemed to him as if some magician must have laid +a spell upon his eyes, that he did not see even in that darkness how +lovely a face Mercy had, did not feel even through all the embarrassment +and strangeness the fascination of her personal presence. Then he dwelt +lingeringly on the picture, which had never faded from his brain, of his +next sight of her, as she sat on the old stone wall, with the gay +maple-leaves and blackberry-vines in her lap. From that day to the +present, he had seen her only a half dozen times, and only for a chance +greeting as they had passed each other in the street; but it seemed to him +that she had never been really absent from him, so conscious was he of her +all the time. So absorbed was he in these thoughts that a half-hour was +gone before he realized it, and the village bells were ringing for nine o' +clock when he knocked on the door of the wing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr had rolled up her knitting, and was just on the point of going +upstairs. Their little maid of all work had already gone to bed, when +Stephen's loud knock startled them all.</p> + +<p>"Gracious alive! Mercy, what's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, all sorts of +formless terrors springing upon her at once. Mercy herself was astonished, +and ran hastily to open the door. When she saw Stephen standing there, her +astonishment was increased, and she looked it so undisguisedly that he +said,--</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Philbrick. I know it is late, but my mother sent +me in with a message." ...</p> + +<p>"Pray come in, Mr. White," interrupted Mercy. "It is not really late, only +we keep such absurdly early hours, and are so quiet, as we know nobody +here, that a knock at the door in the evening makes us all jump. Pray +come in," and she threw open the door into the sitting-room, where the +lamps had already been put out, and the light of a blazing hickory log +made long flickering shadows on the crimson carpet. In this dancing light, +the room looked still more like a grove than it had to Marty at high noon. +Stephen's eyes fastened hungrily on the sight.</p> + +<p>"Your room is almost too much to resist," he said; "but I will not come in +now. I did not know it was so late. My mother wishes to know if you and +your mother will not come in and eat a Christmas dinner with us to-morrow. +We live in the plainest way, and cannot entertain in the ordinary +acceptation of the term. We only ask you to our ordinary home-dinner," he +added, with a sudden sense of the incongruity between the atmosphere of +refined elegance which pervaded Mercy's simple, little room, and the +expression which all his efforts had never been able to banish from his +mother's parlor.</p> + +<p>"Oh thank you, Mr. White. You are very good. I think we should like to +come very much. Mother and I were just saying that it would be the first +Christmas dinner we ever ate alone. But you must come in, Mr. White,--I +insist upon it," replied Mercy, stretching out one hand towards him, as if +to draw him in.</p> + +<p>Stephen went. On the threshold of the sitting-room he paused and stood +silent for some minutes. Mercy was relighting the lamps.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick!" he exclaimed, "won't you please not light the lamps. +This firelight on these evergreens is the loveliest thing I ever saw."</p> + +<p>Too unconventional to think of any reasons why she should not sit with +Stephen White alone by firelight in her own house, Mercy blew out the lamp +she had lighted, and drawing a chair close up to the hearth sat down, and +clasping her hands in her lap looked eagerly into Stephen's face, and said +as simply as a child,--</p> + +<p>"I like firelight, too, a great deal better than any other light. Some +evenings we do not light the lamps at all. Mother can knit just as well +without much light, and I can think better."</p> + +<p>Mercy was sitting in a chair so low that, to look at Stephen, she had to +lift her face. It was the position in which her face was sweetest. Some +lines, which were a shade too strong and positive when her face fully +confronted you, disappeared entirely when it was thrown back and her eyes +were lifted. It was then as ingenuous and tender and trustful a face as if +she had been but eight instead of eighteen.</p> + +<p>Stephen forgot himself, forgot the fact that Mercy was comparatively a +stranger, forgot every thing, except the one intense consciousness of this +sweet woman-face looking up into his. Bending towards her, he said +suddenly,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, your face is the very loveliest face I have ever seen in +my life. Do not be angry with me. Oh, do not!" he continued, seeing the +color deepen in Mercy's cheeks, and a stern expression gathering in her +eyes, as she looked steadily at him with unutterable surprise. "Do not be +angry with me. I could not help saying it; but I do not say it as men +generally say such things. I am not like other men: I have lived alone +all my life with my mother. You need not mind my saying your face is +lovely, any more than my saying that the ferns on the walls are lovely."</p> + +<p>If Stephen had known Mercy from her childhood, he could not have framed +his words more wisely. Every fibre of her artistic nature recognized the +possibility of a subtle truth in what he said, and his calm, dreamy tone +and look heightened this impression. Moreover, as Stephen's soul had been +during all the past four weeks slowly growing into the feeling which made +it inevitable that he should say these words on first looking closely and +intimately into Mercy's face, so had her soul been slowly growing into the +feeling which made it seem not really foreign or unnatural to her that he +should say them.</p> + +<p>She answered him with hesitating syllables, quite unlike her usual fluent +speech.</p> + +<p>"I think you must mean what you say, Mr. White; and you do not say it as +other men have said it. But will you please to remember not to say it +again? We cannot be friends, if you do."</p> + +<p>"Never again, Mrs. Philbrick?" he said,--he could almost have said +"Mercy,"--and looked at her with a gaze of whose intentness he was hardly +aware.</p> + +<p>Mercy felt a strange terror of this man; a few minutes ago a stranger, now +already asking at her hands she hardly knew what, and compelling her in +spite of herself. But she replied very quietly, with a slight smile,--</p> + +<p>"Never, Mr. White. Now talk of something else, please. Your mother seemed +very much pleased with the ferns I carried her to-day. Did she love the +woods, when she was well?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know. I never heard her say," answered Stephen, absently, still +gazing into Mercy's face.</p> + +<p>"But you would have known, surely, if she had cared for them," said Mercy, +laughing; for she perceived that Stephen had spoken at random.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, certainly,--certainly. I should have known," said Stephen, still +with a preoccupied air, and rising to go. "I thank you for letting me come +into this beautiful room with you. I shall always think of your face +framed in evergreens, and with flickering firelight on it."</p> + +<p>"You are not going away, are you, Mr. White?" asked Mercy, mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, certainly not. I never go away. How could I go away? Why did you +ask?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," laughed Mercy, "because you spoke as if you never expected to see my +face after to-night. That's all."</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled. "I am afraid I seem a very absent-minded person," he said. +"I did not mean that at all. I hope to see you very often, if I may. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Mr. White. We shall be very glad to see you as often as you +like to come. You may be sure of that; but you must come earlier, or you +will find us all asleep. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Stephen spent another half-hour pacing up and down in the snowy path in +front of the house. He did not wish to go in until his mother was asleep. +Very well he knew that it would be better that she did not see his face +that night. When he went in, the house was dark and still. As he passed +his mother's door, she called, "Steve!"</p> + +<p>"All right, mother. They'll come," he replied, and ran swiftly up to his +own room.</p> + +<p>During this half-hour, Mercy had been sitting in her low chair by the +fire, looking steadily into the leaping blaze, and communing very sternly +with her own heart on the subject of Stephen White. Her pitiless honesty +of nature was just as inexorable in its dealing with her own soul as with +others; she never paltered with, nor evaded an accusation of, her +consciousness. At this moment, she was indignantly admitting to herself +that her conduct and her feeling towards Stephen were both deserving of +condemnation. But, when she asked herself for their reason, no answer came +framed in words, no explanation suggested itself, only Stephen's face rose +up before her, vivid, pleading, as he had looked when he said, "Never +again, Mrs. Philbrick?" and as she looked again into the dark blue eyes, +and heard the low tones over again, she sank into a deeper and deeper +reverie, from which gradually all self-accusation, all perplexity, faded +away, leaving behind them only a vague happiness, a dreamy sense of joy. +If lovers could look back on the first quickening of love in their souls, +how precious would be the memories; but the unawakened heart never knows +the precise instant of the quickening. It is wrapped in a half-conscious +wonder and anticipation; and, by the time the full revelation comes, the +impress of the first moments has been wiped out by intenser experiences. +How many lovers have longed to trace the sweet stream back to its very +source, to the hidden spring which no man saw, but have lost themselves +presently in the broad greenness, undisturbed and fertile, through which, +like a hidden stream through an emerald meadow, the love had been flowing +undiscovered.</p> + +<p>Months after, when Mercy's thoughts reverted to this evening, all she +could recollect was that on the night of Stephen's first call she had been +much puzzled by his manner and his words, had thought it very strange that +he should seem to care-so much for her, and perhaps still more strange +that she herself found it not unpleasing that he did so. Stephen's +reminiscences were at once more distinct and more indistinct,--more +distinct of his emotions, more indistinct of the incidents. He could not +recollect one word which had been said: only his own vivid consciousness +of Mercy's beauty; her face "framed in evergreens, with the firelight +flickering on it," as he had told her he should always think of it.</p> + +<p>Christmas morning came, clear, cold, shining bright. A slight thaw the day +before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a +moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, +which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun. The beauty of the scene +was almost solemn. The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did +not melt these ice-sheaths; and, under the flood of the full mid-day +light, the whole landscape seemed one blaze of jewels. When Mercy and her +mother entered Mrs. White's room, half an hour before the dinner-hour, +they found her sitting with the curtains drawn, because the light had hurt +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. White!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is cruel you should not see this +glorious spectacle! If you had the window open, the light would not hurt +your eyes. It is the glare of it coming through the glass. Let us wrap you +up, and draw you close to the window, and open it wide, so that you can +see the colors for a few minutes. It is just like fairy-land."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White looked bewildered. Such a plan as this of getting out-door air +she had never thought of.</p> + +<p>"Won't it make the room too cold?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy; "and no matter if it does. We can soon warm it +up again. Please let me ask Marty to come?" And, hardly waiting for +permission, she ran to call Marty. Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was +then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look +of almost perplexed delight on her face. When Stephen came in, Mercy stood +behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out +eagerly every point of beauty in the view. A high bush of sweet-brier, +with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window. +Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs: they were all +finely encrusted with frost. As the wind faintly stirred the branches, +every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays +looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and +diamonds. Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her +fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, look at it against the blue sky!" she cried. "Isn't it enough to make +one cry just to see it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can mother help loving her?" thought Stephen. "She is the +sweetest woman that ever drew breath."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and +antagonism. She followed Mercy's movements with eyes not much less eager +and pleased than Stephen's. It was like a great burst of sunlight into a +dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the +old woman's narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life. She +had never seen a person of Mercy's temperament. The clear, decided, +incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her +liking. Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love of the +beautiful; but his love of the beautiful was an indolent, and one might +almost say a-haughty, demand in his nature. Mercy's was a bounding and +delighted acceptance. She was cheery: he was only placid. She was full of +delight; he, only of satisfaction. In her, joy was of the spirit, +spiritual. Keen as were her senses, it was her soul which marshalled them +all. In him, though the soul's forces were not feeble, the senses foreran +them,--compelled them, sometimes conquered them. It would have been +impossible to put Mercy in any circumstances, in any situation, out of +which, or in spite of which, she would not find joy. But in Stephen +circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness. His +enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness +as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring. The waters of each may +leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has +fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the +spring is full, free, and glad as ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived. Long before +the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding +manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have +been. The reason was manifest. She read in every glance of Stephen's eyes, +in every tone of his voice, the depth and the warmth of his feeling +towards Mercy. The jealous distrust which she had felt at first, and which +had slept for a brief time under the spell of Mercy's kindliness towards +herself, sprang into fiercer life than ever. Stephen and Mercy, in utter +unconsciousness of the change which was gradually taking place, talked and +laughed together in an evident gay delight, which made matters worse every +moment. A short and surly reply from Mrs. White to an innocent question of +Mrs. Carr's fell suddenly on Mercy's ear. Keenly alive to the smallest +slight to her mother, she turned quickly towards Mrs. White, and, to her +consternation, met the same steady, pitiless, aggressive look which she +had seen on her face in their first interview. Mercy's first emotion was +one of great indignation: her second was a quick flash of comprehension of +the whole thing. A great wave of rosy color swept over her face; and, +without knowing what she was doing, she looked appealingly at Stephen. +Already there was between them so subtle a bond that each understood the +other without words. Stephen knew all that Mercy thought in that instant, +and an answering flush mounted to his forehead. Mrs. White saw both these +flushes, and compressed her lips still more closely in a grimmer silence +than before. Poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Carr kept on and on with her +meaningless and childish remarks and inquiries; and Mercy and Stephen were +both very grateful for them. The dinner came to an untimely end; and +almost immediately Mercy, with a nervous and embarrassed air, totally +foreign to her, said to her mother,--</p> + +<p>"We must go home now. I have letters to write."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carr was disappointed. She had anticipated a long afternoon of chatty +gossip with her neighbor; but she saw that Mercy had some strong reason +for hurrying home, and she acquiesced unhesitatingly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. White did not urge them to remain. To all Mrs. White's faults it must +be confessed that she added the virtue of absolute sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Carr," and "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Philbrick," fell +from her lips in the same measured syllables and the same cold, unhuman +voice which had so startled Mercy once before.</p> + +<p>"What a perfectly horrid old woman!" exclaimed Mercy, as soon as they had +crossed the threshold of their own door. "I'll never go near her again as +long as I live!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Mercy Carr!" exclaimed her mother, "what do you mean? I don't think +so. She got very tired before dinner was over. I could see that, poor +thing! She's drefful weak, an' it stan's to reason she'd be kind o' +snappish sometimes."</p> + +<p>Mercy opened her lips to reply, but changed her mind and said nothing.</p> + +<p>"It's just as well for mother to keep on good terms with her, if she can," +she thought. "Maybe it'll help divert a little of Mrs. White's temper from +him, poor fellow!"</p> + +<p>Stephen had followed them to the door, saying little; but at the last +moment, when Mercy said "good-by," he had suddenly held out his hand, and, +clasping hers tightly, had looked at her sadly, with a world of regret and +appeal and affection and almost despair in the look.</p> + +<p>"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go +wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he +shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more +and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his +talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he +doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she <i>is</i> his mother. If ever I +know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her +tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never +saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look +are enough to freeze your blood."</p> + +<p>While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his +mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were +having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy +than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,--</p> + +<p>"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing +with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way."</p> + +<p>The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew +deeper still. He made no reply. Mrs. White continued,--</p> + +<p>"I wish you could see your face. It is almost purple now."</p> + +<p>"It is enough to make the blood mount to any man's face, mother, to be +accused so," replied Stephen, with a spirit unusual for him.</p> + +<p>"I don't accuse you of any thing," she retorted. "I am only speaking of +what I observe. You needn't think you can deceive me about the least +thing, ever. Your face is a perfect tell-tale of your thoughts, always."</p> + +<p>Poor Stephen groaned inwardly. Too well he knew his inability to control +his unfortunate face.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" he exclaimed with almost vehemence of tone, "mother! do not +carry this thing too far. I do not in the least understand what you are +driving at about Mrs. Philbrick, nor why you show these capricious changes +of feeling towards her. I think you have treated her so to-day that she +will never darken your doors again. I never should, if I were in her +place."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I hope she never will, if her presence is to produce such an +effect on you. It is enough to turn her head to see that she has such +power over a man like you. She is a very vain woman, anyway,--vain of her +power over people, I think."</p> + +<p>Stephen could bear no more. With a half-smothered ejaculation of "O +mother!" he left the room.</p> + +<p>And thus the old year went out and the new year came in for Mercy +Philbrick and Stephen White,--the old year in which they had been nothing, +and the new year in which they were to be every thing to each other.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-07"> +<h2>Chapter VII.</h2> + + + +<p>The next morning, while Stephen was dressing, he slowly reviewed the +events of the previous day, and took several resolutions. If Mrs. White +could have had the faintest conception of what was passing in her son's +mind, while he sat opposite to her at breakfast, so unusually cheerful and +talkative, she would have been very unhappy. But she, too, had had a +season of reflection this morning, and was much absorbed in her own plans. +She heartily regretted having shown so much ill-feeling in regard to +Mercy; and she had resolved to atone for it in some way, if she could. +Above all, she had resolved, if possible, to banish from Stephen's mind +the idea that she was jealous of Mercy or hostile towards her. She had +common sense enough to see that to allow him to recognize this feeling on +her part was to drive him at once into a course of manoeuvring and +concealment. She flattered herself that it was with a wholly natural and +easy air that she began her plan of operations by remarking,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick seems to be very fond of her mother, does she not, +Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very," answered Stephen, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Carr is quite an old woman. She must have been old when Mrs. +Philbrick was born. I don't think Mrs. Philbrick can be more than twenty, +do you?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure I don't know. I never thought anything about her age," replied +Stephen, still more indifferently. "I'm no judge of women's ages."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sure she isn't more than twenty, if she is that," said Mrs. +White; "and she really is a very pretty woman, Steve. I'll grant you +that."</p> + +<p>"Grant me that, mother?" laughed Stephen, lightly. "I never said she was +pretty, did I? The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly +plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice. I don't think, +however, she would usually be thought pretty."</p> + +<p>Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so +that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, +"I'm real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn't treat her well yesterday. I +didn't mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a +woman's head turned by a man's taking a little notice of her; and I know +very well, Stephy, that women like you. It wouldn't take much to make Mrs. +Philbrick fancy you were in love with her."</p> + +<p>Stephen also was gratified by his mother's apparent softening of mood, and +instinctively met her more than half way, replying,--</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed +so plainly that you didn't want them to stay. Perhaps she didn't notice +it, only thought you were tired. It isn't any great matter, any way. We'd +better keep on good terms with them, if they're to live under the same +roof with us, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. White. "Much better to be on neighborly terms. The +old mother is a childish old thing, though. She'd bore me to death, if she +came in often."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough," said Stephen; "but she's so +simple, and so much like a child you can't help pitying her."</p> + +<p>They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; +but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to shield +from discovery. When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he +fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict. One +of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this +morning on a street he knew she must pass on her way to market. He did not +define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to +see her face. He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words +he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her +face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this +plan, "Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother +never know any thing about it."</p> + +<p>When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour +or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often +though before on similar occasions, "Well, she won't overtake Stephen +this time. I dare say she planned to." Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was +walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and +shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before. +She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not +observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen's +voice saying, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick." It was the second time that +he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject. +This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color +which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,--undisguised and +honest gladness.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mr. White," she exclaimed, "I never thought of seeing you. I thought +you were always in your office at this time."</p> + +<p>"I waited to see you this morning," replied Stephen, in a tone as simply +honest as her own. "I wanted to speak to you."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak. Stephen smiled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not for any particular thing," he said: "only for the pleasure of +it."</p> + +<p>Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other's faces with a joy +which neither attempted to disguise. Stephen took Mercy's basket from her +arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so +full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were +walking by each other's side. The few words they did speak were of the +purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so +universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,--a +sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language. When +they parted at the door of Stephen's office, he said,--</p> + +<p>"I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do +you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, always," replied Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you," said +Stephen.</p> + +<p>"I like it very much, Mr. White," answered Mercy, eagerly. "I used to walk +a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly."</p> + +<p>A jealous pang shot through Stephen's heart. He had been blind. This was +the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs. +Philbrick and her mother. He remembered now that he had thought at the +time some of the expressions in his friend's letter argued an unusual +interest in the young widow. Of course no man could know Mercy without +loving her. Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene +and smiling face with which he bade Mercy "Good-by," and ran up his +office-stairs three steps at a time.</p> + +<p>All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and +cheer. It was not a conscious anticipation of the morrow: she did not say +to herself "To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour." Love +knows the secret of true joy better than that. Love throws open wider +doors,--lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life +is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a +round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are +perpetually descending to the dreamer below.</p> + +<p>The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than +usual. Her first thought was one of blank disappointment. "Why, I thought +he meant to walk down with me," she said to herself. Her second thought +was a perplexed instinct of the truth: "I wonder if he can be afraid to +have his mother see him with me?" At this thought, Mercy's face burned, +and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time +her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter +had become quite clear in her mind.</p> + +<p>"I shall see him at the corner where he was yesterday," she said.</p> + +<p>But no Stephen was there. Spite of herself, Mercy lingered and looked +back. She was grieved and she was vexed.</p> + +<p>"Why did he say he wanted to walk with me, and then the very first morning +not come?" she said, as she walked slowly into the village.</p> + +<p>It was a cloudy day, and the clouds seemed to harmonize with Mercy's mood. +She did her errands in a half-listless way; and more than one of the +tradespeople, who had come to know her voice and smile, wondered what had +gone wrong with the cheery young lady. All the way home she looked vainly +for Stephen at every cross-street. She fancied she heard his step behind +her; she fancied she saw his tall figure in the distance. After she +reached home and the expectation was over for that day, she took herself +angrily to task for her folly. She reminded herself that Stephen had said +"sometimes," not "always;" and that nothing could have been more unlikely +than that he should have joined her the very next day. Nevertheless, she +was full of uneasy wonder how soon he would come again; and, when the next +morning dawned clear and bright, her first thought as she sprang up was,--</p> + +<p>"This is such a lovely day for a walk! He will surely come to-day."</p> + +<p>Again she was disappointed. Stephen left the house at a very early hour, +and walked briskly away without looking back. Mercy forced herself to go +through her usual routine of morning work. She was systematic almost to a +fault in the arrangement of her time, and any interference with her hours +was usually a severe trial of her patience. But to-day it was only by a +great effort of her will that she refrained from setting out earlier than +usual for the village. She walked rapidly until she approached the street +where Stephen had joined her before. Then she slackened her pace, and +fixed her eyes on the street. No person was to be seen in it. She walked +slower and slower: she could not believe that he was not there. Then she +began to fear that she had come a little too early. She turned to retrace +her steps; but a sudden sense of shame withheld her, and she turned back +again almost immediately, and continued her course towards the village, +walking very slowly, and now and then halting and looking back. Still no +Stephen. Street after street she passed: no Stephen. A sort of indignant +grief swelled up in Mercy's bosom; she was indignant with herself, with +him, with circumstances, with everybody; she was unreasoning and +unreasonable; she longed so to see Stephen's face that she could not think +clearly of any thing else. And yet she was ashamed of this longing. All +these struggling emotions together were too much for her; tears came into +her eyes; then vexation at the tears made them come all the faster; and, +for the first time in her life, Mercy Philbrick pulled her veil over her +face to hide that she was crying. Almost in the very moment that she had +done this, she heard a quick step behind her, and Stephen's voice +calling,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick! Mrs. Philbrick! do not walk so fast. I am trying to +overtake you."</p> + +<p>Feeling as guilty as a child detected in some forbidden spot, Mercy stood +still, vainly hoping her black veil was thick enough to hide her red eyes; +vainly trying to regain her composure enough to speak in her natural +voice, and smile her usual smile. Vainly, indeed! What crape could blind a +lover's eyes, or what forced tone deceive a lover's ears?</p> + +<p>At his first sight of her face, Stephen started; at the first sound of her +voice, he stood still, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Philbrick, you have been crying!" There was no gainsaying it, even +if Mercy had not been too honest to make the attempt. She looked up +mischievously at him, and tried to say lightly,-- + +"What then, Mr. White? Didn't you know all women cried?"</p> + +<p>The voice was too tremulous. Stephen could not bear it. Forgetting that +they were on a public street, forgetting every thing but that Mercy was +crying, he exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, what is it? Do let me help you! Can't I?"</p> + +<p>She did not even observe that he called her "Mercy." It seemed only +natural. Without realizing the full meaning of her words, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, you have helped me now," and threw up her veil, showing a face where +smiles were already triumphant. Instinct told Stephen in the same second +what she had meant, and yet had not meant to say. He dropped her hand, and +said in a low voice,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, did you really have tears in your eyes because I did not come? +Bless you, darling! I don't dare to speak to you here. Oh, pray come down +this little by-street with me."</p> + +<p>It was a narrow little lane behind the Brick Row into which Stephen and +Mercy turned. Although it was so near the centre of the town, it had never +been properly graded, but had been left like a wild bit of uneven field. +One side of it was walled by the Brick Row; on the other side were only a +few poverty-stricken houses, in which colored people lived. The snow lay +piled in drifts here all winter, and in spring it was an almost impassable +slough of mud. There was now no trodden path, only the track made by +sleighs in the middle of the lane. Into this strode Stephen, in his +excitement walking so fast that Mercy could hardly keep up with him. They +were too much absorbed in their own sensations and in each other to +realize the oddity of their appearance, floundering in the deep snow, +looking eagerly in each other's faces, and talking in a breathless and +disjointed way.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said Stephen, "I have been walking up and down waiting for you +ever since I came out; but a man whom I could not get away from stopped +me, and I had to stand still helpless and see you walk by the street, and +I was afraid I could not overtake you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, was that it?" said Mercy, looking up timidly in his face. "I felt +sure you would be there this morning, because"--</p> + +<p>"Because what?" said Stephen, gently.</p> + +<p>"Because you said you would come sometimes, and I knew very well that that +need not have meant this particular morning nor any particular morning; +and that was what vexed me so, that I should have been silly and set my +heart on it. That was what made me cry, Mr. White, I was so vexed with +myself," stoutly asserted Mercy, beginning to feel braver and more like +herself.</p> + +<p>Stephen looked her full in the face without speaking for a moment. Then,--</p> + +<p>"May I call you Mercy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied.</p> + +<p>"May I say to you exactly what I am thinking?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied again, a little more hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"Then, Mercy, this is what I want to say to you," said Stephen, earnestly. +"There is no reason why you and I should try to deceive each other or +ourselves. I care very, very much for you, and you care very much for me. +We have come very close to each other, and neither of our lives can ever +be the same again. What is in store for us in all this we cannot now see; +but it is certain we are very much to each other."</p> + +<p>He spoke more and more slowly and earnestly; his eyes fixed on the distant +horizon instead of on Mercy's face. A deep sadness gradually gathered on +his countenance, and his last words were spoken more in the tone of one +who felt a new exaltation of suffering than of one who felt the new +ecstasy of a lover. Looking down into Mercy's face, with a tenderness +which made her very heart thrill, he said,--</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Mercy, is it not so? Are we not very much to each other?"</p> + +<p>The strange reticence of his tone, even more reticent than his words, had +affected Mercy inexplicably: it was as if a chill wind had suddenly blown +at noonday, and made her shiver in spite of full sunlight. Her tone was +almost as reticent and sad as his, as she said, without raising her +eyes,--</p> + +<p>"I think it is true."</p> + +<p>"Please look up at me, Mercy," said Stephen. "I want to feel sure that you +are not sorry I care so much for you."</p> + +<p>"How could I be sorry?" exclaimed Mercy, lifting her eyes suddenly, and +looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her +glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry."</p> + +<p>"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you. +You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and +now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought +not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking +here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of +the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his +hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily +loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped +you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone.</p> + +<p>Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of +bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow. +She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled +from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see +us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores +of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her +conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being +engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was +hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than +this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened +on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to +decide what would be right under such circumstances.</p> + +<p>The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, +remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy +which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her +died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a +grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with +an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door.</p> + +<p>He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, +exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very +gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it.</p> + +<p>Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was +habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so +irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features. Without +speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly +into the fire. Some minutes passed in silence. Mercy felt the tears coming +again into her eyes. What was this intangible but inexorable thing which +stood between this man's soul and hers? She could not doubt that he loved +her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of +which she had never before had even a conception. It seemed to her that +the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond +between them which nothing could hinder or harm. Why should they sit thus +silent by each other's side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full +of joy and gladness? Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on +Stephen's lips? Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert. She saw +clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was +in the dark. She could not even grope her way in this mystery. At last +Stephen spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," he said, "perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for +you. You said yesterday you never would be."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed! I am not," said Mercy. "I am very glad you care so much +for me."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you have discovered that you do not care so much for me as you +yesterday thought you did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" replied poor Mercy, in a low tone.</p> + +<p>Again Stephen was silent for a long time. Then he said,--</p> + +<p>"Ever since I can remember, I have longed for a perfect and absorbing +friendship. The peculiar relations of my life have prevented my even +hoping for it. My father's and my mother's friends never could be my +friends. I have lived the loneliest life a mortal man ever lived. Until I +saw you, Mercy, I had never even looked on the face of a woman whom it +seemed possible to me that any man could love. Perhaps, when I tell you +that, you can imagine what it was to me to look on the face of a woman +whom it seems to me no man could help loving. I suppose many men have +loved you, Mercy, and many more men will. I do not think any man has ever +felt for you, or ever will feel for you, as I feel. My love for you +includes every love the heart can know,--the love of father, brother, +friend, lover. Young as I am, you seem to me like my child, to be taken +care of; and you seem like my sister, to be trusted and loved; and like my +friend, to be leaned upon. You see what my life is. You see the burden +which I must carry, and which none can share. Do you think that the +friendship I can give you can be worth what it would ask? I feel withheld +and ashamed as I speak to you. I know how little I can do, how little I +can offer. To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, +Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love +you, if it is only till to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, +flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could +give the faintest indications which way safety might lie. If she had +listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her +native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair. But every +instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was +disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded +by her profound sympathy for his suffering.</p> + +<p>She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very +thoughts of his heart.</p> + +<p>"Do you understand me, Mercy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I think I do," she replied in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued. "I have not +a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it +would be wrong for me to put into words. I stand where I stand; and no +mortal can help me, except you. You can help me infinitely. Already the +joy of seeing you, hearing you, knowing that you are near, makes all my +life seem changed. It is not very much for you to give me, Mercy, after +all, out of the illimitable riches of your beauty, your brightness, your +spirit, your strength,--just a few words, just a few smiles, just a little +love,--for the few days, or it may be years, that fate sets us by each +other's side? And you, too, need a friend, Mercy. Your duty to another has +brought you where you are singularly alone, for the time being, just as my +duty to another has placed me where I must be singularly alone. Is it not +a strange chance which has thus brought us together?"</p> + +<p>"I do not believe any thing is chance," murmured Mercy. "I must have been +sent here for something."</p> + +<p>"I believe you were, dear," said Stephen, "sent here for my salvation. I +was thinking last night that, no matter if my life should end without my +ever knowing what other men call happiness, if I must live lonely and +alone to the end, I should still have the memory of you,--of your face, +of your hand, and the voice in which you said you cared for me. O Mercy, +Mercy! you have not the least conception of what you are to me!" And +Stephen stretched out both his arms to her, with unspeakable love in the +gesture.</p> + +<p>So swiftly that he had not the least warning of her intention, Mercy +threw herself into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. Shame +filled her soul, and burned in her cheeks, when Stephen, lifting her as he +would a child, and kissing her forehead gently, placed her again in her +chair, and said,--</p> + +<p>"My darling, I cannot let you do that. I will never ask from you any thing +that you can by any possibility come to regret at some future time. I +ought perhaps to be unselfish enough not to ask from you any thing at all. +I did not mean to; but I could not help it, and it is too late now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is too late now," said Mercy,--"too late now." And she buried her +face in her hands.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," exclaimed Stephen, in a voice of anguish, "you will break my +heart: you will make me wish myself dead, if you show such suffering as +this. I thought that you, too, could find joy, and perhaps help, in my +love, as I could in yours. If it is to give you pain and not happiness, it +were better for you never to see me again. I will never voluntarily look +on your face after to-night, if you wish it,--if you would be happier so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy. Then, overwhelmed with the sudden realization +of the pain she was giving to a man whom she so loved that at that moment +she would have died to shield him from pain, she lifted her face, shook +back the hair from her forehead, and, looking bravely into his eyes, +repeated,--</p> + +<p>"No, no! I am very selfish to feel like this. I do understand you. I +understand it all; and I will help you, and comfort you all I can. And I +do love you very dearly," she added in a lower voice, with a tone of such +incomparable sweetness that it took almost superhuman control on Stephen's +part to refrain from clasping her to his heart. But he did not betray the +impulse, even by a gesture. Looking at her with an expression of great +thankfulness, he said,--</p> + +<p>"I believe that peace will come to us, Mercy. I believe I can do something +to make you happy. To know that I love you as I do will be a great deal to +you, I think." He paused.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mercy, "a great deal." He went on,--</p> + +<p>"And to know that you are perpetually helping and cheering me will be +still more to you, I think. We shall know some joys, Mercy, which joyous +lovers never know. Happy people do not need each other as sad people do. O +Mercy, do try and remember all the time that you are the one bright thing +in my life,--in my whole life."</p> + +<p>"I will, Stephen, I will," said Mercy, resolutely, her whole face glowing +with the new purposes forming in her heart. It was marvellous how clear +the relation between herself and Stephen began to seem to her. It was +rather by her magnetic consciousness of all that he was thinking and +feeling than by the literal acceptance of any thing or all things which he +said. She seemed to herself to be already one with him in all his trials, +burdens, perplexities; in his renunciation; in his self-sacrifice; in his +loyalty of reticence; in his humility of uncomplainingness.</p> + +<p>When she bade him "good-night," her face was not only serene: it was +serene with a certain exaltation added, as the face of one who had entered +into a great steadfastness of joy. Stephen wondered greatly at this +transition from the excitement and grief she had at first shown. He had +yet to learn what wellsprings of strength lie in the poetic temperament.</p> + +<p>As he stood lingering on the threshold, finding it almost impossible to +turn away while the sweet face held him by the honest gaze of the loving +eyes, he said,</p> + +<p>"There will be many times, dear, when things will have to be very hard, +when I shall not be able to do as you would like to have me, when you may +even be pained by my conduct. Shall you trust me through it all?"</p> + +<p>"I shall trust you till the day of my death," said Mercy, impetuously. +"One can't take trust back. It isn't a gift: it is a necessity."</p> + +<p>Stephen smiled,--a smile of sorrow rather than gladness.</p> + +<p>"But if you thought me other than you had believed?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I could never think you other than you are," replied Mercy, proudly. "It +is not that I 'believe' you. I know you. I shall trust you to the day of +my death."</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the difference between Mercy +Philbrick's nature and Stephen White's, between her love for him and his +for her, than the fact that, after this conversation, she lay awake far +into the early hours of the morning, living over every word that he had +spoken, looking resolutely and even joyously into the strange future which +was opening before her, and scanning with loving intentness every chance +that it could possibly hold for her ministrations to him. He, on the other +hand, laid his head on his pillow with a sense of dreamy happiness, and +sank at once into sleep, murmuring,--</p> + +<p>"The darling! how she does love me! She shall never regret it,--never. We +can have a great deal of happiness together as it is; and if the time ever +should come," ...</p> + +<p>Here his thoughts halted, and refused to be clothed in explicit phrase. +Never once had Stephen White permitted himself to think in words, even in +his most secret meditations, "When my mother dies, I shall be free." His +fine fastidiousness would shrink from it, as from the particular kind of +brutality and bad taste involved in a murder. If the whole truth could +have been known of Stephen's feeling about all crimes and sins, it would +have been found to be far more a matter of taste than of principle, of +instinct than of conviction.</p> + +<p>Surely never in this world did love link together two souls more +diametrically opposite than Mercy Philbrick's and Stephen White's. It +needed no long study or especial insight into character to know which of +the two would receive the more and suffer the less, in the abnormal and +unfortunate relation on which they had entered. But no presentiment warned +Mercy of what lay before her. She was like a traveller going into a +country whose language he has never heard, and whose currency he does not +understand. However eloquent he may be in his own land, he is dumb and +helpless here; and of the fortune with which he was rich at home he is +robbed at every turn by false exchanges which impose on his ignorance. +Poor Mercy! Vaguely she felt that life was cruel to Stephen and to her; +but she accepted its cruelty to her as an inevitable part of her oneness +with him. Whatever he had to bear she must bear too, especially if he were +helped by her sharing the burden. And her heart glowed with happiness, +recalling the expression with which he had said,--</p> + +<p>"Remember, Mercy, you are the one bright thing in my life."</p> + +<p>She understood, or thought she understood, precisely the position in which +he was placed.</p> + +<p>"Very possibly he has even promised his mother," she said to herself, +"even promised her he would never be married. It would be just like her to +exact such a promise from him, and never think any thing of it. And, even +if he has not, it is all the same. He knows very well no human being could +live in the house with her, to say nothing of his being so terribly poor. +Poor, dear Stephen! to think of our little rent being more than half his +income! Oh, if there were only some way in which I could contrive to give +him money without his knowing it."</p> + +<p>If any one had said to Mercy at this time: "It was not honorable in this +man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his +love, and to allow you to show him yours for him. He is putting you in a +false position, and may be blighting your whole life," Mercy would have +repelled the accusation most indignantly. She would have said: "He has +never asked me for any such love as that. He told me most honestly in the +very beginning just how it was. He always said he would never fetter me by +a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into +his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put +me away from him almost with a reproof. No, indeed! he is the very soul of +honor. It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my +strength. Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being +his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her? It is just as sacred and +just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more +unselfish. If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father, +for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of +being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards +him?"</p> + +<p>It looked very plain to Mercy in these first days. It looked right, and it +seemed very full of joy. Her life seemed now rounded and complete. It had +a ruling motive, without which no life is satisfying; and that motive was +the highest motive known to the heart,--the desire to make another human +being perfectly happy. All hindrances and difficulties, all drawbacks and +sacrifices, seemed less than nothing to her. When she saw Stephen, she was +happy because she saw him; and when she did not see him, she was happy +because she had seen him, and would soon see him again. Past, present, +and future all melt into one great harmonious whole under the spell of +love in a nature like Mercy's. They are like so many rooms in one great +house; and in one or the other the loved being is always to be found, +always at home, can never depart! Could one be lonely for a moment in such +a house?</p> + +<p>Mercy's perpetual and abiding joy at times terrified Stephen. It was a +thing so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to him hardly natural. +Calm acquiescence he could understand,--serene endurance: he himself never +chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But +there were many days when his sense of deprivation made him sad, subdued, +and quiet. When, in these moods, he came into Mercy's presence, and found +her radiant, buoyant, mirthful even, he wondered; and sometimes he +questioned. He strove to find out the secret of her joy. There seemed to +him no legitimate reason for it.</p> + +<p>"Why, to see that I make you glad, Stephen," she would say. "Is not that +enough? Or even, when I cannot make you glad, just to love you is enough."</p> + +<p>"Mercy, how did you ever come to love me?" he said once, stung by a sense +of his own unworthiness. "How do you know you love me, after all?"</p> + +<p>"How do I know I love you!" she exclaimed. "Can any one ever tell that, I +wonder? I know it by this: that every thing in the whole world, even down +to the smallest grass-blade, seems to me different because you are alive." +She said these words with a passionate vehemence, and tears in her eyes. +Then, changing in a second to a mischievous, laughing mood, she said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes: you make all that odds to me. But let us not talk about loving each +other, Stephen. That's the way children do with their flower-seeds,--keep +pulling them up, to see how they grow."</p> + +<p>That night, Mercy gave Stephen this sonnet,--the first words she had +written out of the great wellspring of her love:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>"How Was It?"</h3> + +<p> Why ask, dear one? I think I cannot tell,<br /> +More than I know how clouds so sudden lift<br /> +From mountains, or how snowflakes float and drift,<br /> +Or springs leave hills. One secret and one spell<br /> +All true things have. No sunlight ever fell<br /> +With sound to bid flowers open. Still and swift<br /> +Come sweetest things on earth.<br /> + So comes true gift<br /> +Of Love, and so we know that it is well.<br /> +Sure tokens also, like the cloud, the snow,<br /> +And silent flowing of the mountain-springs,<br /> +The new gift of true loving always brings.<br /> +In clearer light, in purer paths, we go:<br /> +New currents of deep joy in common things<br /> +We find. These are the tokens, dear, we know!</p></blockquote> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-08"> +<h2>Chapter VIII.</h2> + + + +<p>As the months went on, Mercy began to make friends. One person after +another observed her bright face, asked who she was, and came to seek her +out. "Who is that girl with fair hair and blue eyes, who, whenever you +meet her in the street, always looks as if she had just heard some good +news?" was asked one day. It was a noteworthy thing that this description +was so instantly recognized by the person inquired of, that he had no +hesitancy in replying,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is a young widow from Cape Cod, a Mrs. Philbrick. She came last +winter with her mother, who is an invalid. They live in the old Jacobs +house with the Whites."</p> + +<p>Among the friends whom Mercy thus met was a man who was destined to +exercise almost as powerful an influence as Stephen White over her life. +This was Parson Dorrance.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance had in his youth been settled as a Congregationalist +minister. But his love of literature and of science was even stronger than +his love of preaching the gospel; and, after a very few years, he accepted +a position as professor in a small college, in a town only four miles +distant from the village in which Mercy had come to live. This was +twenty-five years ago. Parson Dorrance was now fifty-five years old. For a +quarter of a century, his name had been the pride, and his hand had been +the stay, of the college. It had had presidents of renown and professors +of brilliant attainments; but Parson Dorrance held a position more +enviable than all. Few lives of such simple and steadfast heroism have +ever been lived. Few lives have ever so stamped the mark of their +influence on a community. In the second year of his ministry, Mr. Dorrance +had married a very beautiful and brilliant woman. Probably no two young +people ever began married life with a fairer future before them than +these. Mrs. Dorrance was as exceptionally clever and cultured a person as +her husband; and she added to these rare endowments a personal beauty +which is said by all who knew her in her girlhood to have been marvellous. +But, as is so often the case among New England women of culture, the body +had paid the cost of the mind's estate; and, after the birth of her first +child, she sank at once into a hopeless invalidism,--an invalidism all the +more difficult to bear, and to be borne with, that it took the shape of +distressing nervous maladies which no medical skill could alleviate. The +brilliant mind became almost a wreck, and yet retained a preternatural +restlessness and activity. Many regarded her condition as insanity, and +believed that Mr. Dorrance erred in not giving her up to the care of those +making mental disorders a specialty. But his love and patience were +untiring. When her mental depression and suffering reached such a stage +that she could not safely see a human face but his, he shut himself up +with her in her darkened room till the crisis had passed. There were times +when she could not close her eyes in sleep unless he sat by her side, +holding her hand in his, and gently stroking it. He spent weeks of nights +by her bedside in this way. At any hour of the day, a summons might come +from her; and, whatever might be his engagement, it was instantly laid +aside,--laid aside, too, with cheerfulness and alacrity. At times, all his +college duties would be suspended on her account; and his own specialties +of scientific research, in which he was beginning to win recognition even +from the great masters of science in Europe, were very early laid aside +for ever. It must have been a great pang to him,--this relinquishment of +fame, and of what is dearer to the true scientific man than all fame, the +joys of discovery; but no man ever heard from his lips an allusion to the +sacrifice. The great telescope, with which he had so many nights swept the +heavens, still stood in his garden observatory; but it was little used +except for recreation, and for the pleasure and instruction of his boy. +Yet no one would have dreamed, from the hearty joy with which he used it +for these purposes, that it had ever been to him the token and the +instrument of the great hope of his heart. The resolute cheer of this +man's life pervaded the whole atmosphere of his house. Spite of the +perpetual shadow of the invalid's darkened room, spite of the inevitable +circumscribing of narrow means, Parson Dorrance's cottage was the +pleasantest house in the place, was the house to which all the +townspeople took strangers with pride, and was the house which strangers +never forgot. There was always a new book, or a new print, or a new +flower, or a new thought which the untiring mind had just been shaping; +and there were always and ever the welcome and the sympathy of a man who +loved men because he loved God, and who loved God with an affection as +personal in its nature as the affection with which he loved a man.</p> + +<p>Year after year, classes of young men went away from this college, having +for four years looked on the light of this goodness. Said I not well that +few lives have ever been lived which have left such a stamp on a +community? No man could be so gross that he would utterly fail to feel its +purity, no man so stupid that he could not see its grandeur of +self-sacrifice; and to souls of a fibre fine enough to be touched to the +quick by its exaltation, it was-a kindling fire for ever.</p> + +<p>In the twenty-seventh year of her married life, and near the end of the +twenty-fifth year of her confinement to her room, Mrs. Dorrance died. For +a few months after her death, her husband seemed like a man suddenly +struck blind in the midst of familiar objects. He seemed to be groping his +way, to have lost all plan of daily life, so tremendous was the change +involved in the withdrawal of this perpetual burden. Just as he was +beginning to recover the natural tone of his mind, and to resume his old +habits of work, his son sickened and died. The young man had never been +strong: he had inherited his mother's delicacy of constitution, and her +nervous excitability as well; but he had rare qualities of mind, and gave +great promise as a scholar. The news of his death was a blow to every +heart that loved his father. "This will kill the Parson," was said by +sorrowing voices far and near. On the contrary, it seemed to be the very +thing which cleared the atmosphere of his whole life, and renewed his +vigor and energy. He rose up from the terrible grief more majestic than +ever, as some grand old tree, whose young shoots and branches have been +torn away by fierce storms, seems to lift its head higher than before, and +to tower in its stripped loneliness above all its fellows. All the loving +fatherhood of his nature was spent now on the young people of his town; +and, by young people, I mean all between the ages of four and twenty. +There was hardly a baby that did not know Parson Dorrance, and stretch out +its arms to him; there was hardly a young man or a young woman who did not +go to him with troubles or perplexities. You met him, one day, drawing a +huge sledful of children on the snow; another day, walking in the centre +of a group of young men and maidens, teaching them as he walked. They all +loved him as a comrade, and reverenced him as a teacher. They wanted him +at their picnics; and, whenever he preached, they flocked to hear him. It +was a significant thing that his title of Professor was never heard. From +first to last, he was always called "Parson Dorrance;" and there were few +Sundays on which he did not preach at home or abroad. It was one of the +forms of his active benevolence. If a poor minister broke down and needed +rest, Parson Dorrance preached for him, for one month or for three, as the +case required. If a little church were without a pastor and could not find +one, or were in debt and could not afford to hire one, it sent to ask +Parson Dorrance to supply the pulpit; and he always went. Finally, not +content with these ordinary and established channels for preaching the +gospel, he sought out for himself a new one. About eight miles from the +village there was a negro settlement known as "The Cedars." It was a wild +place. Great outcropping ledges of granite, with big boulders toppling +over, and piled upon each other, and all knotted together by the gnarled +roots of ancient cedar-trees, made the place seem like ruins of old +fortresses. There were caves of great depth, some of them with two +entrances, in which, in the time of the fugitive slave law, many a poor +hunted creature had had safe refuge. Besides the cedar-trees, there were +sugar-maples and white birches; and the beautiful rock ferns grew all over +the ledges in high waving tufts, almost as luxuriantly as if they were in +the tropics; so that the spot, wild and fierce as it was, had great +beauty. Many of the fugitive slaves had built themselves huts here: some +lived in the caves. A few poor and vicious whites had joined them, +intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as +mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen. They were the terror of the +neighborhood. Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as +dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws. No man cared for them; +and they cared for no man. Parson Dorrance's heart yearned over these +poor Ishmaelites; and he determined to see if they were irreclaimable. The +first thing that his townsmen knew of his plan was his purchase of several +acres of land near "The Cedars." He bought it very cheap, because land in +that vicinity was held to be worthless for purposes of cultivation. Unless +the crops were guarded night and day, they were surreptitiously harvested +by foragers from "The Cedars." Then it was found out that Parson Dorrance +was in the habit of driving over often to look at his new property. +Gradually, the children became used to his presence, and would steal out +and talk to him. Then he carried over a small microscope, and let them +look through it at insects; and before long there might have been seen, on +a Sunday afternoon, a group of twenty or thirty of the outcasts gathered +round the Parson, while he talked to them as he had talked to the +children. Then he told them that, if they would help, he would build a +little house on his ground, and put some pictures and maps in it for them, +and come over every Sunday and talk to them; and they set to work with a +will. Very many were the shrugs and smiles over "Parson Dorrance's Chapel +at 'The Cedars.'" But the chapel was built; and the Parson preached in it +to sometimes seventy-five of the outlaws. The next astonishment of the +Parson's friends was on finding him laying out part of his new land in a +nursery of valuable young fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Then they +said,--</p> + +<p>"Really, the Parson is mad! Does he think he has converted all those +negroes, so that they won't steal fruit?" And, when they met the Parson, +they laughed at him. "Come, come, Parson," they said, "this is carrying +the thing a little too far, to trust a fruit orchard over there by 'The +Cedars.'"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance's eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"I know the boys better than you do," he replied. "They will not steal a +single pear."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to wager you something on that," said the friend.</p> + +<p>"Well, I couldn't exactly take such a wager," answered the Parson, +"because you see I know the boys won't steal the fruit."</p> + +<p>Somewhat vexed at the obstinacy of the Parson's faith, his friend +exclaimed, "I'd like to know how you can know that beforehand?"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance loved a joke.</p> + +<p>"Neighbor," said he, "I wish I could in honor have let you wager me on +that. I've given the orchard to the boys. The fruit's all their own."</p> + +<p>This was the man whom Mercy Philbrick met early in her first summer at +Penfield. She had heard him preach twice, and had been so greatly +impressed by his words and by his face that she longed very much to know +him. She had talked with Stephen about him, but had found that Stephen did +not sympathize at all in her enthusiasm. "The people over at Danby are all +crazy about him, I think," said Stephen. "He is a very good man no doubt, +and does no end of things for the college boys, that none of the other +professors do. But I think he is quixotic and sentimental; and all this +stuff about those niggers at the Cedars is moonshine. They'd pick his very +pocket, I daresay, any day; and he'd never suspect them. I know that lot +too well. The Lord himself couldn't convert them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen! I think you are wrong," replied Mercy. "Parson Dorrance is +not sentimental, I am sure. His sermons were clear and logical and +terse,--not a waste word in them; and his mouth and chin are as strong as +an old Roman's."</p> + +<p>Stephen looked earnestly at Mercy. "Mercy," said he, "I wonder if you +would love me better if I were a preacher, and could preach clear, +logical, and terse sermons?"</p> + +<p>Mercy was impatient. Already the self-centring of Stephen's mind, his +instant reverting from most trains of thought to their possible bearing on +her love for him, had begun to irritate her. It was so foreign to her own +unconscious, free-souled acceptance and trust.</p> + +<p>"Stephen," she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Besides +seeming to imply a sort of distrust of my love for you, they are +illogical; and you know there is nothing I hate like bad logic."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no reply. The slightest approach to a disagreement between +Mercy and himself gave him great pain and a sense of terror; and he took +refuge instantly behind his usual shield of silence. This also was foreign +to Mercy's habit and impulse. When any thing went wrong, it was Mercy's +way to speak out honestly; to have the matter set in all its lights, until +it could reach its true one. She hated mystery; she hated reticence; she +hated every thing which fell short of full and frank understanding of each +other.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen!" she used to say often, "it is bad enough for us to be +forced into keeping things back from the world. Don't let us keep any +thing back from each other."</p> + +<p>Poor Mercy! the days were beginning to be hard for her. Her face often +wore a look of perplexed thought which was very new to it. Still she never +wavered for a moment in her devotion to Stephen. If she had stood +acknowledged before all the world as his wife, she could not have been any +more single-hearted and unquestioning in her loyalty.</p> + +<p>It was at a picnic in which the young people of both Danby and Penfield +had joined that Mercy met Parson Dorrance. No such gathering was ever +thought complete without the Parson's presence. Again and again one might +hear it said in the preliminary discussion: "But we must find out first +what day Parson Dorrance can go. It won't be any fun without him!"</p> + +<p>Until Mercy came, Stephen White had rarely been asked to the pleasurings +of the young people in Penfield. There was a general impression that he +did not care for things of that sort. His manner was wrongly interpreted, +however: it was really only the constraint born of the feeling that he was +out of his place, or that nobody wanted him. He watched in silent wonder +the cordial way in which, it seemed to him, that Mercy talked with +everybody, and made everybody feel happy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mercy, how can you!" he would exclaim: "I feel so dumb, even while I +am talking the fastest!"</p> + +<p>"Why, so do I, Stephen," said Mercy. "I am often racking my brains to +think what I shall say next. Half the people I meet are profoundly +uninteresting to me; and half of the other half paralyze me at first +sight, and I feel like such a hypocrite all the time; but, oh, what a +pleasure it is to talk with the other quarter!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," sighed Stephen, "you look so happy and absorbed sometimes that it +makes me feel as if you had forgotten me altogether."</p> + +<p>"Silly boy!" laughed Mercy. "Do you want me to prove to you by a long face +that I am remembering you?--Darling," she added, "at those very times when +you see me seem so absorbed and happy in company, I am most likely +thinking about the last time you looked into my face, or the next time you +will."</p> + +<p>And for once Stephen was satisfied.</p> + +<p>The picnic at which Mercy met Parson Dorrance had taken place on a +mountain some six miles south-west of Penfield. This mountain was the +western extremity of the range of which I have before spoken; and at its +base ran the river which made the meadow-lands of Penfield and Danby so +beautiful. Nowhere in America is there a lovelier picture than these +meadow-lands, seen from the top of this mountain which overhangs them. The +mountain is only about twenty-five hundred feet high: therefore, one loses +no smallest shade of color in the view; even the difference between the +green of broom-corn and clover records itself to the eye looking down from +the mountain-top. As far as one can see to northward the valley stretches +in bands and belts and spaces of varied tints of green. The river winds +through it in doubling curves, and looks from the height like a line of +silver laid in loops on an enamelled surface. To the east and the west +rise the river terraces, higher and higher, becoming, at last, lofty and +abrupt hills at the horizon.</p> + +<p>When Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy, she was alone on a spur of +rock which jutted out from the mountain-side and overhung the valley. She +had wandered away from the gay and laughing company, and was sitting +alone, absorbed and almost saddened by the unutterable beauty of the +landscape below. Stephen had missed her, but had not yet dared to go in +search of her. He imposed on himself a very rigid law in public, and never +permitted himself to do or say or even look any thing which could suggest +to others the intimacy of their relations. Mercy sometimes felt this so +keenly that she reproached him. "I can't see why you should think it +necessary to avoid me so," she would say. "You treat me exactly as if I +were only a common acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"That is exactly what I wish to have every one believe you to be, Mercy," +Stephen would reply with emphasis. "That is the only safe course. Once let +people begin to associate our names together, and there is no limit to the +things they would say. We cannot be too careful. That is one thing you +must let me be the judge of, dear. You cannot understand it as I do. So +long as I am without the right or the power to protect you, my first duty +is to shield you from any or all gossip linking our names together."</p> + +<p>Mercy felt the justice of this; and yet to her there seemed also a sort +of injustice involved in it. She felt stung often, and wounded, in spite +of all reasoning with herself that she had no cause to do so, that Stephen +was but doing right. So inevitable and inextricable are pains and dilemmas +when once we enter on the paths of concealment.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy by Mrs. Hunter, a young married +woman, who was fast becoming her most intimate friend. Mrs. Hunter's +father had been settled as the minister of a church in Penfield, in the +same year that Parson Dorrance had taken his professorship in Danby, and +the two men had been close friends from that day till the day of Mr. +Adams's death. Little Lizzy Adams had been Parson Dorrance's pet when she +lay in her cradle. He had baptized her; and, when she came to woman's +estate, he had performed the ceremony which gave her in marriage to Luke +Hunter, the most promising young lawyer in the county.</p> + +<p>She had always called Parson Dorrance her uncle, and her house in Penfield +was his second home. It had been Mrs. Hunter's wish for a long time that +he should see and know her new friend, Mercy. But Mercy was very shy of +seeing the man for whom she felt such reverence, and had steadily refused +to meet him. It was therefore with a certain air of triumphant +satisfaction that Mrs. Hunter led Parson Dorrance to the rock where Mercy +was sitting, and exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"There, Uncle Dorrance! here she is!"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance did not wait for any farther introduction; but; holding +out both his hands to Mercy, he said in a deep, mellow voice, and with a +tone which had a benediction in it,--</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Philbrick. My child Lizzy here has been +telling me about you for a long time. You know I'm the same as a father to +her; so you can't escape me, if you are going to be her friend."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked up half-shamefacedly and half-archly, and replied,--</p> + +<p>"It was not that I wanted to escape you; but I wanted you to escape me." +She perceived that the Parson had been told of her refusals to meet him. +Then they all sat down again on the jutting rock; and Mercy, leaning +forward with her hands clasped on her knees, fixed her eyes on Parson +Dorrance's face, and drank in every word that he said. He had a rare +faculty of speaking with the greatest simplicity, both of language and +manner. It was impossible not to feel at ease in his presence. It was +impossible not to tell him all that he asked. Before you knew it, you were +speaking to him of your own feelings, tastes, the incidents of your life, +your plans and purposes, as if he were a species of father confessor. He +questioned you so gently, yet with such an air of right; he listened so +observantly and sympathetically. He did not treat Mercy Philbrick as a +stranger; for Mrs. Hunter had told him already all she knew of her +friend's life, and had showed him several of Mercy's poems, which had +surprised him much by their beauty, and still more by their condensation +of thought. They seemed to him almost more masculine than feminine; and +he had unconsciously anticipated that in seeing Mercy he would see a woman +of masculine type. He was greatly astonished. He could not associate this +slight, fair girl, with a child's honesty and appeal in her eyes, with the +forceful words he had read from her pen. He pursued his conversation with +her eagerly, seeking to discover the secret of her style, to trace back +the poetry from its flower to its root. It was an astonishment to Mercy to +find herself talking about her own verses with this stranger whom she so +reverenced. But she felt at once as if she had sat at his feet all her +life, and had no right to withhold any thing from her master.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Mrs. Philbrick, you have read the earlier English poets a +great deal, have you not?" he said. "I infer so from the style of some of +your poems."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mercy, in honest vehemence. "I have read hardly any +thing, Mr. Dorrance. I know Herbert a little; but most of the old English +poets I have never even seen. I have never lived where there were any +books till now."</p> + +<p>"You love Wordsworth, I hope," he said inquiringly.</p> + +<p>Mercy turned very red, and answered in a tone of desperation, "I've tried +to. Mr. Allen said I must. But I can't. I don't care any thing about him." +And she looked at the Parson with the air of a culprit who has confessed a +terrible misdemeanor.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he replied, "you have not then reached the point in the journey at +which one sees him. It is only a question of time: one comes of a sudden +into the presence of Wordsworth, as a traveller finds some day, upon a +well-known road, a grand cathedral, into which he turns aside and +worships, and wonders how it happens that he never before saw it. You will +tell me some day that this has happened to you. It is only a question of +time."</p> + +<p>Just as Parson Dorrance pronounced the last words, they were echoed by a +laughing party who had come in search of him. "Yes, yes, only a question +of time," they said; "and it is our time now, Parson. You must come with +us. No monopoly of the Parson allowed, Mrs. Hunter," and they carried him +off, joining hands around him and singing the old college song, "Gaudeamus +igitur."</p> + +<p>Stephen, who had joined eagerly in the proposal to go in search of the +Parson, remained behind, and made a sign to Mercy to stay with him. +Sitting down by her side, he said gloomily,--</p> + +<p>"What were you talking about when we came up? Your face looked as if you +were listening to music."</p> + +<p>"About Wordsworth," said Mercy. "Parson Dorrance said such a beautiful +thing about him. It was like music, like far off music," and she repeated +it to Stephen. "I wonder if I shall ever reach that cathedral," she added.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've never reached it," said Stephen, "and I'm a good deal older +than you. I think two thirds of Wordsworth's poetry is imbecile, +absolutely imbecile."</p> + +<p>Mercy was too much under the spell of Parson Dorrance's recent words to +sympathize in this; but she had already learned to avoid dissent from +Stephen's opinions, and she made no reply. They were sitting on the edge +of a great fissure in the mountain. Some terrible convulsion must have +shaken the huge mass to its centre, to have made such a rift. At the +bottom ran a stream, looking from this height like little more than a +silver thread. Shrubs and low flowering things were waving all the way +down the sides of the abyss, as if nature had done her best to fill up the +ugly wound. Many feet below them, on a projecting rock, waved one little +white blossom, so fragile it seemed as if each swaying motion in the +breeze must sever it from the stem.</p> + +<p>"Oh, see the dainty, brave little thing!" exclaimed Mercy. "It looks as if +it were almost alone in space."</p> + +<p>"I will get it for you," said Stephen; and, before Mercy could speak to +restrain him, he was far down the precipice. With a low ejaculation of +terror, Mercy closed her eyes. She would not look on Stephen in such +peril. She did not move nor open her eyes, until he stood by her side, +exclaiming, "Why, Mercy! my darling, do not look so! There was no danger," +and he laid the little plant in her hand. She looked at it in silence for +a moment, and then said,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, Stephen! to risk your life for such a thing as that! The sight of it +will always make me shudder."</p> + +<p>"Then I will throw it away," said Stephen, endeavoring to take it from her +hand; but she held it only the tighter, and whispered,--</p> + +<p>"No! oh, what a moment! what a moment! I shall keep this flower as long as +I live!" And she did,--kept it wrapped in a paper, on which were written +the following lines:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>A Moment.</h3> + +<p>Lightly as an insect floating<br /> + In the sunny summer air,<br /> +Waved one tiny snow-white blossom,<br /> +From a hidden crevice growing,<br /> + Dainty, fragile-leaved, and fair,<br /> +Where great rocks piled up like mountains,<br /> +Well-nigh to the shining heavens,<br /> + Rose precipitous and bare,<br /> +With a pent-up river rushing,<br /> + Foaming as at boiling heat<br /> + Wildly, madly, at their feet.</p> + +<p>Hardly with a ripple stirring<br /> + The sweet silence by its tone,<br /> +Fell a woman's whisper lightly,--<br /> +"Oh, the dainty, dauntless blossom!<br /> + What deep secret of its own<br /> +Keeps it joyous and light-hearted,<br /> +O'er this dreadful chasm swinging,<br /> + Unsupported and alone,<br /> +With no help or cheer from kindred?<br /> + Oh, the dainty, dauntless thing,<br /> + Bravest creature of the spring!"</p> + +<p>Then the woman saw her lover,<br /> + For one instant saw his face,<br /> +Down the precipice slow sinking,<br /> +Looking up at her, and sending<br /> + Through the shimmering, sunny space<br /> +Look of love and subtle triumph,<br /> +As he plucked the tiny blossom<br /> + In its airy, dizzy place,--<br /> +Plucked it, smiling, as if danger<br /> + Were not danger to the hand<br /> + Of true lover in love's land.</p> + +<p>In her hands her face she buried,<br /> + At her heart the blood grew chill;<br /> +In that one brief moment crowded<br /> +The whole anguish of a lifetime,<br /> + Made her every pulse stand still.<br /> +Like one dead she sat and waited,<br /> +Listening to the stirless silence,<br /> + Ages in a second, till,<br /> +Lightly leaping, came her lover,<br /> + And, still smiling, laid the sweet<br /> + Snow-white blossom at her feet.</p> + +<p>"O my love! my love!" she shuddered,<br /> + "Bloomed that flower by Death's own spell?<br /> +Was thy life so little moment,<br /> +Life and love for that one blossom<br /> + Wert thou ready thus to sell?<br /> +O my precious love! for ever<br /> +I shall keep this faded token<br /> + Of the hour which came to tell,<br /> +In such voice I scarce dared listen,<br /> + How thy life to me had grown<br /> + So much dearer than my own!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>On their way home from the picnic late in the afternoon, they came at the +base of the mountain to a beautiful spot where two little streams met. The +two streams were in sight for a long distance: one shining in a green +meadow; the other leaping and foaming down a gorge in the mountain-side. A +little inn, which was famous for its beer, stood on the meadow space, +bounded by these two streams; and the picnic party halted before its door. +While the white foamy glasses were clinked and tossed, Mercy ran down the +narrow strip of land at the end of which the streams met. A little +thicket of willows grew there. Standing on the very edge of the shore, +Mercy broke off a willow wand, and dipped it to right in the meadow +stream, to the left in the stream from the gorge. Then she brought it back +wet and dripping.</p> + +<p>"It has drank of two waters," she cried, holding it up. "Oh, you ought to +see how wonderful it is to watch their coming together at that point! For +a little while you can trace the mountain water by itself in the other: +then it is all lost, and they pour on together." This picture, also, she +set in a frame of verse one day, and gave it to Stephen.</p> + +<blockquote><p> On a green point of sunny land,<br /> + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high,<br /> +I stood alone as dreamers stand,<br /> + And watched two streams that hurried by.</p> + +<p>One ran to east, and one to south;<br /> + They leaped and sparkled in the sun;<br /> +They foamed like racers at the mouth,<br /> + And laughed as if the race were won.</p> + +<p>Just on the point of sunny land<br /> + A low bush stood, like umpire fair,<br /> +Waving green banners in its hand,<br /> + As if the victory to declare.</p> + +<p>Ah, victory won, but not by race!<br /> + Ah, victory by a sweeter name!<br /> +To blend for ever in embrace,<br /> + Unconscious, swift, the two streams came.</p> + +<p>One instant, separate, side by side<br /> + The shining currents seemed to pour;<br /> +Then swept in one tumultuous tide,<br /> + Swifter and stronger than before.</p> + +<p>O stream to south! O stream to east!<br /> + Which bears the other, who shall see?<br /> +Which one is most, which one is least,<br /> + In this surrendering victory?</p> + +<p>To that green point of sunny land,<br /> + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high,<br /> +I called my love, and, hand in hand,<br /> + We watched the streams that hurried by.</p></blockquote> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-09"> +<h2>Chapter IX.</h2> + + + +<p>It was a turning-point in Mercy's life when she met Parson Dorrance. Here +at last was a man who had strength enough to influence her, culture enough +to teach her, and the firm moral rectitude which her nature so inexorably +demanded. During the first few weeks of their acquaintance, Mercy was +conscious of an insatiable desire to be in his presence: it was an +intellectual and a moral thirst. Nothing could be farther removed from the +absorbing consciousness which passionate love feels of its object, than +was this sentiment she felt toward Parson Dorrance. If he had been a being +from another planet, it could not have been more so. In fact, it was very +much as if another planet had been added to her world,--a planet which +threw brilliant light into every dark corner of this one. She questioned +him eagerly. Her old doubts and perplexities, which Mr. Allen's narrower +mind had been unable to comprehend or to help, were now set at rest and +cleared up by a spiritual vision far keener than her own. Her mind was fed +and trained by an intellect so much stronger than her own that it +compelled her assent and her allegiance. She came to him almost as a +maiden, in the ancient days of Greece, would have gone to the oracle of +the holiest shrine. Parson Dorrance in his turn was as much impressed by +Mercy; but he was never able to see in her simply the pupil, the +questioner. To him she was also a warm and glowing personality, a young +and beautiful woman. Parson Dorrance's hair was white as snow; but his +eyes were as keen and dark as in his youth, his step as firm, and his +pulse as quick. Long before he dreamed of such a thing, he might have +known, if he had taken counsel of his heart, that Mercy was becoming to +him the one woman in the world. There was always this peculiarity in +Mercy's influence upon all who came to love her. She was so unique and +incalculable a person that she made all other women seem by comparison +with her monotonous and wearying. Intimacy with her had a subtle flavor to +it, by which other flavors were dulled. The very impersonality of her +enthusiasms and interests, her capacity for looking on a person for the +time being merely as a representative or mouth-piece, so to speak, of +thoughts, of ideas, of narrations, was one of her strongest charms. By +reason of this, the world was often unjust to her in its comments on her +manner, on her relations with men. The world more than once accused her +uncharitably of flirting. But the men with whom she had friendships knew +better; and now and then a woman had the insight to be just to her, to see +that she was quite capable of regarding a human being as objectively as +she would a flower or a mountain or a star. The blending of this trait in +her with the strong capacity she had for loving individuals was singular; +not more so, perhaps, than the blending of the poetic temperament with the +active, energetic, and practical side of her nature.</p> + +<p>It was not long before her name began to be mentioned in connection with +Parson Dorrance's, by the busy tongues which are always in motion in small +villages. It was not long, moreover, before a thought and a hope, in which +both these names were allied, crept into the heart of Lizzy Hunter.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she thought, "if only Uncle Dorrance would marry Mercy, how happy I +should be, she would be, every one would be."</p> + +<p>No suspicion of the relation in which Mercy stood to Stephen White had +ever crossed Mrs. Hunter's mind. She had never known Stephen until +recently; and his manner towards her had been from the outset so chilled +and constrained by his unconscious jealousy of every new friend Mercy +made, that she had set him down in her own mind as a dull and surly man, +and rarely thought of him. And, as one of poor Mercy's many devices for +keeping up with her conscience a semblance of honesty in the matter of +Stephen was the entire omission of all reference to him in her +conversation, nothing occurred to remind her friends of him. Parson +Dorrance, indeed, had said to her one day,--</p> + +<p>"You never speak of Mr. White, Mercy. Is he an agreeable and kind +landlord?"</p> + +<p>Mercy started, looked bewilderedly in the Parson's face, and repeated his +words mechanically,--</p> + +<p>"Landlord?" Then recollecting herself, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes! we do pay +rent to him; but it was paid for the whole year in advance, and I had +forgotten all about it."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance had had occasion to distrust Stephen's father, and he +distrusted the son. "Advance? advance?" he exclaimed. "Why did you do +that, child? That was all wrong."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" said Mercy, eagerly. "I had the money, and it made no difference +to me; and Mr. Allen told me that Mr. White was in a great strait for +money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible +burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White, +until she had effectually led the conversation away from Stephen.</p> + +<p>When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle +Dorrance's loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to +refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a +possibility. But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would +terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether. So she contented +herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations +on the subject of marriage. Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging, +caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men's affections as kittens +nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,--love of +warmth and shelter, and of being fondled. To all these instincts in Lizzy, +however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of +affection. If the world held more such women, there would be more happy +children and contented husbands.</p> + +<p>"Mercy," said she one afternoon, earnestly, "Mercy, it makes me perfectly +wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married. +You don't know what you are talking about: you don't realize in the least +what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days."</p> + +<p>"I never need be homeless, dear," said Mercy. "I shall always have a home, +even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near, +she has failed so much this past summer. But, even if I were all alone, I +should still keep my home."</p> + +<p>"A house isn't a home, Mercy!" exclaimed Lizzy. Of course you can always +be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort."</p> + +<p>"And that's a great way, my Lizzy," interrupted Mercy, laughing,--"a great +way. No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Mercy, don't talk so. You know very well what I mean," replied +Lizzy. "It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to +have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and +not to have anybody to love herself. Oh, Mercy, I don't see how any woman +lives without it!"</p> + +<p>The tears came into Mercy's eyes. There were depths of lovingness in her +soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream. But she spoke in a +resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, when she said,--</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see how any woman can help living very well without it, if +it doesn't come to her. I don't see how any human being--man or woman, +single or married--can help being glad to be alive under any conditions. +It is such a glorious thing to have a soul and a body, and to get the most +out of them. Just from the purely selfish point of view, it seems to me a +delight to live; and when you look at it from a higher point, and think +how much each human being can do for those around him, why, then it is +sublime. Look at Parson Dorrance, Lizzy! Just think of the sum of the +happiness that man has created in this world! He isn't lonely. He couldn't +think of such a thing."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is, too,--I know he is," said Lizzy, impetuously. "The very way +he takes up my children and hugs them and kisses them shows that he longs +for a home and children of his own."</p> + +<p>"I think not," replied Mercy. "It is all part of the perpetual overflow of +his benevolence. He can't pass by a living creature, if it is only a dog, +without a desire to give it a moment's happiness. Of happiness for himself +he never thinks, because he is on a plane above happiness,--a plane of +perpetual joy." Mercy hesitated, paused, and then went on, "I don't mean +to be irreverent, but I could never think of his needing personal +ministrations to his own happiness, any more than I could think of God's +needing them. I think he is on a plane as absolutely above such needs as +God is. Not so high above, but as absolutely."</p> + +<p>"How are you so sure God is above it?" said Lizzy, timidly. "I can't +conceive of God's being happy if nobody loved him."</p> + +<p>Mercy was startled by these words from Lizzy, who rarely questioned and +never philosophized. She opened her lips to reply with a hasty reiteration +of her first sentiment, but the words died even before they were spoken, +arrested by her sudden consciousness of the possibility of a grand truth +underlying Lizzy's instinct. If that were so, did it not lie out far +beyond every fact in life, include and control them all, as the great +truth of gravitation outlies and embraces the physical universe? Did God +so need as well as so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son +for it? Is this what it meant to be "one with God"? Then, if the great, +illimitable heart of God thus yearns for the love of his creatures, the +greater the heart of a human being, the more must he yearn for a fulness +of love, a completion of the cycle of bonds and joys for which he was +made. From these simple words of a loving woman's heart had flashed a +great light into Mercy's comprehension of God. She was silent for some +moments; then she said solemnly,--</p> + +<p>"That was a great thought you had then, Lizzy. I never saw it in that +light before. I shall never forget it. Perhaps you are right about the +Parson, too. I wonder if there is any thing he does long for? If there is, +I would die to give it to him,--I know that."</p> + +<p>It was very near Lizzy's lips to say, "If you would live to give it to +him, it would be more to the purpose, perhaps;" but she wisely forbore and +they parted in silence, Mercy absorbed in thinking of this new view of +God's relation to man, and Lizzy hoping that Mercy was thinking of Parson +Dorrance's need of a greater happiness than he possessed.</p> + +<p>As Mercy's circle of friends widened, and her interests enlarged and +deepened, her relation to Stephen became at once easier and harder: +easier, because she no longer spent so many hours alone in perplexed +meditation as to the possible wrong in it; harder, because he was +frequently unreasonable, jealous of the pleasure that he saw she found in +others, jealous of the pleasure she gave to others,--jealous, in short, of +every thing in which he was not her centre. Mercy was very patient with +him. She loved him unutterably. She never forgot for an instant the quiet +heroism with which he bore his hard life. As the months had gone on, she +had gradually established a certain kindly familiarity with his mother; +going in often to see her, taking her little gifts of flowers or fruit, +and telling her of all little incidents which might amuse her. She seemed +to herself in this way to be doing a little towards sharing Stephen's +burden; and she also felt a certain bond to the woman who, being Stephen's +mother, ought to have been hers by adoption. The more she saw of Mrs. +White's tyrannical, exacting nature, the more she yearned over Stephen. +Her first feeling of impatience with him, of resentment at the seeming +want of manliness in such subjection, had long ago worn away. She saw that +there were but two courses for him,--either to leave the house, or to buy +a semblance of peace at any cost.</p> + +<p>"Flesh and blood can't stand up agin Mis' White," said Marty one day, in +an irrepressible confidence to Mercy. "An' the queerest thing is, that +she'll never let go on you. There ain't nothin' to hender my goin' away +any day, an' there hain't been for twenty year; but she sez I'm to stay +till she dies, an' I don't make no doubt I shall. It's Mister Stephen I +stay for, though, after all, more 'n 't is her. I don't believe the Lord +ever made such a man."</p> + +<p>Mercy's cheeks would burn after such a talk as this; and she would lavish +upon Stephen every device of love and cheer which she could invent, to +atone to him by hours, if possible, for the misery of days.</p> + +<p>But the hours were few and far between. Stephen's days were filled with +work, and his evenings were his mother's. Only after she slept did he have +freedom. Just as soon as it was safe for him to leave the house, he flew +to Mercy; but, oh, how meagre and pitiful did the few moments seem!</p> + +<p>"Hardly long enough to realize that I am with you, my darling," he often +said.</p> + +<p>"But then it is every day, Stephen,--think of that," Mercy would reply, +bent always on making all things easier instead of harder for him. Even +the concealment, which was at times well-nigh insupportable to her, she +never complained of now. She had accepted it. "And, after accepting it, I +have no right to reproach him with it: it would be base," she thought.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was slowly wearing away the very foundations of her +peace. The morning walks had long been given up. Mercy had been resolute +about this. When she found Stephen insisting upon going in by-ways and +lanes, lest some one should see them who might mention it to his mother, +when he told her that she must not speak of it to her own mother, she said +firmly,--</p> + +<p>"This must end, Stephen. How hard it is to me to give it up you know very +well. It is like the sunrise to my day, always, these moments with you. +But I will not multiply concealments. It makes me guilty and ashamed all +the time. Don't urge me to any such thing; for I am not sure that too much +of it would not kill my love for you. Let us be patient. Chance will do a +good deal for us; but I will not plan to meet clandestinely. Whenever you +can come to our house, that is different. It distresses me to have you do +that and never tell of it; but that is yours and not mine, if any thing +can be yours and not mine," she added sadly. Stephen had not heard the +last words.</p> + +<p>"Kill your love for me, Mercy!" he exclaimed. "Are you really afraid of +that?"</p> + +<p>"No, not kill my love for you," replied Mercy, "I think nothing could do +that, but kill all my joy in my love for you; and that would be as +terrible to you as if the love were killed. You would not know the +difference, and I should not be able to make you see it."</p> + +<p>It was a strange thing that with all Stephen's jealousy of Mercy's +enlarged and enlarging life, of her ever-widening circle of friends, he +had no especial jealousy of Parson Dorrance. The Parson was Mercy's only +frequent visitor; and Stephen knew very well that he had become her +teacher and her guide, that she referred every question to his decision, +and was guided implicitly by his taste and wish in her writing and in her +studies. But, when Stephen was a boy in college, Parson Dorranee had +seemed to him an old man; and he now seemed venerable. Stephen could not +have been freer from a lover's jealousy of him, if he had been Mercy's own +father. Perhaps, if his instinct had been truer, it might have quickened +Mercy's. She was equally unaware of the real nature of the Parson's regard +for her. He did for her the same things he did for Lizzy, whom he called +his child. He came to see her no oftener, spoke to her no more +affectionately: she believed that she and Lizzy were sisters together in +his fatherly heart.</p> + +<p>When she was undeceived, the shock was very great: it was twofold,--a +shock to her sense of loyalty to Stephen, a shock to her tender love for +Parson Dorrance. It was true, as she had said to Lizzy, that she would +have died to give him a pleasure; and yet she was forced to inflict on him +the hardest of all pains. Every circumstance attending it made it harder; +made it seem to Mercy always in after life, as she looked back upon it, +needlessly hard,--cruelly, malignantly hard.</p> + +<p>It was in the early autumn. The bright colors which had thrilled Mercy +with such surprise and pleasure on her first arrival in Penfield were +glowing again on the trees, it seemed to her brighter than before. Purple +asters and golden-rod waved on the roadsides and in the fields; and blue +gentians, for which Penfield was famous, were blooming everywhere. Parson +Dorrance came one day to take Lizzy and Mercy over to his "Parish," as he +called "The Cedars." They had often been with him there; and Mercy had +been for a long time secretly hoping that he would ask her to help him in +teaching the negroes. The day was one of those radiant and crystalline +days peculiar to the New England autumn. On such days, joy becomes +inevitable even to inert and lifeless natures: to enthusiastic and +spontaneous ones, the exhilaration of the air and the sun is as +intoxicating as wine. Mercy was in one of her most mirthful moods. She +frolicked with the negro children, and decked their little woolly heads +with wreaths of golden-rod, till they looked as fantastic as dancing +monkeys. She gathered great sheaves of ferns and blue gentians and asters, +until the Parson implored her to "leave a few just for the poor sun to +shine on." The paths winding among "The Cedars" were in some places +thick-set with white eupatoriums, which were now in full, feathery flower, +some of them so old that, as you brushed past them, a cloud of the fine +thread-like petals flew in all directions. Mercy gathered branch after +branch of these, but threw them away impatiently, as the flowers fell off, +leaving the stems bare.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "Nature wants some seeds, I suppose; but I want +flowers. What becomes of the poor flower, any way? it lives such a short +while; all its beauty and grace sacrificed to the making of a seed for +next year."</p> + +<p>"That's the way with every thing in life, dear child," said Parson +Dorrance. "The thing that shall be is the thing for which all the powers +of nature are at work. We, you and Lizzy and I, will drop off our stems +presently,--I, a good deal the first, for you and Lizzy have the blessing +of youth, but I am old."</p> + +<p>"You are not old! You are the youngest person I know," exclaimed Mercy, +impetuously. "You will never be old, Mr. Dorrance, not if you should live +to be as old as--as old as the Wandering Jew!"</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes were fixed intently on the Parson's face; but she did not +note the deep flush which rose to his very hair, as she said these words. +She was thinking only of the glorious soul, and seeing only its shining +through the outer tabernacle. Lizzy Hunter, however, saw the flush, and +knew what it meant, and her heart gave a leap of joy. "Now he can see that +Mercy never thinks of him as an old man, and never would," she thought to +herself; and while her hands were idly playing with her flowers and +mosses, and her face looked as innocent and care-free as a baby's, her +brain was weaving plots of the most complicated devices for hastening on +the future which began to look to her so assured for these two.</p> + +<p>They were sitting on a mossy mound in the shadow of great cedar-trees. The +fields around "The Cedars" were filled with low mounds, like velvet +cushions: some of them were merely a mat of moss over great rocks; some of +them were soft yielding masses of moss, low cornel, blueberry-bushes, +wintergreen, blackberry-vines, and sweet ferns; dainty, fragrant, crowded +ovals, lovelier than any florist could ever make; white and green in the +spring, when the cornels were in flower; scarlet and green and blue in the +autumn, when the cornels and the blueberries were in fruit.</p> + +<p>Mercy was sitting on a mound which was thick-grown with the shining +wintergreen. She picked a stem which had a cluster of red berries on it, +and below the berries one tiny pink blossom. As she held it up, the +blossom fell, leaving a tiny satin disk behind it on its stem. She took +the bell and tried to fit it again on its place; then she turned it over +and over, held it up to the light and looked through it. "It makes me +sad," she said: "I wish I knew if the flower knows any thing about the +fruit. If it were working to that end all the while, and so were content +to pass on and make room, it would seem all right. But I don't want to +pass on and make room! I do so like to be here!"</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance looked from one woman's face to the other, both young, +both lovely: Lizzy's so full of placid content, unquestioning affection, +and acceptance; Mercy's so full of mysterious earnestness, far-seeing +vision, and interpretation.</p> + +<p>"What a lot lies before that gifted creature," he said to himself, "if +life should go wrong with her! If only I might dare to take her fate into +my hands! I do not believe any one else can do for her what I could, if I +were only younger." And the Parson sighed.</p> + +<p>That night he stayed in Penfield at Lizzy's house. The next morning, on +his way to Danby, he stopped to see Mercy for a moment. When he entered +her door, he had no knowledge of what lay before him; he had not yet said +to himself, had not yet dared to say to himself, that he would ask Mercy +to be his wife. He knew that the thought of it was more and more present +with him, grew sweeter and sweeter; yet he had never ceased resisting it, +saying that it was impossible. That is, he had never ceased saying so in +words; but his heart had ceased resisting long ago. Only that traitor +which we call judgment had been keeping up a false show of resolute +opinion, just to lure the beguiled heart farther and farther on in a +mistaken security.</p> + +<p>But love is like the plants. It has its appointed days for flowers and for +the falling of the flowers. The vague, sweetness of the early hours and +days together, the bright happiness of the first close intimacy and +interchange,--these reach their destined moment, to pass on and make room +for the harvest. Blessed are the lives in which all these sweet early +petals float off gently and in season for the perfect setting of the holy +fruit!</p> + +<p>On this morning, when Parson Dorrance entered Mercy's room, it was already +decorated as if for a festival. Every blooming thing she had brought from +"The Cedars" the day before had taken its own place in the room, and +looked as at home as it had looked in the fields. One of Mercy's great +gifts was the gift of creating in rooms a certain look which it is hard to +define. The phrase "vitalized individuality," perhaps, would come as near +describing it as is possible; for it was not merely that the rooms looked +unlike other rooms. Every article in them seemed to stand in the place +where it must needs stand by virtue of its use and its quality. Every +thing had a certain sort of dramatic fitness, without in the least +trenching on the theatrical. Her effects were always produced with simple +things, in simple ways; but they resulted in an impression of abundance +and luxury. As Parson Dorrance glanced around at all the wild-wood beauty, +and the wild-wood fragrance stole upon his senses, a great mastering wave +of love for the woman whose hand had planned it all swept over him. He +recalled Mercy's face the day before, when she had said,--</p> + +<p>"You are the youngest person I know;" and, as she crossed the threshold of +the door at that instant, he went swiftly towards her with outstretched +hands, and a look on his face which, if she had seen, she could not have +failed to interpret aright.</p> + +<p>But she was used to the outstretched hands; she always put both her own in +them, as simply as a child; and she was bringing to her teacher now a +little poem, of which her thoughts were full. She did not look fully in +his face, therefore; for it was still a hard thing for her to show him her +verses.</p> + +<p>Holding out the paper, she said shyly,--</p> + +<p>"It had to get itself said or sung, you know,--that thought that haunted +me so yesterday at 'The Cedars.' I daresay it is very bad poetry, though."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance unfolded the paper, and read the following poem:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Where?</h3> + +<p> My snowy eupatorium has dropped<br /> +Its silver threads of petals in the night;<br /> +No sound told me its blossoming had stopped;<br /> +Its seed-films flutter, silent, ghostly white:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask, "Where?"</p> + +<p>Beneath the glossy leaves of wintergreen<br /> +Dead lily-bells lie low, and in their place<br /> +A rounded disk of pearly pink is seen,<br /> +Which tells not of the lily's fragrant grace:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask "Where?"</p> + +<p>This morning's sunrise does not show to me<br /> +Seed-film or fruit of my sweet yesterday;<br /> +Like falling flowers, to realms I cannot see<br /> +Its moments floated silently away:<br /> + No answer stirs the shining air,<br /> + As I ask, "Where?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>As he read the last verse, his face altered. Mercy was watching him.</p> + +<p>"I thought you wouldn't like the last verse," she said eagerly. "But, +indeed, it doesn't mean doubt. I know very well no day dies; but we can't +see the especial good of each single day by itself. That is all I meant."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance came closer to Mercy: they were both standing. He laid one +hand on her' head, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Child, it was a 'sweet yesterday' wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Mercy, still absorbed in the thought of the poem. "The +day was as sweet as the flowers. But all days are heavenly sweet out of +doors with you and Lizzy," she continued, lifting one hand, and laying it +caressingly on the hand which was stroking her hair.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy! Mercy! couldn't I make all days sweet for you? Come to me, +darling, and let me try!" came from Parson Dorrance's lips in hurried and +husky tones.</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him for one second in undisguised terror and bewilderment. +Then she uttered a sharp cry, as of one who had suddenly got a wound, and, +burying her face in her hands, sank into a chair and began to cry +convulsively.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance walked up and down the room. He dared not speak. He was +not quite sure what Mercy's weeping meant; so hard is it, for a single +moment, to wrench a great hope out of a man's heart. But, as she continued +sobbing, he understood. Unselfish to the core, his first thought was, even +now, "Alas! now she will never let me do any thing more for her. Oh, how +shall I win her back to trust me as a father again?"</p> + +<p>"Mercy!" he said. Mercy did not answer nor look up.</p> + +<p>"Mercy!" he repeated in a firmer tone. "Mercy, my child, look up at me!"</p> + +<p>Docile from her long habit and from her great love, Mercy looked up, with +the tears streaming. As soon as she saw Parson Dorrance's face, she burst +again into more violent crying, and sobbed out incoherently,--</p> + +<p>"Oh! I never knew it. It wouldn't be right."</p> + +<p>"Hush, dear! Hush!" said the Parson, in a voice of tender authority. "I +have done wrong; and you must forgive me, and forget it. You are not in +the least to blame. It is I who ought to have known that you could never +think of me as any thing but a father."</p> + +<p>"Oh! it is not that," sobbed Mercy, vehemently,--"it is not that at all! +But it wouldn't be right."</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance would not have been human if Mercy's vehement "It is not +that,--it is not that!" had not fallen on his ear gratefully, and made +hope stir in his heart again. But her evident grief was too great for the +hope to last a moment.</p> + +<p>"You may not know why it seems so wrong to you, dear child," he continued; +"but that is the real reason. There could be no other." He paused. Mercy +shuddered, and opened her lips to speak again; but the words refused to be +uttered. This was the supreme moment of pain. If she could but have +said,--</p> + +<p>"I loved some one else long before I saw you. I was not my own. If it had +not been for that, I should have loved you, I know I should!" Even in her +tumult of suffering, she was distinctly conscious of all this. The words +"I could have loved him, I know I could! I can't bear to have him think it +is because he is so old," went clamoring in her heart, pleading to be +said; but she dared not say them.</p> + +<p>Tenderly and patiently Parson Dorrance endeavored to soothe her, to +convince her that his words sprung from a hasty impulse which he would be +able wholly to put aside and forget. The one thing that he longed now to +do, the only reparation that he felt was left for him to make to her, was +to enable her, if possible, to look on him as she had done before. But +Mercy herself made this more difficult. Suddenly wiping her tears, she +looked very steadily into his face, and said slowly,--"It is not of the +least use, Mr. Dorrance, for you to say this sort of thing to me. You +can't deceive me. I know exactly how you love me, and how you always will +love me. And, oh, I wish I were dead! It can never be any thing but pain +to you to see me,--never," and she wept more bitterly than before.</p> + +<p>"You do not know me, Mercy," replied the Parson, speaking as slowly as she +had done. "All my life has been one long sacrifice of my own chief +preferences. It is not hard for me to do it."</p> + +<p>Mercy clasped her hands tighter, and groaned,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it! I know it! and I said you were on a plane above all +thought of personal happiness."</p> + +<p>The Parson looked bewildered, but went on,--</p> + +<p>"You do love me, my child, very dearly, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know I do!" cried Mercy. "You know I do!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know you do, or I should not have said that. You know I am all +alone in the world, do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," moaned Mercy.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Now remember that you and Lizzy are my two children, and that +the greatest happiness I can have, the greatest help in my loneliness, is +the love of my two daughters. You will not refuse me this help, will you? +You will let me be just as I was before, will you not?"</p> + +<p>Mercy did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Will you try, Mercy?" he said in a tone almost of the old affectionate +authority; and Mercy again moaned rather than said,--</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Then Parson Dorrance kissed her hair where his hand had lain a few moments +before, and said,--</p> + +<p>"Now I must go. Good-by, my child."</p> + +<p>But Mercy did not look up; and he closed the door gently, leaving her +sitting there bowed and heart-stricken, in the little room so gay with the +bright flowers she had gathered on her "sweet yesterday."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-10"> +<h2>Chapter X.</h2> + + + +<p>The winter set in before its time, and with almost unprecedented severity. +Early in the last week in November, the whole country was white with snow, +the streams were frozen solid, and the cold was intense. Week after week +the mercury ranged from zero to ten, fifteen, and even twenty below, and +fierce winds howled night and day. It was a terrible winter for old +people. They dropped on all sides, like leaves swept off of trees in +autumn gales. It was startling to read the death records in the +newspapers, so large a proportion of them were of men and women past +sixty. Mrs. Carr had been steadily growing feebler all summer; but the +change had seemed to Mercy to be more mental than physical, and she had +been in a measure blinded to her mother's real condition. With the +increase of childishness and loss of memory had come an increased +gentleness and love of quiet, which partially disguised the loss of +strength. She would sit in her chair from morning till night, looking out +of the window or watching the movements of those around her, with an +expression of perfect placidity on her face. When she was spoken to, she +smiled, but did not often speak. The smile was meaningless and yet +infinitely pathetic: it was an infant's smile on an aged face; the +infant's heart and infant's brain had come back. All the weariness, all +the perplexity, all the sorrow, had gone from life, had slipped away from +memory. This state had come on so gradually that even Mercy hardly +realized the extent of it. The silent smile or the gentle, simple +ejaculations with which her mother habitually replied meant more to her +than they did to others. She did not comprehend how little they really +proved a full consciousness on her mother's part; and she was unutterably +shocked, when, on going to her bedside one morning, she found her unable +to move, and evidently without clear recognition of any one's face. The +end had begun; the paralysis which had so slowly been putting the mind to +rest had prostrated the body also. It was now only a question of length of +siege, of how much vital force the system had hoarded up. Lying helpless +in bed, the poor old woman was as placid and gentle as before. She never +murmured nor even stirred impatiently. She seemed unconscious of any +weariness. The only emotion she showed was when Mercy left the room; then +she would cry silently till Mercy returned. Her eyes followed Mercy +constantly, as a little babe's follow its mother; and she would not take a +mouthful of food from any other hand.</p> + +<p>It was the very hardest form of illness for Mercy to bear. A violent and +distressing disease, taxing her strength, her ingenuity to their utmost +every moment, would have been comparatively nothing to her. To sit day +after day, night after night, gazing into the senseless yet appealing eyes +of this motionless being, who had literally no needs except a helpless +animal's needs of food and drink; who clung to her with the irrational +clinging of an infant, yet would never know even her name again,--it was +worse than the chaining of life to death. As the days wore on, a species +of terror took possession of Mercy. It seemed to her that this silent +watchful, motionless creature never had been her mother,--never had been a +human being like other human beings. As the old face grew more and more +haggard, and the old hands more and more skinny and claw-like, and the +traces of intellect and thought more and more faded away from the +features, the horror deepened, until Mercy feared that her own brain must +be giving way. She revolted from the very thought of herself for having +such a feeling towards her mother. Every instinct of loyalty in her deeply +loyal nature rose up indignantly against her. She would reiterate to +herself the word, "Mother! mother! mother!" as she sat gazing with a +species of horror-stricken fascination into the meaningless face. But she +could not shake off the feeling. Her nerves were fast giving way under the +strain, and no one could help her. If she left the room or the house, the +consciousness that the helpless creature was lying silently weeping for +lack of the sight of her pursued her like a presence. She saw the piteous +old face on the pillow, and the slow tears trickling down the cheeks, just +as distinctly as if she were sitting by the bed. On the whole, the torture +of staying was less than the torture of being away; and for weeks +together she did not leave the house. Sometimes a dull sense of relief +came to her in the thought that by this strange confinement she was +escaping many things which would have been hard. She rarely saw Stephen +except for a few moments late in the evening. He had ventured into Mrs. +Carr's room once or twice; but his presence seemed to disturb her, the +only presence that had done so. She looked distressed, made agonizing +efforts to speak, and with the hand she could lift made a gesture to repel +him when he drew near the bed. In Mercy's overwrought state, this seemed +to her like an omen. She shuddered, and drew Stephen away.</p> + +<p>"O Stephen," she said, "she knows now that I have deceived her about you. +Don't come near her again."</p> + +<p>"You never deceived her, darling. Do not distress yourself so," whispered +Stephen. They were standing on the threshold of the room. A slight +rustling in the bed made them turn: Mrs. Carr had half-lifted her head +from the pillow, her lower jaw had fallen to its utmost extent in her +effort to articulate, and she was pointing the forefinger of her left hand +at the door. It was a frightful sight. Even Stephen turned pale, and +sprang hastily away.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Mercy, in a ghastly whisper, "sometimes she certainly does +know things; but she never looks like that except at you. You must never +come in again."</p> + +<p>"No," said Stephen, almost as horror-stricken as Mercy. "It is very +strange though, for she always used to seem so fond of me."</p> + +<p>"She was very childish and patient," said Mercy. "And I think she thought +that you were slowly getting to care about me; but now, wherever her soul +is,--I think it has left her body,--she knows that we deceived her."</p> + +<p>Stephen made no answer, but turned to go. The expression of resolved +endurance on his face pierced Mercy to the quick, as it always did. She +sprang after him, and clasped both her hands on his arm. "O Stephen, +darling,--precious, brave, strong darling! do forgive me. I ought to be +killed for even saying one word to give you pain. How I can, I don't see, +when I long so to make you happy always."</p> + +<p>"You do give me great, unutterable happiness, Mercy," he replied. "I never +think of the pain: I only think of the joy," and he laid her hand on his +lips. "All the pain that you could possibly give me in a lifetime could +not outweigh the joy of one such moment as this, when you say that you +love me."</p> + +<p>These days were unspeakably hard for Stephen. He had grown during the past +year to so live on the sight and in the blessedness of Mercy that to be +shut away from them was simply a sort of dying. There was no going back +for him to the calm routine of the old life before she came. He was +restless and wretched: he walked up and down in front of the house every +night, watching the shadow of her figure on the curtains of her mother's +room. He made all manner of excuses, true and false, reasonable and +unreasonable, to speak to her for a moment at the door in the morning. He +carried the few verses in his pocket-book she had given him; and, although +he knew them nearly by heart, he spent long hours in his office turning +the little papers over and over. Some of them were so joyous that they +stirred in him almost a bitter incredulity as he read them in these days +of loss and pain. One was a sonnet which she had written during a two +days' absence of his,--his only absence from his mother's house for six +years. Mercy had been astonished at her sense of loneliness in these two +days. "O Stephen," she had said, when he came back, "I am honestly ashamed +of having missed you so much. Just the knowing that you wouldn't be here +to come in, in the evenings, made the days seem a thousand years long, and +this is what came of it."</p> + +<p>And she gave him this sonnet:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>To an Absent Lover.</h3> + +<p> That so much change should come when them dost go,<br /> +Is mystery that I cannot ravel quite.<br /> +The very house seems dark as when the light<br /> +Of lamps goes out. Each wonted thing doth grow<br /> +So altered, that I wander to and fro,<br /> +Bewildered by the most familiar sight,<br /> +And feel like one who rouses in the night<br /> +From dream of ecstasy, and cannot know<br /> +At first if he be sleeping or awake,<br /> +My foolish heart so foolish for thy sake<br /> +Hath grown, dear one!<br /> + Teach me to be more wise.<br /> +I blush for all my foolishness doth lack;<br /> +I fear to seem a coward in thine eyes.<br /> +Teach me, dear one,--but first thou must come back!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another was a little poem, which she laughingly called his and not hers. +One morning, when they had bade each other "good-by," and she had kissed +him,--a rare thing for Mercy to do, he had exclaimed, "That kiss will go +floating before me all day in the air, Mercy. I shall see every thing in a +light as rosy as your lips."</p> + +<p>At night she gave him this little poem, saying,--</p> + +<p>"This is your poem, not mine, darling. I should never have thought of any +thing so absurd myself."</p> + +<blockquote><h3>"Couleur de Rose."</h3> + +<p> All things to-day "Couleur de rose,"<br /> + I see,--oh, why?<br /> +I know, and my dear love she knows,<br /> + Why, oh, why!<br /> +On both my eyes her lips she set,<br /> +All red and warm and dewy wet,<br /> + As she passed by.<br /> +The kiss did not my eyelids close,<br /> +But like a rosy vapor goes,<br /> + Where'er I sit, where'er I lie,<br /> +Before my every glance, and shows<br /> + All things to-day "Couleur de rose."</p> + +<p>Would it last thus? Alas, who knows?<br /> + Men ask and sigh:<br /> +They say it fades, "Couleur de rose."<br /> + Why, oh, why?<br /> +Without swift joy and sweet surprise,<br /> +Surely those lips upon my eyes<br /> + Could never lie,<br /> +Though both our heads were white as snows,<br /> +And though the bitterest storm that blows,<br /> + Of trouble and adversity,<br /> +Had bent us low: all life still shows<br /> + To eyes that love "Couleur de rose."</p></blockquote> + +<p>This sonnet, also, she persisted in calling Stephen's, and not her own, +because he had asked her the question which had suggested it:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Lovers' Thoughts.</h3> + +<p> "How feels the earth when, breaking from the night,<br /> +The sweet and sudden Dawn impatient spills<br /> +Her rosy colors all along the hills?<br /> +How feels the sea, as it turns sudden white,<br /> +And shines like molten silver in the light<br /> +Which pours from eastward when the full moon fills<br /> +Her time to rise?"</p> + +<p> "I know not, love, what thrills<br /> +The earth, the sea, may feel. How should I know?<br /> +Except I guess by this,--the joy I feel<br /> +When sudden on my silence or my gloom<br /> +Thy presence bursts and lights the very room?<br /> +Then on my face doth not glad color steal<br /> +Like shining waves, or hill-tops' sunrise glow?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>One of the others was the poem of which I spoke once before, the poem +which had been suggested to her by her desolate sense of homelessness on +the first night of her arrival in Penfield. This poem had been widely +copied after its first appearance in one of the magazines; and it had been +more than once said of it, "Surely no one but a genuine outcast could have +written such a poem as this." It was hard for Mercy's friends to +associate the words with her. When she was asked how it happened that she +wrote them, she exclaimed, "I did not write that poem, I lived it one +night,--the night when I came to Penfield, and drove through these streets +in the rain with mother. No vagabond in the world ever felt more forlorn +than I did then."</p> + +<blockquote><h3>The Outcast.</h3> + +<p>O sharp, cold wind, thou art my friend!<br /> +And thou, fierce rain, I need not dread<br /> +Thy wonted touch upon my head!<br /> +On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend<br /> +Your force on all these dwellings. Rend<br /> +These doors so pitilessly locked,<br /> +To keep the friendless out! Strike dead<br /> +The fires whose glow hath only mocked<br /> +By muffled rays the night where I,<br /> +The lonely outcast, freezing lie!</p> + +<p>Ha! If upon those doors to-night<br /> +I knocked, how well I know the stare,<br /> +The questioning, the mingled air<br /> +Of scorn and pity at the sight,<br /> +The wonder if it would be right<br /> +To give me alms of meat and bread!<br /> +And if I, reckless, standing there,<br /> +For once the truth imploring said,<br /> +That not for bread or meat I longed,<br /> +That such an alms my real need wronged,</p> + +<p>That I would fain come in, and sit<br /> +Beside their fire, and hear the voice<br /> +Of children; yea, and if my choice<br /> +Were free, and I dared mention it,<br /> +And some sweet child should think me fit<br /> +To hold a child upon my knee<br /> +One moment, would my soul rejoice,<br /> +More than to banquet royally,<br /> +And I the pulses of its wrist<br /> +Would kiss, as men the cross have kissed.</p> + +<p>Ha! Well the haughty stare I know<br /> +With which they'd say, "The man is mad!"<br /> +"What an impostor's face he had!"<br /> +"How insolent these beggars grow!"<br /> +Go to, ye happy people! Go!<br /> +My yearning is as fierce as hate.<br /> +Must my heart break, that yours be glad?<br /> +Will your turn come at last, though late?<br /> +I will not knock, I will pass by;<br /> +My comrades wait,--the wind, the rain.<br /> +Comrades, we'll run a race to-night!<br /> +The stakes may not seem much to gain:<br /> +The goal is not marked plain in sight;<br /> +But, comrades, understand,--if I<br /> +Drop dead, 't will be a victory!</p></blockquote> + +<p>These poems and many others Stephen carried with him wherever he went. To +read them over was next to seeing Mercy. The poet was hardly less dear to +him than the woman. He felt at times so removed from her by the great gulf +which her genius all unconsciously seemed to create between herself and +him that he doubted his own memories of her love, and needed to be +reassured by gazing into her eyes, touching her hand, and listening to her +voice. It seemed to him that, if this separation lasted much longer, he +should lose all faith in the fact of their relation. Very impatient +thoughts of poor old Mrs. Carr filled Stephen's thoughts in these days. +Heretofore she had been no barrier to his happiness; her still and +childlike presence was no restraint upon him; he had come to disregard it +as he would the presence of an infant in a cradle. Therefore, he had, or +thought he had, the kindest of feelings towards her; but now that her +helpless paralyzed hands had the power to shut him away from Mercy, he +hated her, as he had always hated every thing which stood between him and +delight. Yet, had it been his duty to minister to her, he would have done +it as gently, as faithfully, as Mercy herself. He would have spoken to her +in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her +dead. So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of +compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter. By +the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him +often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy's life. The +one great desire he had left now was to regain that,--to see her again +look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had +had until that sad morning.</p> + +<p>A strange incident happened to Mercy in these first weeks of her mother's +illness. She was called to the door one morning by the message that a +stranger wished to speak to her. She found standing there an elderly +woman, with a sweet but care-worn face, who said eagerly, as soon as she +appeared,--</p> + +<p>"Are you Mrs. Philbrick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mercy. "Did you wish to see me?"</p> + +<p>The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and +then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,--</p> + +<p>"Won't you come and help me make my husband come home. He is so sick, and +I believe he will die in that wretched old garret."</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that +she must be insane; but the woman continued,--</p> + +<p>"I'm Mrs. Wheeler. You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about +you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day. You're the only +human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if +anybody could do any thing with him, you could."</p> + +<p>It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man +Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving +no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a +human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one +place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and +factories, and uninhabited rooms and houses in all the towns in the +vicinity. There was hardly any article of merchandise which he had not at +one time or another had a depot for, or a manufactory of. He had +especially a hobby for attempting to make articles which were not made in +this country. It was only necessary for some one to go to him, and say, +"Mr. Wheeler, do you know how much this country pays every year for +importing such or such an article?" to throw him into a rage.</p> + +<p>"Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, sir. Just as well make it here. I'll +make it myself." And up would start a new manufacture, just as soon as he +could get men to work at it.</p> + +<p>At one time it was ink, at another time brushes, then chintz, and then +pocket-books; in fact, nobody pretended to remember all the schemes which +the old man had failed in. He would stop them as instantaneously as he +began them, dismiss the workmen, shut up the shops or the mills, turn the +key on them just as they stood, very possibly filled full of material in +the rough. He did not care. The hobby was over: he had proved that the +thing could be made in America, and he was content. It was usually in some +one of these disused buildings that he set up his hermitage in these +absences from home. He would sally out once a day and buy bread, just a +pittance, hardly enough to keep him alive, and then bury himself again in +darkness and solitude. If the absence did not last more than three or four +days, his wife and sons gave themselves no concern about him. He usually +returned a saner and healthier man than he went away. When the absences +were longer, they went in search of him, and could usually prevail on him +to return home with them. But this last absence had been much longer than +usual before they found him. He was as cunning and artful as a fugitive +from justice in concealing his haunt. At last he was discovered in the old +garret store-room over the Brick Row. The marvel was that he had not died +of cold there. He was not far from it, however; for he was so ill that at +times he was delirious. He lay curled up in the old stack of comforters in +the corner, with only a jug of water and some crumbs of bread by his side, +when they found him. He had been so ill when he last crawled up the stairs +that he had forgotten to take the key out of the keyhole, but left it on +the outside, and by that they found him. At the bare suggestion of his +going home, he became so furious that it seemed unsafe to urge it. His +wife and eldest son had stayed there with him now for two days; but he had +grown steadily worse, and it was plain that he must die unless he could be +properly cared for.</p> + +<p>"At last I thought of you," said the poor woman. "He's always said so much +about you; and once, when I was riding with him, he pointed you out to me +on the street, and said he, 'That's the very nicest girl in America.' And +he told me about his giving you the clock; and I never knew him give any +thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very +good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd +always pay bills,--that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to +'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to +let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find +her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I +don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of queer way Mr. Wheeler's +always had; and everybody's got something queer about 'em, first or last; +and this way of Mr. Wheeler's of going off don't hurt anybody but himself. +I got used to 't long ago. Now, won't you come, and try and see if you +can't persuade him? It won't do any harm to try."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, indeed, Mrs. Wheeler, I'll come; but I don't believe I can do +any thing," said Mercy, much touched by the appeal to her. "I have +wondered very much what had become of Mr. Wheeler. I had not seen him for +a long time."</p> + +<p>When they went into the garret, the old man was half-lying, half-sitting, +propped on his left elbow. In his right hand he held his cane, with which +he continually tapped the floor, as he poured out a volley of angry +reproaches to his son "'Siah," a young man of eighteen or twenty years +old, who sat on a roll of leather at a safe distance from his father's +lair. As the door opened, and he saw Mercy entering with his wife, the old +man's face underwent the most extraordinary change. Surprise, shame, +perplexity, bravado,--all struggled together there.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, trying to draw the +comforters more closely about him.</p> + +<p>Mercy went up to him, and, sitting down by his side, began to talk to him +in a perfectly natural tone, as if she were making an ordinary call on an +invalid in his own home. She said nothing to suggest that he had done any +thing unnatural in hiding himself, and spoke of his severe cold as being +merely what every one else had been suffering from for some time. Then she +told him how ill her mother was, and succeeded in really arousing his +interest in that. Finally, she said,--</p> + +<p>"But I must go now. I can't be away from my mother long. I will come and +see you again to-morrow. Shall I find you here or at your home?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was thinking I 'd better move home to-day," said he.</p> + +<p>His wife and son involuntarily exchanged glances. This was more than they +had dared to hope.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would, if I were you," replied Mercy, still in a perfectly natural +tone. "It would be so much better for you to be in a room with a fire in +it for a few days. There isn't any way of warming this room, is there?" +said she, looking all about, as if to see if it might not be possible +still to put up a stove there. "'Siah" turned his head away to hide a +smile, so amused was he by the tact of the remark. "No, I see there is no +stovepipe-hole here," she went on, "so you'd much better move home. I'm +going by the stable. Let me send Seth right up with the carriage, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, no! Bless my soul! Thinks I'm made of money, don't she! No, no! I can +walk." And the old half-crazy glare came into his eyes.</p> + +<p>Mercy went nearer to him, and laid her hand gently on his.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wheeler," said she, "you did something very kind for me once: now +won't you do something once more,--just once? I want you to go home in the +carriage. It is a terribly cold day, and the streets are very icy. I +nearly fell several times myself coming over here. You will certainly +take a terrible cold, if you walk this morning. Please say I may get the +carriage."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul! Bless my soul, child! Go get it then, if you care so much; +but tell him I'll only pay a quarter,--only a quarter, remember. They'd +take every cent I've got. They are all wolves, wolves, wolves!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll tell him only a quarter. I'll have him here in a few minutes!" +exclaimed Mercy, and ran out of the room hastily before the old man could +change his mind.</p> + +<p>As good luck would have it, Seth and his "kerridge" were in sight when +Mercy reached the foot of the staircase. So in less than five minutes she +returned to the garret, exclaiming,--</p> + +<p>"Here is Seth now, Mr. Wheeler. It is so fortunate I met him. Now I can +see you off." The old man was so weak that his son had to carry him down +the stairs; and his face, seen in the broad daylight, was ghastly. As they +placed him in the carriage, he called out to his wife and son, sharply,--</p> + +<p>"Don't you get in! You can walk, you can walk. Mind, he's to have but a +quarter, tell him." And, as Seth whipped up his horses and drove off, the +words, "wolves, wolves, wolves," were heard coming in muffled tones +through the door.</p> + +<p>"He'd never have gone, if you hadn't come back,--never," said Mrs. +Wheeler, as she turned to Mercy. "I never can thank you enough. It'll save +his life, getting him out of that garret."</p> + +<p>Mercy did not say, but she thought that it was too late. A mortal +sickness had fastened upon the old man; and so it proved. When she went to +his home the next day, he was in a high fever and delirious; and he lived +only a few days. He had intervals of partial consciousness, and in those +he seemed to be much touched by the patient care which his two sons were +giving to him. He had always been a hard father; had compelled his sons +very early to earn their own living, and had refused to give them money, +which he could so easily have spared, to establish themselves in business. +Now, that it was too late, he repented.</p> + +<p>"Good boys, good boys, good boys after all," he would mutter to himself, +as they bent over him, and nursed him tenderly in his helplessness. "Might +have left them more money, might have left them more. Mistake, mistake!" +Once he roused, and with great vehemence asked to have his lawyer sent for +immediately. But, when the lawyer came, the delirium had returned again: +it was too late; and the old man died without repairing the injustice he +had done. The last intelligible words he spoke were, "Mistake! mistake!"</p> + +<p>And he had indeed made a mistake. When his will was opened, it was found +that the whole bulk of his large estate had been left to trustees, to be +held as a fund for assisting poor young men to a certain amount of capital +to go into business with,--the very thing which he had never done for his +own children. The trust was burdened with such preposterous conditions, +however, that it never could have amounted to any thing, even if the +courts had not come to the rescue, and mercifully broken the will, +dividing the property where it rightfully belonged, between the wife and +children.</p> + +<p>Early in February Mrs. Carr died. It was more like a going to sleep than +like a death. She lay for two days in a dozing state, smiling whenever +Mercy spoke to her, and making great efforts to swallow food whenever +Mercy offered it to her. At last she closed her eyes, turned her head on +one side, as if for a sounder sleep, and never moved again.</p> + +<p>However we may think we are longing for the release from suffering to come +to one we love, when it does come, it is a blow, is a shock. Hundreds of +times Mercy had said to herself in the course of the winter, "Oh, if God +would only take my mother to heaven! Her death would be easier to bear +than this." But now she would have called her back, if she could. The +silent house, the empty room, still more terrible the long empty hours in +which nobody needed her help, all wrung Mercy's heart. It was her first +experience of being alone. She had often pictured to herself, or rather +she thought she had, what it would be; but no human imagination can ever +sound the depths of that word: only the heart can feel it. It is a marvel +that hearts do not break under it oftener than they do. The silence which +is like that darkness which could be felt; the sudden awakening in the +night with a wonder what it means that the loved one is not there; the +pitiless morning light which fills the empty house, room after room; and +harder than all else to forget, to rise above--the perpetual sense of no +future: even the little near futures of the next hour, the next day, all +cut off, all closed, to the human being left utterly alone. The mockery of +the instincts of hunger and need of rest seems cruel. What a useless +routine, for one left alone, to be fed, to sleep, and to rise up to eat +and sleep again!</p> + +<p>Mercy bore all this in a sort of dumb bewilderment for a few days. All +Stephen's love and sympathy did not help her. He was unutterably tender +and sympathizing now that poor old Mrs. Carr was fairly out of his way. It +surprised even himself to see what a sort of respectful affection he felt +for her in her grave. Any misgiving that this new quiet and undisturbed +possession of Mercy might not continue did not cross his mind; and when +Mercy said to him suddenly, one evening about ten days after her mother's +death, "Stephen, I must go away, I can't live in this house another week," +it was almost as sudden a shock to him as if he had gone in and found her +dead.</p> + +<p>"Go away! Leave me!" he gasped, rather than said. "Mercy, you can't mean +it!" and the distress in his face smote Mercy bitterly. But she persisted. +"Yes, I do mean it," she said. "You must not ask me to stay. I should lose +my senses or fall ill. You can't think how terrible it is to me to be all +alone in these rooms. Perhaps in new rooms I should not feel it so much. I +have always looked forward to being left alone at some time, and have +thought I would still have my home; but I did not think it could feel like +this. I simply cannot bear it,--at any rate, not till I am stronger. And +besides, Stephen," and Mercy's face flushed red, "there is another thing +you have not thought of: it would never do for me to live here alone in +this house with you, as we have been living. You couldn't come to see me +so much now mother is not here."</p> + +<p>Poor Mrs. Carr! avenged at last, by Stephen's own heart. How gladly would +he have called her to life now! Mercy's words carried instantaneous +conviction to his mind. It was strange he had never thought of this +before; but he had not. He groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy! O Mercy!" he exclaimed, "I never once thought of that, we have +been living so so long. You are right: you cannot stay here. Oh, what +shall I do without you, my darling, my darling?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think you can ever be so lonely as I," said Mercy; "for you have +still your work left you to do. If I had any human being to need me, I +could bear being separated from you."</p> + +<p>"Where will you go, Mercy?" asked Stephen, in a tone of dull, hopeless +misery.</p> + +<p>"I do not know. I have not thought yet. Back to my old home for a visit, I +think, and then to some city to study and work. That is the best life for +me."</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, Mercy, I am going to lose you,--lose you utterly!" exclaimed +Stephen.</p> + +<p>Mercy looked at him with a pained and perplexed expression. "Stephen," she +said earnestly, "I can't understand you. You bear your hard life so +uncomplainingly, so bravely, that it seems as if you could not have a +vestige of selfishness in you; and yet"--Mercy halted; she could not put +her thought in words. Stephen finished it for her.</p> + +<p>"And yet," he said, "I am selfish about you, you think. Selfish! Good God! +do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a +man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread? What else have I that +one could call life except you? Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is +the whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it +selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy +almost angrily. She was writhing under his words. She had always an +unspeakable dread of being unjust to him. Love made her infinitely tender, +and pity made her yearn over him. But neither her own love and pity nor +his passionate words could wholly blind her now; and there was a sadness +in the tones in which she replied,--</p> + +<p>"No, Stephen, I did not mean to call you selfish; but I can't understand +why you are not as brave and patient about all hard things as you are +about the one hardest thing of all."</p> + +<p>"Mercy, would you marry me now, if I asked you?" said Stephen. He did not +realize the equivocal form of his question. An indignant look swept over +Mercy's face for a moment, but only for a moment. She knew Stephen's love +too well.</p> + +<p>"No, Stephen," she said, "I would not. If you had asked me at first, I +should have done it. I thought then that it would be best," she said, with +hot blushes mounting high on her cheeks; "but I have seen since that it +would not."</p> + +<p>Stephen sighed. "I am glad you see that," he said. Then in a lower tone, +"You know you are free, Mercy,--utterly free. I would never be so base as +to hold you by a word."</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled half-bitterly, as she replied,--</p> + +<p>"Words never hold people, and you know very well it is only an empty form +of words to say that I am free. I do not want to be free, darling," she +added, in a burst of tenderness toward him. "You could not set me free, if +you tried."</p> + +<p>When Mercy told Parson Dorrance her intention of going away, his face +changed as if some fierce spasm wrung him; but it was over in a second, +and he said,--</p> + +<p>"You are quite right, my child,--quite right. It will be a great deal +better for you in every way. This is no place for you now. You must have +at least a year or two of travel and entire change."</p> + +<p>In her heart, Mercy contrasted the replies of her two lovers. She could +not banish the feeling that one was the voice of a truer love than the +other. She fought against the feeling as against a treason; but the truth +was strongest. In her heart, she knew that the man she did not love was +manlier than the man she loved.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-11"> +<h2>Chapter XI</h2> + + + +<p>For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself +to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain +movements for a certain length of time, and could by no possibility stop. +He did not suffer as he had expected. Sometimes it seemed to him that he +did not suffer at all; and he was terrified at this very absence of +suffering. Then again he had hours and days of a dull despair, which was +worse than any more active form of suffering. Now he understood, he +thought, how in the olden time men had often withdrawn themselves from the +world after some great grief, and had lived long, stagnant lives in +deserts and caves. He had thought it would kill him to lose Mercy out of +his life. Now he felt sure that he should live to be a hundred years old; +should live by very help of the apathy into which he had sunk. Externally, +he seemed very little changed,--a trifle quieter, perhaps, and gentler. +His mother sometimes said to herself,--</p> + +<p>"Steve is really getting old very fast for so young a man;" but she was +content with the change. It seemed to bring them nearer together, and made +her feel more at ease as to the possibility of his falling in love. Her +old suspicions and jealousies of Mercy had died out root and branch, +within three months after her departure. Stephen's unhesitating assurance +to her that he did not expect to write to Mercy had settled the question +in her mind once for all. If she had known that at the very moment when he +uttered these words he had one long letter from Mercy and another to her +lying in his pocket, the shock might well-nigh have killed her; for never +once in Mrs. White's most jealous and ill-natured hours had the thought +crossed her mind that her son would tell her a deliberate lie. He told it, +however, unflinchingly, in as gentle and even a tone and with as unruffled +a brow as he would have bade her good-morning. He had thought the whole +matter over, and deliberately resolved to do it. He did it to save her +from pain; and he had no more compunction about it than he would have had +about closing a blind, to shut out a sunlight too strong for her eyes. +What a terrible thing is the power which human beings have of deceiving +each other! Woe to any soul which trusts itself to any thing less than an +organic integrity of nature, to which a lie is impossible!</p> + +<p>Mercy's letters disappointed Stephen. They were loving; but they were +concise, sensible, sometimes merry, and always cheerful. Her life was +constantly broadening; friends crowded around her; and her art was +becoming more and more to her every day. Her name was beginning to be +known, and her influence felt. Her verses were simple, and went to +people's hearts. They were also of a fine and subtle flavor, and gave +pleasure to the intellect. Strangers began to write words of +encouragement to her,--sometimes a word of gratitude for help, sometimes a +word of hearty praise. She began to feel that she had her own circle of +listeners, unknown friends, who were always ready to hear her when she +spoke. This consciousness is a most exquisite happiness to a true artist: +it is a better stimulus than all the flattering criticism in the world can +give.</p> + +<p>She was often touched to tears by the tributes she received from these +unknown friends. They had a wide range, coming sometimes from her +fellow-artists in literature, sometimes from lowly and uncultured people. +Once there came to her by mail, on a sheet of coarse paper, two faded +roses, fragrant,--for they were cinnamon roses, whose fragrance never +dies,--but yellow and crumpled, for they had journeyed many days to reach +her. They were tied together by a bit of blue yarn; and on the paper was +written, in ill-spelt words, "I wanted to send you something; and these +were all I had. I am an old woman, and very poor. You've helped me ever so +much."</p> + +<p>Another gift was a moss basket filled with arbutus blossoms. Hid away in +the leaves was a tiny paper, on which were written some graceful verses, +evidently by a not unpractised hand. The signature was in initials unknown +to Mercy; but she hazarded a guess as to the authorship, and sent the +following verses in reply:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3> To E.B.</h3> + +<p> At night, the stream came to the sea.<br /> + "Long leagues," it cried, "this drop I bring,<br /> +O beauteous, boundless sea!<br /> + What is the meagre, paltry thing<br /> + In thine abundance unto thee?<br /> +No ripple, in thy smallest wave, of me<br /> +Will know! No thirst its suffering<br /> +Shall better slake for my surrendering<br /> + My life! O sea, in vain<br /> + My leagues of toil and pain!"</p> + +<p>At night, wayfarers reached the sea.<br /> + "Long weary leagues we came," they cried,<br /> +"O beauteous, boundless sea!<br /> + The swelling waves of thy swift tide<br /> +Break on the shores where souls are free:<br /> +Through lonely wildernesses, unto thee<br /> +One tiny stream has been our guide,<br /> +And in the desert we had died,<br /> + If its oases sweet<br /> + Had not refreshed our feet."</p> + +<p>O tiny stream, lost in the sea,<br /> + Close symbol of a lifetime's speech!<br /> +O beauteous, boundless sea,<br /> + Close fitting symbol of the reach,<br /> + Of measureless Eternity!<br /> +Be glad, O stream, O sea, blest equally!<br /> +And thou whose words have helped to teach<br /> +Me this,--my unknown friend,--for each<br /> +Kind thought, warm thanks.<br /> + Only the stream can know<br /> +How at such words the long leagues lighter grow.</p></blockquote> + +<p>All these new interests and occupations, while they did not in the least +weaken her loyalty to Stephen, filled her thoughts healthfully and +absorbingly, and left her no room for any such passionate longing and +brooding as Stephen poured out to her in his letters. He looked in vain +for any response to these expressions. Sometimes, unable to bear the +omission any longer, he would ask her pathetically why she did not say +that she longed to see him. Her reply was characteristic:--</p> + +<p>"You ask me, dear, why I do not say that I long to see you. I am not sure +that I ever do long, in the sense in which you use the word. I know that I +cannot see you till next winter, just as I used to know every morning that +I could not see you until night; and the months between now and then seem +to me one solid interval of time to be filled up and made the most of, +just as the interval of the daytime between your going away in the morning +and coming home at night used to seem to me. I do not think, dear Stephen, +there is a moment of any day when I have not an under current of +consciousness of you; but it is not a longing for the sight of you. Are +you sure, darling, that the love which takes perpetual shape in such +longings is the strongest love?"</p> + +<p>Little by little, phrases like this sank into Stephen's mind, and +gradually crystallized into a firm conviction that Mercy was being weaned +from him. It was not so. It was only that separation and its surer tests +were adjusting to a truer level the relation between them. She did not +love him one whit less; but she was taking the position which belonged to +her stronger and finer organization. If she had ever lived by his side as +his wife, the same change would have come; but her never-failing +tenderness would have effectually covered it from his recognition, and hid +it from her own, so long as he looked into her eyes with pleading love, +and she answered with woman's fondness. No realization of inequality could +ever have come. It is, after all, the flesh and blood of the loved one +which we idealize. There is in love's sacraments a "real presence," which +handling cannot make us doubt. It is when we go apart and reflect that our +reason asks questions. Mercy did not in the least know that she was +outgrowing Stephen White. She did not in the least suspect that her +affection and her loyalty were centring around an ideal personality, to +which she gave his name, but which had in reality never existed. She +believed honestly that she was living for and in Stephen all this time; +that she was his, as he was hers, inalienably and for ever. If it had been +suggested to her that it was unnatural that she should be so content in a +daily life which he did not share, so busy and glad in occupations and +plans and aspirations into which he did not enter, she would have been +astonished. She would have said, "How foolish of me to do otherwise! We +have our lives to lead, our work to do. It would be a sin to waste one's +life, to leave one's work undone, because of the mere lack of seeing any +one human being, however dear." Stephen knew love better than this: he +knew that life without the daily sight of Mercy was a blank drudgery; +that, day by day, month by month, he was growing duller and duller, and +more and more lifeless, as if his very blood were being impoverished by +lack of nourishment. Surely it was a hard fate which inflicted on this +man, already so overburdened, the perpetual pain of a love denied, +thwarted, unhappy. Surely it was a brave thing in him to bear the double +load uncomplainingly, to make no effort to throw it off, and never by a +word or a look to visit his own sufferings on the head of the helpless +creature, who seemed to be the cause of them all. If there were any change +in his manner toward his mother during these months, it was that he grew +tenderer and more demonstrative to her. There were even times when he +kissed her, solely from the yearning need he felt to kiss something human, +he so longed for one touch of Mercy's hand. He would sometimes ask her +wistfully, "Do I make you happy, mother?" And she would be won upon and +softened by the words; when in reality they were only the outcry of the +famished heart which needed some reassurance that its sacrifices had not +been all in vain.</p> + +<p>Month after month went on, and no tenants came for the "wing." Stephen +even humiliated himself so far as to offer it to Jane Barker's husband at +a lowered rent; but his offer was surlily rejected, and he repented having +made it. Very bitterly he meditated on the strange isolation into which he +and his mother were forced. His sympathies were not broad and general +enough to comprehend it. He did not know how quickly all people feel an +atmosphere of withdrawal, an air of indifference. If Stephen had been rich +and powerful, the world would have forgiven him these traits, or have +smothered its dislike of them; but in a poor man, and an obscure one, such +"airs" were not to be tolerated. Nobody would live in the "wing." And so +it came to pass that one day Stephen wrote to Mercy the following +letter:--</p> + +<p>"You will be sorry to hear that I have had to foreclose the mortgage on +this house. It was impossible to get a tenant for the other half of it, +and there was nothing else to be done. The house must be sold, but I doubt +if it brings the full amount of the loan. I should have done this three +months ago, except for your strong feeling against it. I am very sorry for +old Mrs. Jacobs; but it is her misfortune, not my fault. I have my mother +to provide for, and my first duty is to her. Of course, Mrs. Jacobs will +now have to go to the alms-house but I am not at all sure that she will +not be more comfortable there than she has made herself in the cottage. +She has starved herself all these years. Some people say she must have a +hoard of money there somewhere, that she cannot have spent even the little +she has received.</p> + +<p>"I shall move out of the house at once, into the little cottage you liked +so much, farther up on the hill. That is for rent, only fifty dollars a +year. I shall put this house into good repair, run a piazza around it as +you suggested, and paint it; and then I think I shall be sure of finding a +purchaser. It can be made a very pretty house by expending a little money +on it; and I can sell it for enough more to repay me. I am sure nobody +would buy it as it is."</p> + +<p>Mercy replied very briefly to this part of Stephen's letter. She had +discussed the question with him often before, and she knew the strict +justice of his claim; but her heart ached for the poor friendless old +woman, who was thus to lose her last dollar. If it had been possible for +Mercy to have continued to pay the rent of the wing herself, she would +gladly have done so; but, at her suggestion of such a thing, Stephen had +been so angry that she had been almost frightened.</p> + +<p>"I am not so poor yet, Mercy," he had exclaimed, "as to take charity from +you! I think I should go to the alms-house myself first. I don't see why +old Granny Jacobs is so much to you, any way."</p> + +<p>"Only because she is so absolutely friendless, Stephen," Mercy had replied +gently. "I never before knew of anybody who had not a relative or a friend +in the world; and I am afraid they are cruel to the poor people at the +alms-house. They all look so starved and wretched!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it will be no more than she deserves," said Stephen; "for she was +cruel to her husband's brother's wife. I used to hear horrid stories, when +I was a boy, about how she drove them out of the house; and she was cruel +to her son too, and drove him away from home. Of course, I am sorry to be +the instrument of punishing her, and I do have a certain pity for the old +woman; but it is really her own fault. She might be living now in comfort +with her son, perhaps, if she had treated him well."</p> + +<p>"We can't go by such 'ifs' in this world, Steve," said Mercy, earnestly. +"We have to take things as they are. I don't want to be judged way back in +my life. Only God knows all the 'ifs.'" Such conversations as these had +prepared Mercy for the news which Stephen now wrote her; but they had in +no wise changed her feeling in regard to it. She believed in the bottom of +her heart that Stephen might have secured a tenant, if he had tried. He +had once, in speaking of the matter, dropped a sentence which had shocked +her so that she could never forget it.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great deal better for me," he had said, "to have the money +invested in some other way. If the house does fall into my hands, I shall +sell it; and, even if I don't get the full amount of what father loaned, I +shall make it bring us in a good deal more than it does this way."</p> + +<p>This sentence rang in Mercy's ears, as she read in Stephen's letter all +his plans for improving the house; but the thing was done, and it was not +Mercy's habit to waste effort or speech over things which could not be +altered.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," she wrote, "that you have been obliged to take the +house. You know how I always felt for poor old Granny Jacobs. Perhaps we +can do something to make her more comfortable in the alms-house. I think +Lizzy could manage that for us."</p> + +<p>And in her own mind Mercy resolved that the old woman should never lack +for food and fire, however unwilling the overseers might be to permit her +to have unusual comforts.</p> + +<p>Stephen's next letter opened with these words: "O Mercy, I have such a +strange thing to tell you. I am so excited I can hardly find words. I have +found a lot of money in your old fireplace. Just think of our having sat +there so quietly night after night, within hands' reach of it, all last +winter! And how lucky that I found it, instead of any of the workmen! +They'd have pocketed it, and never said a word."</p> + +<p>"To be sure they would," thought Mercy, "and poor old Granny Jacobs would +have been"--she was about to think, "cheated out of her rights again," +but with a pang she changed the phrase into "none the better off for it. +Oh, how glad I am for the poor old thing! People always said her husband +must have hid money away somewhere."</p> + +<p>Mercy read on. "I was in such a hurry to get the house done before the +snow came that I took hold myself, and worked every night and morning +before the workmen came; and, after they had gone, I found this last +night, and I declare, Mercy, I haven't shut my eyes all night long. It +seems to me too good to be true. I think there must be as much as three +thousand dollars, all in solid gold. Some of the coins I don't know the +value of; but the greater proportion of them are English sovereigns. Of +course rich people wouldn't think this such a very big sum, but you and I +know how far a little can go for poor people."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," thought Mercy. "Why, it will make the poor old woman +perfectly comfortable all her life: it will give her more than she had +from the house." And Mercy laid the letter in her lap and fell into a +reverie, thinking how strange it was that this good fortune should have +come about by means of an act which had seemed to her cruel on Stephen's +part.</p> + +<p>She took the letter up again. It continued: "O Mercy, my darling, do you +suppose you can realize what this sudden lift is to me? All my life I have +found our poverty so hard to bear, and these latter years I have bitterly +felt the hardship of being unable to go out into the world and make my +fortune as other men do, as I think I might, if I were free. But this sum, +small as it is, will be a nucleus, I feel sure it will, of a competency at +least. I know of several openings where I can place it most +advantageously. O Mercy! dear, dear Mercy! what hopes spring up in my +heart! The time may yet come when we shall build up a lovely home +together. Bless old Jacobs's miserliness! How little he knew what he was +hoarding up his gold for!"</p> + +<p>At this point, Mercy dropped the letter,--dropped it as if it had been a +viper that stung her. She was conscious of but two things: a strange, +creeping cold which seemed to be chilling her to the very marrow of her +bones; and a vague but terrible sense of horror, mentally. The letter fell +to the floor. She did not observe it. A half-hour passed, and she did not +know that it had been a moment. Gradually, her brain began to rouse into +activity again, and strove confusedly with the thoughts which crowded on +it.</p> + +<p>"That would be stealing. He can't mean it. Stephen can't be a thief." +Half-formed, incoherent sentences like these floated in her mind, seemed +to be floating in the air, pronounced by hissing voices.</p> + +<p>She pressed her hands to her temples, and sprang to her feet. The letter +rustled on the floor, as her gown swept over it. She turned and looked at +it, as if it were a living thing she would kill. She stooped to pick it +up, and then recoiled from it. She shrank from the very paper. All the +vehemence of her nature was roused. As in the moment of drowning people +are said to review in one swift flash of consciousness their whole lives, +so now in this moment did Mercy look back over the months of her life with +Stephen. Her sense of the baseness of his action now was like a lightning +illuming every corner of the past: every equivocation, every concealment, +every subterfuge he had practised, stood out before her, bare, stripped of +every shred of apology or excuse. "He lies; he has always lied. Why should +he not steal?" she exclaimed. "It is only another form of the same thing. +He stole me, too; and he made me steal him. He is dishonest to the very +core. How did I ever love such a man? What blinded me to his real nature?"</p> + +<p>Then a great revulsion of feeling, of tenderness toward Stephen, would +sweep over her, and drown all these thoughts. "O my poor, brave, patient +darling! He never meant to do any thing wrong in his life. He does not see +things as I do: no human soul could see clearly, standing where he stands. +There is a moral warp in his nature, for which he is no more responsible +than a tree is responsible for having grown into a crooked shape when it +was broken down by heavy stones while it was a sapling. Oh, how unjust I +am to him! I will never think such thoughts of him again. My darling, my +darling! He did not stop to think in his excitement that the money was +not his. I daresay he has already seen it differently."</p> + +<p>Like waves breaking on a beach, and rolling back again to meet higher +waves and be swallowed up in them, these opposing thoughts and emotions +struggled with each other in Mercy's bosom. Her heart and her judgment +were at variance, and the antagonism was irreconcilable. She could not +believe that her lover was dishonest. She could not but call his act a +theft. The night came and went, and no lull had come to the storm by which +her soul was tossed. She could not sleep. As the morning dawned, she rose +with haggard and weary eyes, and prepared to write to Stephen. In some of +her calmer intervals, she had read the remainder of his letter. It was +chiefly filled with the details of the manner in which the gold had been +hidden. A second fireplace had been built inside the first, leaving a +space of several inches between the two brick walls. On each side two +bricks had been so left that they could be easily taken out and replaced; +and the bags of gold hung upon iron stanchions in the outer wall. What a +strange picture it must have been in the silent night hours,--the old +miser bending above the embers of the dying fire on the hearth, and +reaching down the crevice to his treasures! The bags were of leather, +curiously embossed; they were almost charred by the heat, and the gold was +dull and brown.</p> + +<p>"I wonder which old fellow put it there?" said Stephen, at the end of his +letter. "Captain John would have been more likely to have foreign gold; +but why should he hide it in his brother's fireplace? At any rate, to +whichever of them I am indebted for it, I am most profoundly grateful. If +ever I meet him in any world, I'll thank him."</p> + +<p>Suddenly the thought occurred to Mercy, "Perhaps old Mrs. Jacobs is dead. +Then there would be nobody who had any right to the money. But no: Stephen +would have told me if she had been."</p> + +<p>Still she clung to this straw of a hope; and, when she sat down to write +to Stephen, these words came first to her pen:--</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Jacobs dead, Stephen? You do not say any thing about her; but I +cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself, unless she is dead. If she is alive, the money is hers. Nobody +but her husband or his brother could have put it there. Nobody else has +lived in the house, except very poor people. Forgive me, dear, but perhaps +you had not thought of this when you first wrote: it has very likely +occurred to you since then, and I may be making a very superfluous +suggestion." So hard did she cling to the semblance of a trust that all +would yet prove to be well with her love and her lover.</p> + +<p>Stephen's reply came by the very next mail. It was short: it ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Dear</span> DARLING,--I do not know what to make of your letter. Your sentence, +'I cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself,' is a most extraordinary one. What do you mean by 'keeping it +for myself'? It is mine: the house was mine and all that was in it. Old +Mrs. Jacobs is alive still, at least she was last week; but she has no +more claim on that money than any other old woman in town. I can't suppose +you would think me a thief, Mercy; but your letter strikes me as a very +strange one. Suppose I were to discover that there is a gold mine in the +orchard,--stranger things than that have happened,--would you say that +that also belonged to Mrs. Jacobs and not to me? The cases are precisely +parallel. You have allowed your impulsive feeling to run away with your +judgment; and, as I so often tell you, whenever you do that, you are +wrong. I never thought, however, it would carry you so far as to make you +suspect me of a dishonorable act."</p> + +<p>Stephen was deeply wounded. Mercy's attempted reticence in her letter had +not blinded him. He felt what had underlain the words, and it was a hard +blow to him. His conscience was as free from any shadow of guilt in the +matter of that money as if it had been his by direct inheritance from his +own father. Feeling this, he had naturally the keenest sense of outrage at +Mercy's implied accusation.</p> + +<p>Before Stephen's second letter came, Mercy had grown calm. The more she +thought the thing over, the more she felt sure that Mrs. Jacobs must be +dead, and that Stephen in his great excitement had forgotten to mention +the fact. Therefore the second letter was even a greater blow to her than +the first: it was a second and a deeper thrust into a wound which had +hardly begun to heal. There was also a tone of confident, almost +arrogant, assumption in the letter, it seemed to Mercy, which irritated +her. She did not perceive that it was the inevitable confidence of a +person so sure he is right that he cannot comprehend any doubt in +another's mind on the subject. There was in Mercy's nature a vein of +intolerance, which was capable of the most terrible severity. She was as +blinded, to Stephen's true position in the matter as he was to hers. The +final moment of divergence had come: its seeds were planted in her nature +and in Stephen's when they were born. Nothing could have hindered their +growth, nothing could have forestalled their ultimate result. It was only +a question of time and of occasion, when the two forces would be arrayed +against each other, and would be found equally strong.</p> + +<p>Mercy took counsel with herself now, and delayed answering this second +letter. She was resolved to be just to Stephen.</p> + +<p>"I will think this thing over and over," she said to herself, "till I am +sure past all doubt that I am right, before I say another word."</p> + +<p>But her long thinking did not help Stephen. Each day her conviction grew +deeper, her perception clearer, her sense of alienation from Stephen +profounder. If a moral antagonism had grown up between them in any other +shape, it would have been less fatal to her love. There were many species +of wrong-doing which would have been less hateful in her sight. It seemed +to her sometimes that there could be no crime in the world which would +appear to her so odious as this. Her imagination dwelt on the picture of +the lonely old woman in the alms-house. She had been several times to see +Mrs. Jacobs, and had been much moved by a certain grim stoicism which gave +almost dignity to her squalor and wretchedness.</p> + +<p>"She always had the bearing of a person who knew she was suffering +wrongly, but was too proud to complain," thought Mercy. "I wonder if she +did not all along believe there was something wrong about the mortgage?" +and Mercy's suspicious thoughts and conjectures ran far back into the +past, fastening on the beginnings of all this trouble. She recollected old +Mr. Wheeler's warnings about Stephen, in the first weeks of her stay in +Penfield. She recollected Parson Dorrance's expression, when he found out +that she had paid her rent in advance. She tortured herself by reviewing +minutely every little manoeuvre she had known of Stephen's practising to +conceal his relation with her.</p> + +<p>Let Mercy once distrust a person in one particular, and she distrusted him +in all. Let one act of his life be wrong, and she believed that his every +act was wrong in motive, or in relation to others, however specious and +fair it might be made to appear. All the old excuses and apologies she had +been in the habit of making for Stephen's insincerities to his mother and +to the world seemed to her now less than nothing; and she wondered how she +ever could have held them as sufficient. In vain her heart pleaded. In +vain tender memories thrilled her, by their vivid recalling of hours, of +moments, of looks and words. It was with a certain sense of remorse that +she dwelt on them, of shame that she was conscious of clinging to them +still. "I shall always love him, I am afraid," she said to herself; "but I +shall never trust him again,--never!"</p> + +<p>And hour by hour Stephen was waiting and looking for his letter.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-12"> +<h2>Chapter XII.</h2> + + + +<p>Stephen took Mercy's letter from the post-office at night. It was one week +past the time at which it would have reached him, if it had been written +immediately on the receipt of his. Only too well he knew what the delay +meant. He turned the letter over and over in his hand, and noted without +surprise it was very light. The superscription was written with unusual +care. Mercy's handwriting was free and bold, but illegible, unless she +made a special effort to write with care; and she never made that effort +in writing to Stephen. How many times he had said to her: "Never mind how +you write to me, dear. I read your sentences by another sense than the +sense of sight." This formally and neatly written, superscription smote +him, as a formal bow and a chilling glance from Mercy would, if he had +passed her on the street.</p> + +<p>He carried the letter home unopened. All through the evening it lay like a +leaden weight in his bosom, as he sat by his mother's side. He dared not +read it until he was sure of being able to be alone for hours. At last he +was free. As he went upstairs to his room, he thought to himself, "This is +the hour at which I used to fly to her, and find such welcome. A year ago +to-night how happy we were!" With a strange disposition to put off the +opening of the letter, he moved about his room, rearranged the books, +lighted an extra lamp, and finally sat down in an arm-chair, and leaning +both his arms on the table looked at the letter lying there so white, so +still. He felt a preternatural consciousness of what was in it; and he +shrank from looking at the words, as a condemned prisoner might shrink +from reading his own death-warrant. The room was bitterly cold. Fires in +bed-rooms were a luxury Stephen had never known. As he sat there, his body +and heart seemed to be growing numb together. At last he said, "I may as +well read it," and took the letter up. As he opened it and read the first +words, "My darling Stephen," his heart gave a great bound. She loved him +still. What a reprieve in that! He had yet to learn that love can be +crueller than any friendship, than any indifference, than any hate: +nothing is so exacting, so inexorable, as love. The letter was full of +love; but it was, nevertheless, hard and pitiless in its tone. Stephen +read it again and again: then he held it in the flame of the lamp, and let +it slowly burn, until only a few scorched fragments remained. These he +folded in a small paper, and put into his pocket-book. Why he did this, he +could not tell, and wondered at himself for doing it. Then he walked the +room for an hour or two, revolving in his mind what he should say to +Mercy. His ideas arranged themselves concisely and clearly. He had been +stung by Mercy's letter into a frame of feeling hardly less inexorable +than her own. He said to himself, "She never truly loved me, or nothing +under heaven could make her believe me capable of a dishonesty;" and, in +midst of all his pain at this thought, he had an indignant resentment, as +if Mercy herself had been in some way actively responsible for all this +misery.</p> + +<p>His letter was shorter than Mercy's. They were sad, strange letters to +have passed between lovers. Mercy's ran as follows:--</p> + +<p>"MY DARLING <span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>,--Your letters have shocked me so deeply that I find +myself at a loss for words in which to reply. I cannot understand your +present position at all. I have waited all these days, hoping that some +new light would come to me, that I could see the whole thing differently; +but I cannot. On the contrary, each hour that I think of it (and I have +thought of nothing else since your second letter came) only makes my +conviction stronger. Darling, that money is Mrs. Jacobs's money, by every +moral right. You may be correct in your statement as to the legal rights +of the case. I take it for granted that you are. At any rate, I know +nothing about that; and I rest no argument upon it at all. But it is clear +as daylight to me that morally you are bound to give her the money. +Suppose you had had permission from her to make those changes in the +house, while you were still her tenant, and had found the money, then you +would have handed it to her unhesitatingly. Why? Because you would have +said, 'This woman's husband built this house. No one except his brother +who could possibly have deposited this money here has lived in the house. +One of those two men was the owner of that gold. In either case, she is +the only heir, and it is hers. I am sure you would have felt this, had we +chanced to discover the money on one of those winter nights you refer to. +Now in what has the moral obligation been changed by the fact that the +house has come into your hands? Not by ordinary sale, either; but simply +by foreclosure of a mortgage, under conditions which were certainly very +hard for Mrs. Jacobs, inasmuch as one-half the interest has always been +paid. This money which you have found would have paid nearly the whole of +the original loan. It was hers, only she did not know where it lay. O +Stephen, my darling, I do implore you not to do this great wrong. You will +certainly come to see, sooner or later, that it was a dishonest act; and +then it will be too late to undo it. If I thought that by talking with you +I could make you see it as I do, I would come to you at once. But I keep +clinging to the hope that you will see it of yourself, that a sudden +realization of it will burst upon you like a great light. Don't speak so +angrily to me of calling you a thief. I never used the word. I never +could. I know the act looks to you right, or you would not commit it. But +it is terrible to me that it should look so to you. I feel, darling, as if +you were color-blind, and I saw you about to pick a most deadly fruit, +whose color ought to warn every one from touching it; but you, not seeing +the color, did not know the danger; and I must save you at all hazards, at +all costs. Oh, what shall I say, what shall I say! How can I make you see +the truth? God help us if I do not; for such an act as this on your part +would put an impassable gulf between our souls for ever. Your loving,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>."</p> + +<p>Stephen's letter was in curter phrase. Writing was not to him a natural +form of expression. Even of joyous or loving words he was chary, and much +more so of their opposites. His life-long habit of repression of all signs +of annoyance, all complaints, all traces of suffering, told still more on +his written words than on his daily speech and life. His letter sounded +harder than it need for this reason; seemed to have been written in +antagonism rather than in grief, and so did injustice to his feeling.</p> + +<p>"MY <span class="smallcaps">Dear Mercy</span>,--It is always a mistake for people to try to impose their +own standards of right and wrong on others. It gives me very great pain to +wound you in any way, you know that; and to wound you in such a way as +this gives me the greatest possible pain. But I cannot make your +conscience mine. If this money had not seemed to me to be justly my own, I +should never have thought of taking it. As it does seem to me to be justly +my own, your believing it to be another's ought not to change my action. +If I had only my own future to consider, I might give it up, for the sake +of your peace of mind. But it is not so. I have a helpless invalid +dependent on me; and one of the hardest things in my life to bear has +always been the fear that I might lose my health, and be unable to earn +even the poor living we now have. This sum, small as it is, will remove +that fear, will enable me to insure for my mother a reasonable amount of +comfort as long as she lives; and I cannot give it up. I do not suppose, +either, that it would make any difference in your feeling if I gave it up +solely to please you, and not because I thought it wrong to keep it. How +any act which I honestly believe to be right, and which you know I +honestly believe to be right, can put 'an impassable gulf between our +souls for ever,' I do not understand. But, if' it seems so to you, I can +only submit; and I will try to forget that you ever said to me, 'I shall +trust you till I die!' O Mercy, Mercy, ask yourself if you are just!</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>Mercy grasped eagerly at the intimation in this letter that Stephen might +possibly give the money up because she desired it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if he will only not keep it, I don't care on what grounds he gives it +up!" she exclaimed. "I can bear his thinking it was his, if only the money +goes where it belongs. He will see afterwards that I was right." And she +sat down instantly, and wrote Stephen a long letter, imploring him to do +as he had suggested.</p> + +<p>"Darling," she said, "this last letter of yours has given me great +comfort." As Stephen read this sentence, he uttered an ejaculation of +surprise. What possible comfort there could have been in the words he +remembered to have written he failed to see; but it was soon made clear to +him.</p> + +<p>"You say," she continued, "that you might possibly give the money up for +sake of my peace of mind, if it were not for the fear that your mother +might suffer. O Stephen, then give it up! give it up! Trust to the +future's being at least as kind as the past. I will not say another word +about the right or wrong of the thing. Think that my feeling is all morbid +and overstrained about it, if you will. I do not care what you think of +me, so that I do not have to think of you as using money which is not your +own. And, darling, do not be anxious about the future: if any thing +happens to you, I will take care of your mother. It is surely my right +next to yours. I only wish you would let me help you in it even now. I am +earning more and more money. I have more than I need. Oh, if you would +only take some of it, darling! Why should you not? I would take it from +you, if you had it and I had not. I could give you in a very few years as +much as this you have found and never miss it. Do let me atone to you in +this way for your giving up what you think is your right in the matter of +this ill-fated money. O Stephen, I could be almost happy again, if you +would do this! You say it would make no difference in my feeling about it, +if you gave the money up only to please me, and not because you thought it +wrong to keep it. No, indeed! that is not so. I would be happier, if you +saw it as I do, of course; but, if you cannot, then the next best thing, +the only thing left for my happiness, is to have you yield to my wish. +Why, Stephen, I have even felt so strongly about it as this: that +sometimes, in thinking it over, I have had a wild impulse to tell you that +if you did not give the money to Mrs. Jacobs I would inform the +authorities that you had it, and so test the question whether you had the +right to keep it or not. Any thing, even your humiliation, has at times +seemed to me better than that you should go on living in the possession of +stolen money. You can see from this how deeply I felt about the thing. I +suppose I really never could have done this. At the last moment, I should +have found it impossible to array myself against you in any such public +way; but, oh, my darling, I should always have felt as if I helped steal +the money, if I kept quiet about it. You see I use a past tense already, I +feel so certain that you will give it up now. Dear, dear Stephen, you will +never be sorry: as soon as it is done, you will be glad. I wish that gold +had been all sunk in the sea, and never seen light again, the sight of it +has cost us so dear. Darling, I can't tell you what a load has rolled off +my heart. Oh, if you could know what it has been to me to have this cloud +over my thoughts of you! I have always been so proud of you, +Stephen,--your patience, your bravery. In my thought, you have stood +always for my ideal of the beautiful alliance of gentleness and strength. +Darling, we owe something to those who love us: we owe it to them not to +disappoint them. If I were to be tempted to do some dishonorable thing, I +should say to myself: 'No, for I must be what Stephen believes me. It is +not only that I will not grieve him: still more, I will not disappoint +him.'"</p> + +<p>Mercy wrote on and on. The reaction from the pent-up grief, the prolonged +strain, was great. In her first joy at any, even the least, alleviation of +the horror she had felt at the thought of Stephen's dishonesty, she +over-estimated the extent of the relief she would feel from his +surrendering the money at her request. She wrote as buoyantly, as +confidently, as if his doing that would do away with the whole wrong from +the beginning. In her overflowing, impetuosity, also, she did not consider +what severe and cutting things were implied as well as said in some of her +sentences. She closed the letter without rereading it, hastened to send it +by the first mail, and then began to count the days which must pass before +Stephen's answer could reach her.</p> + +<p>Alas for Mercy! this was a sad preparation for the result which was to +follow her hastily written words. It seems sometimes as if fate delighted +in lifting us up only to cast us down, in taking us up into a high +mountain to show us bright and goodly lands, only to make our speedy +imprisonment in the dark valley the harder to bear.</p> + +<p>Stephen read this last letter of Mercy's with an ever-increasing sense of +resentment to the very end. For the time being it seemed to actually +obliterate every trace of his love for her. He read the words as +wrathfully as if they had been written by a mere acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Stolen money! Inform the authorities!' +Let her do it if she likes and see how she would come out at the end of +that.' And Stephen wrote Mercy very much such a letter as he would have +written to a man under the same circumstances. Luckily, he kept it a day, +and, rereading it in a cooler moment was shocked at its tone, destroyed +it, and wrote another. But the second one was no less hard, only more +courteous, than the first. It ran thus:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>,--I am sorry that any thing in my last letter should have led you +to suppose that under the existing circumstances you could control my +actions. All I said was that I might, for the sake of your peace of mind, +give up this money, if it were not for my obligations to my mother. It was +a foolish thing to say, since those obligations could not be done away +with. I ought to have known that in your overwrought frame of mind you +would snatch at the suggestion, and make it the basis of a fresh appeal.</p> + +<p>"Now let me say, once for all, that my mind is firmly made up on this +subject, and that it must be dropped between us. The money is mine, and I +shall keep it. If you think it your duty to 'inform the authorities,' as +you say, you must do so; and I would not say one word to hinder you. I +would never, as you do in this case, attempt to make my own conscience the +regulator of another's conduct. If you do regard me as the possessor of +'stolen money,' it is undoubtedly your duty to inform against me. I can +only warn you that all you would gain by it would be a most disagreeable +exposure of your own and my private affairs, and much mortification to +both of us. The money is mine beyond all question. I shall not reply to +any more letters from you on this subject. There is nothing more to be +said; and all prolonging of the discussion is a needless pain, and is +endangering the very foundations of our affection for each other. I want +to say one thing more, however; and I hope it will impress you as it +ought. Never forget that the strongest proof that my conscience was +perfectly clear in regard to that money is that I at once told you of its +discovery. It would have been perfectly easy for me to have accounted to +you in a dozen different ways for my having come into possession of a +little money, or even to have concealed from you the fact that I had done +so; and, if I had felt myself a thief, I should certainly have taken good +care that you did not know it.</p> + +<p>"I must also thank you for your expressions of willingness to take care of +my mother, in case of any thing's happening to me. Until these last +letters of yours, I had often thought, with a sense of relief, that, if I +died, you would never see my mother suffer; but now any such thought is +inseparably associated with bitter memories. And my mother will not, in +any event, need your help; for the money I shall have from the sale of the +house, together with this which I have found, will give her all she will +require.</p> + +<p>"You must forgive me if this letter sounds hard, Mercy. I have not your +faculty of mingling endearing epithets with sharp accusations and +reproaches. I cannot be lover and culprit at once, as you are able to be +lover and accuser, or judge. I love you, I think, as deeply and tenderly +as ever; but you yourself have made all expression of it impossible. +<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>This letter roused in Mercy most conflicting emotions. Wounded feeling at +its coldness, a certain admiration for its tone of immovable resolution, +anger at what seemed to her Stephen's unjustifiable resentment of her +effort to influence his action,--all these blended in one great pain which +was well-nigh unbearable. For the time being, her distress in regard to +the money seemed cast into shadow and removed by all this suffering in her +personal relation with Stephen; but the personal suffering had not so deep +a foundation as the other. Gradually, all sense of her own individual +hurts in Stephen's words, in his acts, in the weakening of the bond which +held them together, died out, and left behind it only a sense of +bereavement and loss; while the first horror of Stephen's wrong-doing, of +the hopeless lack in his moral nature, came back with twofold intensity. +This had its basis in convictions,--in convictions which were as strong as +the foundations of the earth: the other had its basis in emotions, in +sensibilities which might pass away or be dulled.</p> + +<p>Spite of Stephen's having forbidden all reference to the subject, Mercy +wrote letter after letter upon it, pleading sometimes humbly, sometimes +vehemently. It seemed to her that she was fighting for Stephen's very +life, and she could not give way. To all these out-pourings Stephen made +no reply. He answered the letters punctually, but made no reference to the +question of the money, save by a few short words at the end of his letter, +or in a postscript: such as, "It grieves me to see that you still dwell on +that matter of which I said we must speak no more;" or, "Pray, dear Mercy, +do not prolong that painful discussion. I have nothing more to say to you +about it."</p> + +<p>For the rest, his letters were faithful transcripts of the little events +of his uneventful life, warm comments on any of Mercy's writings which he +read, and gentle assurances of his continued affection. The old longings, +broodings, and passionate yearnings, which he used to pour out, ceased. +Stephen was wounded to the very quick; and the wound did not heal. Yet he +felt no withdrawal from Mercy: probably nothing she could do would ever +drive him from her. He would die, if worst came to worst, lying by her +side and looking up in her eyes, like a dog at the feet of its master who +had shot him.</p> + +<p>Mercy was much moved by this tone of patience in his letters: it touched +her, as the look of patient endurance on his face used to touch her. It +also irritated her, it was so foreign to her own nature.</p> + +<p>"How can he help answering these things I say?" she would exclaim. "He has +no right to refuse to talk with me about such a vital matter." If any one +had said to Mercy, "He has as much right to refuse to discuss the question +as you have to force it upon him," she could not have seen the point +fairly.</p> + +<p>But all Stephen's patience, gentleness, and firmness did not abate one jot +or tittle of Mercy's conviction that he was doing a dishonest thing. Oh +the contrary, his quiet appeared to her more and more like a callous +satisfaction; and his occasional cheerfulness, like an exultation over his +ill-gotten gains. Slowly there crept into her feeling towards him a +certain something which was akin to scorn,--the most fatal of deaths to +love. The hateful word "thief" seemed to be perpetually ringing in her +ears. When she read accounts of robberies, of defalcations, of breaches of +trust, she found herself always drawing parallels between the conduct of +these criminals and Stephen's. The secrecy, the unassailable safety of his +crime, seemed to her to make it inexpressibly more odious.</p> + +<p>"I do believe," she thought to herself again and again, "that if he had +been driven by his poverty to knocking men down on the highway, and +robbing them of their pocket-books, I should not have so loathed it!"</p> + +<p>As the weeks went on, Mercy's unhappiness increased rather than +diminished. There seemed an irreconcilible conflict between her love and +every other emotion in her soul. She seemed to herself to be, as it were, +playing the hypocrite to her own heart in thinking thus of a man and +loving him still; for that she still loved Stephen, she did not once +doubt. At this time, she printed a little poem, which set many of her +friends to vondering from what experience of hers it could possibly have +been drawn. Mercy's poems were so largely subjective in tone that it was +hard for her readers to believe that they were not all drawn from her own +individual experience.</p> + +<blockquote><h3>A Woman's Battle.</h3> + +<p> Dear foe, I know thou'lt win the fight;<br /> + I know thou hast the stronger bark,<br /> + And thou art sailing in the light,<br /> + While I am creeping in the dark.<br /> +Thou dost not dream that I am crying,<br /> +As I come up with colors flying.</p> + +<p> I clear away my wounded, slain,<br /> + With strength like frenzy strong and swift;<br /> + I do not feel the tug and strain,<br /> + Though dead are heavy, hard to lift.<br /> +If I looked on their faces dying,<br /> +I could not keep my colors flying.</p> + +<p> Dear foe, it will be short,--our fight,--<br /> + Though lazily thou train'st thy guns:<br /> + Fate steers us,--me to deeper night,<br /> + And thee to brighter seas and suns;<br /> +But thou'lt not dream that I am dying,<br /> +As I sail by with colors flying!</p></blockquote> + +<p>There was great injustice to Stephen in this poem. When he read it, he +groaned, and exclaimed aloud, "O Mercy! O Mercy!" Then, as he read it over +again, he said, "Surely she could not have meant herself in this: it is +only dramatic. She could never call me her foe." Mercy had often said to +him of some of her most intense poems, "Oh, it was purely dramatic. I just +fancied how anybody would feel under such circumstances;" and he clung to +the hope that it was true in this case. But it was not. Already Mercy had +a sense of antagonism, of warfare, with Stephen, or rather with her love +for him. Already her pride was beginning to array itself in reticence, in +withdrawal, in suppression. More than once she had said to herself "I can +live without him! I could bear that pain better than this." More than once +she had asked herself with a kind of terror, "Do I really wish ever to see +Stephen again?" and had been forced to own in her secret thought that she +shrank from meeting him. She began even to consider the possibility of +deferring the visit to Lizzy Hunter, which she had promised to make in the +spring. As the time drew nearer, her unwillingness to go increased, and +she would no doubt have discovered some way of escape; but one day early +in March a telegram came to her, which left her no longer any room for +choice.</p> + +<p>It ran:--</p> + +<p>"Uncle Dorrance is not expected to live. He wishes to see you. He is at my +house. Come immediately.</p> + +<p>"LIZZY HUNTER."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch-13"> +<h2>Chapter XIII.</h2> + + + +<p>Within six hours after the receipt of this telegram, Mercy was on her way +to Penfield. Her journey would take a night and part of a day. As the +morning dawned, and she drew near the old familiar scenes, her heart was +wrung with conflicting memories and hopes and fears. The whole landscape +was dreary: the fields were dark and sodden, with narrow banks of +discolored snow lying under the fences, and thin rims of ice along the +edges of the streams and pools. The sky was gray; the bare trees were +gray: all life looked gray and hopeless to Mercy. She had had an +over-mastering presentiment from the moment when she read the telegram +that she should reach Penfield too late to see Parson Dorrance alive. A +strange certainty that he had died in the night settled upon her mind as +soon as she waked from her troubled sleep; and when she reached Lizzy's +door, and saw standing before it the undertaker's wagon, which she so well +remembered, there was no shock of surprise to her in the sight. At the +first sound of Mercy's voice, Lizzy came swiftly forward, and fell upon +her neck in a passion of crying.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, Mercy, he"--</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know it," interrupted Mercy, in a calm tone. "I know he is +dead."</p> + +<p>"Why, who told you, Mercy?" exclaimed Lizzy. "He only died a few hours +ago,--about daybreak,"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought he died in the night!" said Mercy, in a strange tone, as if +trying to recollect something accurately about which her memory was not +clear. Her look and her tone filled Lizzy with terror, and banished her +grief for the time being.</p> + +<p>"Mercy, Mercy, don't look so!" she exclaimed. "Speak to me! Oh, do cry, +can't you?" And Lizzy's tears flowed afresh.</p> + +<p>"No, Lizzy, I don't think I can cry," said Mercy, in the same strange, low +voice. "I wish I could have spoken to him once, though. Did he leave any +word for me? Perhaps there is something he wanted me to do."</p> + +<p>Mercy's face was white, and her lips trembled; but her look was hardly the +look of one in sorrow: it was a rapt look, as of one walking on dizzy +heights, breathless with some solemn purpose. Lizzy was convulsed with +grief, sobbing like a child, and pouring out one incoherent sentence after +another. Mercy soothed her and comforted her as a mother might have done, +and finally compelled her to be more calm. Mercy's magnetic power over +those whom she loved was almost unlimited. She forestalled their very +wills, and made them desire what she desired.</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, don't make me glad he is dead! You frighten me, darling. I don't +want to stop crying; but you have sealed up all my tears," cried Lizzy, +later in the day, when Mercy had been talking like a seer, who could look +into the streets of heaven, and catch the sound of the songs of angels.</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled sadly. "I don't want to prevent your crying, dear," she said, +"if it does you any good. But I am very sure that Mr. Dorrance sees us at +this moment, and longs to tell us how glad he is, and that we must be glad +for him." And Mercy's eyes shone as they looked steadfastly across the +room, as if the empty space were, to her vision, peopled with spirits. +This mood of exalted communion did not leave her. Her face seemed +transfigured by it. When she stood by the body of her loved teacher and +friend, she clasped her hands, and, bending over the face, exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good God was!" Then, turning suddenly to Lizzy, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"Lizzy, did you know that he loved me, and asked me to be his wife? This +is why I am thanking God for taking him to heaven."</p> + +<p>Lizzy's face paled. Astonishment, incredulity, anger, grief, all blended +in the sudden look she turned upon Mercy. "I thought so! I thought so! But +I never believed you knew it. And you did not love him! Mercy, I will +never forgive you!"</p> + +<p>"He forgave me," said Mercy, gently; "and so you might. But I shall never +forgive myself!"</p> + +<p>"Mercy Philbrick!" exclaimed Lizzy, "how could you help loving that man?" +And, in her excitement, Lizzy stretched out her right hand towards the +rigid, motionless figure under the white pall. "He was the most glorious +man God ever made."</p> + +<p>The two women stood side by side, looking into the face of the dead. It +was a strange place for these words to be spoken. It was as solemn as +eternity.</p> + +<p>"I did not help loving him," said Mercy, in a lower tone, her white face +growing whiter as she spoke. "But"--she paused. No words came to her lips, +for the bitter consciousness which filled her heart.</p> + +<p>Lizzy's voice sank to a husky whisper.</p> + +<p>"But what?" she said. "O Mercy, Mercy! is it Stephen White you love?" And +Lizzy's face, even in that solemn hour, took a look of scorn. "Are you +going to marry Stephen White?" she continued.</p> + +<p>"Never, Lizzy,--never!" said Mercy, in a tone as concentrated as if a +lifetime ended there; and, stooping low, she kissed the rigid hands which +lay folded on the heart of the man she ought to have loved, but had not. +Then, turning away, she took Lizzy's hands in hers, and kissing, her +forehead said earnestly,--</p> + +<p>"We will never speak again of this, Lizzy, remember." Lizzy was overawed +by her tone, and made no reply.</p> + +<p>Parson Dorrance's funeral was a scene which will never be forgotten by +those who saw it. It was on one of the fiercest days which the fierce New +England March can show. A storm of rain and sleet, with occasional +softened intervals of snow, raged all day. The roads were gullies of +swift-running water and icy sloughs; the cold was severe; and the cutting +wind at times drove the sleet and rain in slanting scourges, before which +scarce man or beast could stand. The funeral was held in the village +church, which was larger than the college chapel. Long before the hour at +which the services were to begin, every pew was filled, and the aisles +were crowded with those who could not find seats. From every parish within +twenty miles the mourners had come. There was not one there who had not +heard words of help or comfort from Parson Dorrance's lips. The students +of the college filled the body of the church; the Faculty and +distinguished strangers sat in the front pews. The pews under one of the +galleries had been reserved for the negroes from "The Cedars." Early in +the morning the poor creatures had begun to flock in. Not a seat was +empty: old women, women with babies, old men, boys and girls, wet, +dripping, ragged, friendless, more than one hundred of them,--there they +were. They had walked all that distance in that terrible storm. Each one +had brought in his hand a green bough or a bunch of rock-ferns, something +of green beauty from the woods their teacher had taught them to love. They +sat huddled together, with an expression of piteous grief on every face, +which was enough to touch the stoniest heart. Now and then sobs would +burst from the women, and some old figure would be seen rocking to and fro +in uncontrollable sorrow.</p> + +<p>The coffin stood on a table in front of the pulpit. It seemed to be +resting on an altar of cedar and ferns. Mercy had brought from her old +haunts in the woods masses of the glossy evergreen fern, and interwoven +them with the boughs of cedar. At the end of the services, it was +announced that all who wished could pass by the coffin and take one last +look at their friend.</p> + +<p>Slowly and silently the congregation passed up the right aisle, looked on +the face, and passed out at the left door. It was a pathetic sight to see +the poor, outcast band wait patiently, humbly, till every one else had +gone: then, like a flock of stricken sheep, they rushed confusedly towards +the pulpit, and gathered round the coffin. Now burst out the grief which +had been pent up: with cries and ejaculations, they went tottering and +stumbling down the aisles. One old man, with hair as white as snow,--one +of the original fugitive slaves who had founded the settlement,--bent over +the coffin at its head, and clung with both hands to its edge, swaying +back and forth above it, crying aloud, till the sexton was obliged to +loosen his grasp and lead him away by force.</p> + +<p>The college faculty still sat in the front pews. There were some of their +number, younger men, scholars and men of the world, who had not been free +from a disposition to make good-natured fun of Parson Dorrance's +philanthropies. They shrugged their shoulders sometimes at the mention of +his parish at "The Cedars;" they regarded him as old-fashioned and +unpractical. They sat conscience-stricken and abashed now; the tears of +these bereaved black people smote their philosophy and their worldliness, +and showed them how shallow they were. Tears answered to tears, and the +college professors and the negro slaves wept together.</p> + +<p>"They have nobody left to love them now," exclaimed one of the youngest +and hitherto most cynical of Parson Dorrance's colleagues, as he stood +watching the grief-stricken creatures.</p> + +<p>While the procession formed to bear the body to the grave, the blacks +stood in a group on the church-steps, watching it. After the last carriage +had fallen into line, they hurried down and followed on in the storm. In +vain some kindly persons tried to dissuade them. It was two miles to the +cemetery, two miles farther away from their homes; but they repelled all +suggestions of the exposure with indignant looks, and pressed on. When the +coffin was lowered into the grave, they pushed timidly forward, and began +to throw in their green boughs and bunches of ferns. Every one else +stepped back respectfully as soon as their intention was discovered, and +in a moment they had formed in solid ranks close about the grave, each one +casting in his green palm of crown and remembrance,--a body-guard such as +no emperor ever had to stand around him in his grave.</p> + +<p>On the day after Mercy's arrival in town, Stephen had called to see her. +She had sent down to him a note with these words:--</p> + +<p>"I cannot see you, dear Stephen, until after all is over. The funeral will +be to-morrow. Come the next morning, as early as you like."</p> + +<p>The hours had seemed bitterly long to Stephen. He had watched Mercy at the +funeral; and, when he saw her face bowed in her hands, and felt rather +than saw that she was sobbing, he was stung by a new sense of loss and +wrong that he had no right to be by her side and comfort her. He forgot +for the time, in the sight of her grief, all the unhappiness of their +relation for the past few months. He had unconsciously felt all along +that, if he could but once look in her eyes, all would be well. How +could he help feeling so, when he recalled the expression of childlike +trust and devotion which her sweet face always wore when she lifted it to +his? And now, as his eyes dwelt lingeringly and fondly on every line of +her bowed form, he had but one thought, but one consciousness,--his desire +to throw his arms about her, and exclaim, "O Mercy, are you not my own, my +very own?"</p> + +<p>With his heart full of this new fondness and warmth, Stephen went at an +early hour to seek Mercy. As he entered the house, he was sensibly +affected by the expression still lingering of the yesterday's grief. The +decorations of evergreens and flowers were still untouched. Mercy and +Lizzy had made the whole house gay as for a festival; but the very +blossoms seemed to-day to say that it had been a festival of sorrow. A +large sheaf of callas had stood on a small table at the head of the +coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood +near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange +expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into +the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as +fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the +door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with +outstretched arms. Something in her look made the outstretched arms fall +nerveless; made his springing step pause suddenly; made the very words +die away on his lips. "O Mercy!" was all he could say, and he breathed it +rather than said it.</p> + +<p>Mercy smiled a very piteous smile, and said, "Yes, Stephen, I am here."</p> + +<p>"O Mercy, it is not you! You are not here. What has done this to you? Did +you so love that man?" exclaimed Stephen, a sudden pang seizing him of +fiercest jealousy of the dead, whom he had never feared while he was +living.</p> + +<p>Mercy's face contracted, as if a sharp pain had wrenched every nerve.</p> + +<p>"No, I did not love him; that is, not as you mean. You know how very +dearly I did love him, though."</p> + +<p>"Dear darling, you are all worn out. This shock has been too much for you. +You are not well," said Stephen, tenderly, coming nearer to her and taking +her hand. "You must have rest and sleep at once."</p> + +<p>The hand was not Mercy's hand any more than the voice had been Mercy's +voice. Stephen dropped it, and, looking fixedly at Mercy's eyes, +whispered, "Mercy, you do not love me as you used to."</p> + +<p>Mercy's eyes drooped; she locked her hands tightly together, and said, "I +can't, Stephen." No possible form of words could have been so absolute. "I +can't!" "I do not," would have been merciful, would have held a hope, by +the side of this helpless, despairing, "I can't."</p> + +<p>Stephen sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. Mercy +stood still, near the white callas; her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed +on Stephen. At last she spoke, in a voice of unutterable yearning and +tenderness, "I do love you, Stephen."</p> + +<p>At these words, he pressed his hands tighter upon his eyes for one second, +then shook them hastily free, and looking up at Mercy said gently,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know you do; and I know you would have loved me always, if +you could. Do not be unhappy. I told you a long time ago that to have had +you once love me was enough for a lifetime." And Stephen smiled,--a smile +more pathetic than Mercy's had been. He went on, still in the same gentle +voice,--a voice out of which the very life seemed to have died,--"I hoped, +when we met, all would be right. It used to be so much to you, Mercy, to +look into my eyes, I thought you would trust me when you saw me."</p> + +<p>No reproach, no antagonism, no entreaty. With the long-trained patience of +a lifetime, Stephen accepted this great grief, and made no effort to +gainsay it. Mercy tried again and again to speak, but no words came. At +last, with a flood of tears, she exclaimed,--</p> + +<p>"I cannot help it, Stephen,--I cannot help it."</p> + +<p>"No, darling, you cannot help it; and it is not your fault," replied +Stephen. Touched to the heart by his sweetness and forbearance, Mercy went +nearer him, and took his hand, and in her old way was about to lay it to +her cheek.</p> + +<p>Stephen drew it hastily away, and a shudder ran over his body. "No, Mercy, +do not try to do that. That is not right, when you do not trust me. You +cannot help loving the touch of my hand, Mercy,"--and a certain sad pride +lighted Stephen's face at the thought of the clinging affection which even +now stirred this woman's veins for him,--"any more than you can help +having ceased to trust me. If the trust ever comes back, then"--Stephen +turned his head away, and did not finish the sentence. A great silence +fell upon them both. How inexplicable it seemed to them that there was +nothing to say! At last Stephen rose, and said gravely,--</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mercy. Unless there is something I can do to help you, I would +rather not see you again."</p> + +<p>"No," whispered Mercy. "That is best."</p> + +<p>"And if the time ever comes, darling, when you need me, ... or trust me ... +again, will you write to me and say so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," sobbed Mercy, and Stephen left her. On the threshold of the door, +he turned and fixed his eyes upon her with one long look of sorrow, +compassion, and infinite love. Her heart thrilled under it. She made an +eager step forward. If he had returned, she would have thrown herself into +his arms, and cried out, "O Stephen, I do love you, I do trust you." But +Stephen made an inexorable gesture of his hand, which said more than any +words, "No! no! do not deceive yourself," and was gone.</p> + +<p>And thus they parted for ever, this man and this woman who had been for +two years all in all to each other, who had written on each other's hearts +and lives characters which eternity itself could never efface.</p> + +<p>Hope lived long in Stephen's heart. He built too much on the memories of +his magnetic power over Mercy, and he judged her nature too much by his +own. He would have loved and followed her to the end, in spite of her +having become a very outcast of crime, if she had continued to love him; +and it was simply impossible for him to conceive of her love's being +either less or different. But, when in a volume of poems which Mercy +published one year after their parting, he read the following sonnet, he +knew that all was indeed over:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Died.</h3> + +<p> Not by the death that kills the body. Nay,<br /> +By that which even Christ bade us to fear<br /> +Hath died my dead.<br /> + Ah, me! if on a bier<br /> +I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day,<br /> +I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay<br /> +My cheek to his in anguish which were near<br /> +To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear<br /> +In death as life. Mere separations weigh<br /> +As dust in balances of love. The death<br /> +That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain<br /> +To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore,<br /> +O thou once loved so well, loved now no more!<br /> +There is no resurrection for such slain,<br /> +No miracle of God could give thee breath!</p></blockquote> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Mercy Philbrick lived thirty years after the events described in these +pages. It was a life rich to overflowing, yet uneventful, as the world +reckons: a life lonely, yet full of companionship; sady yet full of cheer; +hard, and yet perpetually uplifted by an inward joy which made her very +presence like sunshine, and made men often say of her, "Oh, she has never +known sorrow." This was largely the result of her unquenchable gift of +song, of the true poet's temperament, to which life is for ever new, +beautiful, and glad. It was also the result of her ever-increasing +spirituality of nature. This took no shape of creed, worship, or what the +world's common consent calls religion. Most of the words spoken by the +teachers of churches repelled Mercy by their monotonous iteration of the +letter which killeth. But her realization of the solemn significance of +the great fact of being alive deepened every hour; her tenderness, her +sense of brotherhood to every human being, and her sense of the actual +presence and near love of God. Her old intolerance was softened, or rather +it had changed from antagonisms on the surface to living principles at the +core. Truth, truth, truth, was still the war-cry of her soul; and there +was an intensity in every word of her written or spoken pleadings on this +subject which might well have revealed to a careful analyzer of them that +they had sprung out of the depths of the profoundest experiences. Her +influence as a writer was very great. As she grew older, she wrote less +and less for the delight of the ear, more and more for the stirring of the +heart. To do a little towards making people glad, towards making them kind +to one another, towards opening their eyes to the omnipresent +beauty,--these were her ambitions. "Oh, the tender, unutterable beauty of +all created things!" were the opening lines of one of her sweetest songs; +and it might have been said to be one of the watchwords of her life.</p> + +<p>It took many years for her to reach this plane, to attain to the fulness +of this close spiritual communion with things seen and unseen. The double +bereavement and strain of her two years of life in Penfield left her for a +long time bruised and sore. Her relation with Stephen, as she looked back +upon it, hurt her in every fibre of her nature. Sometimes she was filled +with remorse for the grief she had caused him, and sometimes with poignant +distress, of doubt whether she had not after all been unjust to him. +Underlying all this remorse, all this doubt was a steadily growing +consciousness that her love for him was in the very outset a mistake, an +abnormal emotion, born of temporary and insufficient occasion, and +therefore sure to have sooner or later proved too weak for the tests of +life. On the other hand, her thoughts of Parson Dorrance grew constantly +warmer, tenderer, more assured. His character, his love for her, his +beautiful life, rose steadily higher and higher, and brighter and brighter +on her horizon, as the lofty snow-clad peaks of a mountain land reveal +themselves in all their grandeur to our vision only when we have journeyed +away from their base. Slowly the whole allegiance of her heart transferred +itself to the dead man's memory; slowly her grief for his loss deepened, +and yet with the deepened grief came a certain new and holy joy. It surely +could not be impossible for him to know in heaven that she was his on +earth? As confidently as if she had been wedded to him here, she looked +forward to the reunion with him there, and found in her secret +consciousness of this eternal bond a hidden rapture, such as has been the +stay of many a widowed heart through long lifetimes of loneliness. This +secret bond was like an impalpable yet impenetrable veil between her soul +and the souls of all men who came into relation with her. Men loved her +and sought her,--loved her warmly and sought her with long years of +devotion. The world often judged her uncharitably by reason of these +friendships, which were only friendships, and yet pointed to a warmer +regard than the world consents that friends may feel. But there was never +a man, of all the men who loved Mercy, who did not feel himself, spite of +all her frank and loving intimacy, withheld, debarred, separated from her +at a certain point, as if there stood drawn up there a cordon of viewless +spirits.</p> + +<p>The one grief above which she could not wholly rise, which at times smote +her and bowed her down, was her sense of her loss in being childless. The +heart of mother was larger in her even than the heart of wife. Her longing +for children of her own was so great that it was often more than she could +bear to watch little children at their play. She stood sometimes at her +window at dusk, and watched the poor laboring men and women going home, +leading or carrying their children; and it seemed as if her heart would +break. Everywhere, her eye noted the swarming groups of children, poor, +uncared for, so often unwelcome; and she said sadly to herself, "So many! +so many! and not one for me." Yet she never felt any desire to adopt +children. She distrusted her own patience and justice too much; and she +feared too deeply the development of hereditary traits which she could not +conquer; "I might find that I had taken a liar," she thought; "and I +should hate him."</p> + +<p>As she reached middle age, this unsatisfied desire ceased to be so great a +grief. She became more and more like a motherly friend to the young people +surrounding her. Her house was a home to them all, and she reproduced in +her own life very nearly the relation which Parson Dorrance had held to +the young people of Danby. Her friend Lizzy Hunter was now the mother of +four girls, all in their first young womanhood. They all strove eagerly +for the privilege of living with "Aunt Mercy," and went in turn to spend +whole seasons with her.</p> + +<p>On Stephen White's thirty-sixth birthday, his mother died. The ten years +which had passed since Mercy left him had grown harder and harder, day by +day; but he bore the last as silently and patiently as he bore the first, +and Mrs. White's last words to the gray-haired man who bent over her bed +were,--</p> + +<p>"You have been a good boy, Steve,--a good boy. You'll have some rest now."</p> + +<p>Since the day he bade good-by to Mercy in the room from which Parson +Dorrance had just been buried, Stephen had never written to her, never +heard from her, except as all the world heard from her, in her published +writings. These he read eagerly, and kept them carefully in scrap-books. +He took great delight in collecting all the copies of her verses. +Sometimes a little verse of hers would go the rounds of the newspapers +for months, and each reappearance of it was a new pleasure to Stephen. He +knew most of them by heart; and he felt that he knew Mercy still, as well +as he knew her when she looked up in his face. On the night of his +mother's death he wrote to her these words:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>,--It is ten years since we parted. I love you as I loved you then. +I shall never love any other woman. I am free now. My mother has died this +night. May I come and see you? I ask nothing of you, except to be your +friend. Can I not be that?</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Stephen</span>."</p> + +<p>If a ghost of one dead for ten years had entered her presence, Mercy had +hardly been more startled. Stephen had ceased to be a personality to her. +Striving very earnestly with herself to be kind, and to do for this +stranger whom she knew not what would be the very best and most healing +thing for his soul, Mercy wrote to him as follows:--</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Dear Stephen</span>,--Your note was a very great surprise to me. I am most +heartily thankful that you are at last free to live your life like other +men. I think that the future ought to hold some very great and good gifts +in store for you, to reward you for your patience. I have never known any +human being so patient as you.</p> + +<p>"You must forgive me for saying that I do not believe it is possible for us +to be friends. I could be yours, and would be glad to be so. But you could +not be mine while you continue so to set me apart from all other women, +as you say you do, in your affection. I am truly grieved that you do this, +and I hope that in your new free life you will very soon find other +relations which will make you forget your old one with me. I did you a +great harm, but we were both ignorant of our mistake. I pray that it may +yet be repaired, and that you may soon be at rest in a happy home with a +wife and children. Then I should be glad to see you: until then, it is not +best.</p> + +<p>"Yours most honestly,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smallcaps">Mercy</span>."</p> + +<p>Until he read this letter, Stephen had not known that secretly in the +bottom of his heart he riad all these years cherished a hope that there +might yet be a future in store for him and Mercy. Now, by the new sense of +desolation which he felt, he knew that there must have been a little more +life than he thought left; in him to die.</p> + +<p>As soon as his mother was buried, he closed the house and went abroad. +There he roamed about listlessly from country to country, for many years, +acquiring a certain desultory culture, and buying, so far as his income +would permit, every thing he saw which he thought Mercy would like. Then +he went home, bought the old Jacobs house back again, and fitted it up in +every respect as Mercy had once suggested. This done, he sat down to +wait--for he knew not what. He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, +and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and +spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life +together. He led the life of a hermit,--rarely went out, and still more +rarely saw any one at home. He looked like a man of sixty rather than like +one of fifty. He was fast becoming an invalid, more, however, from the +lack of purpose and joy than from any disease. Life had been very hard to +Stephen.</p> + +<p>Nothing seemed more probable, contrasting his listless figure, gray hair, +and jaded face with Mercy's full, fresh countenance and bounding +elasticity, than that his dream of going first, and leaving to her the +gift of all he had, would be realized; but he was destined to outlive her +by many a long year.</p> + +<p>Mercy's death was a strange one. She had gone with two of Lizzy Hunter's +daughters to spend a few weeks in one of the small White Mountain +villages, which was a favorite haunt of hers. The day after their arrival, +a two days' excursion to some of the mountains was proposed; and Mercy, +though not feeling well enough to join it herself, insisted that the girls +should go. They were reluctant to leave her; but, with her usual +vehemence, she resisted all their protestations, and compelled them to +join the party. She was thus left alone in a house crowded with people, +all of whom were strangers to her. Some of them recollected afterward to +have noticed her sitting on the piazza at sunset, looking at the mountains +with an expression of great delight; but no one spoke with her, and no one +missed her the next morning, when she did not come to breakfast. Late in +the forenoon, the landlady came running in great terror and excitement to +one of the guests, exclaiming: "That lady that came yesterday is dying. +The chambermaids could not get into her room, nor get any answer, so we +broke open the door. The doctor says she'll never come to again!"</p> + +<p>Helpless, the village doctor, and the servants, and the landlady, and as +many of the guests as could crowd into the little room, stood around +Mercy's bed. It seemed a sad way to die, surrounded by strangers, who did +not even know her name; but Mercy was unconscious. It made no difference +to her. Her heavy breathing told only too well the nature of the trouble.</p> + +<p>"This cannot be the first attack she has had," said the doctor; and it was +found afterward that Mercy had told Lizzy Hunter of her having twice had +threatenings of a paralytic seizure. "If only I die at once," she had said +to Lizzy, "I would rather go that way than in most others. I dread the +dying part of death. I don't want to know when I am going."</p> + +<p>And she did not. All day her breathing grew slower and more labored, and +at night it stopped. In a few hours, there settled upon her features an +expression of such perfect peace that each one who came to look at her +stole away reverent and subdued.</p> + +<p>The two old crones who had come to "lay out" the body crept about on +tiptoe, their usual garrulity quenched by the sad and beautiful spectacle. +It was a singular thing that no one knew the name of the stranger who had +died thus suddenly and alone. In the confusion of their arrival, Mercy +had omitted to register their names. In the smaller White Mountain houses, +this formality is not rigidly enforced. And so it came to pass that this +woman, so well known, so widely beloved, lay a night and a day dead, +within a few hours' journey of her home as unknown as if she had been cast +up from a shipwrecked vessel on a strange shore.</p> + +<p>The two old crones sat with the body all night and all the next day. They +sewed on the quaint garments in which it is still the custom of rural New +England to robe the dead. They put a cap of stiff white muslin over +Mercy's brown hair, which even now, in her fiftieth year, showed only here +and there a silver thread. They laid fine plaits of the same stiff white +muslin over her breast, and crossed her hands above them.</p> + +<p>"She must ha' been a handsome woman in her time, Mis' Bunker. I 'spect +she was married, don't you?" said Ann Sweetser, Mrs. Bunker's spinster +cousin, who always helped her on these occasions.</p> + +<p>"Well, this ere ring looks like it," replied Mrs. Bunker, taking up a bit +of the muslin and rubbing the broad gold band on the third finger of +Mercy's left hand. "But yer can't allers tell by that nowadays. There's +folks wears 'em that ain't married. This is a real harndsome ring, 's +heavy 's ever I see."</p> + +<p>How Mercy's heart must have been touched, and also her fine and pathetic +sense of humor, if her freed spirit hovered still in that little +low-roofed room! This cast-off garment of hers, so carefully honored, so +curiously considered and speculated upon by these simple-minded people! +There was something rarely dramatic in all the surroundings of these last +hours. Among the guests in the house was one, a woman, herself a poet, who +toward the end of the second day came into the chamber, bringing long +trailing vines of the sweet Linnea, which was then in full bloom. Her +poet's heart was moved to the depths by the thought of this unknown, dead +woman lying there, tended by strangers' hands. She gazed with an +inexplicable feeling of affection upon Mercy's placid brow. She lifted the +lifeless hands and laid them down again in a less constrained position. +She, too, noted the broad gold ring, and said,--</p> + +<p>"She has been loved then. I wonder if he is alive!" The door was closed, +and no one was in the room. With a strange impulse she could not account +for to herself, she said, "I will kiss her for him," and bent and kissed +the cold forehead. Then she laid the fragrant vines around the face and +across the bosom, and went away, feeling an inexplicable sense of nearness +to the woman she had kissed. When the next morning she knew that it was +Mercy Philbrick, the poet, in whose lifeless presence she had stood, she +exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh, I might have known that there was +some subtile bond which made me kiss her! I have always loved her verses +so."</p> + +<p>On the day after Lizzy Hunter returned from Mercy's funeral, Stephen White +called at her house and asked to speak to her. She had almost forgotten +his existence, though she knew that he was living in the Jacobs house. +Their paths never crossed, and Lizzy had long ago forgotten her passing +suspicion of Mercy's regard for him. The haggard and bowed man who met her +now was so unlike the Stephen White she recollected, that Lizzy +involuntarily exclaimed. Stephen took no notice of her exclamation.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, I will not sit down," he said, as with almost solicitude +in her face she offered him a chair. "I merely wish to give you something +of"--he hesitated--"Mrs. Philbrick's."</p> + +<p>He drew from his breast a small package of papers, yellow, creased, old. +He unfolded one of these and handed it to Lizzy, saying,--</p> + +<p>"This is a sonnet of hers which has never been printed. She gave it to me +when,"--he hesitated again,--"when she was living in my house. She said at +that time that she would like to have it put on her tombstone. I did not +know any other friend of hers to go to but you. Will you see that it is +done?"</p> + +<p>Lizzy took the paper and began to read the sonnet. Stephen stood leaning +heavily on the back of a chair; his breath was short, and his face much +flushed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, pray sit down, Mr. White! You are ill," exclaimed Lizzy.</p> + +<p>"No, I am not ill. I would rather stand," replied Stephen. His eyes were +fixed on the spot where thirty years before Mercy had stood when she said, +"I can't, Stephen."</p> + +<p>Lizzy read the sonnet with tears rolling down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is beautiful,--beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Why did she never have +it printed?"</p> + +<p>Stephen colored and hesitated. One single thrill of pride followed by a +bitter wave of pain, and he replied,--</p> + +<p>"Because I asked her not to print it."</p> + +<p>Lizzy's heart was too full of tender grief now to have any room for wonder +or resentment at this, or even to realize in that first moment that there +was any thing strange in the reply.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, it shall be put on the stone," she said. "I am so thankful you +brought it. I have been thinking that there were no words fit to put above +her grave. No one but she herself could have written any that would be," +and she was folding up the paper.</p> + +<p>Stephen stretched out his hand. "Pardon me," he said, "I cannot part with +that. I have brought a copy to leave with you," and he gave Lizzy another +paper.</p> + +<p>Mechanically she restored to him the first one, and gazed earnestly into +his face. Its worn and harrowed features, its look of graven patience, +smote her like a cry. She was about to speak to him eagerly and with +sympathy, but he was gone. His errand was finished,--the last thing he +could do for Mercy. She watched his feeble steps as he walked away, and +her pity revealed to her the history of his past.</p> + +<p>"How he loved her! how he loved her!" she said, and watched his figure +lingeringly, till it was out of sight.</p> + +<p>This is the sonnet which was cut on the stone above Mercy's grave:--</p> + +<blockquote><h3>Emigravit.</h3> + +<p> With sails full set, the ship her anchor weighs;<br /> + Strange names shine out beneath her figure-head:<br /> + What glad farewells with eager eyes are said!<br /> + What cheer for him who goes, and him who stays!<br /> + Fair skies, rich lands, new homes, and untried days<br /> + Some go to seek: the rest but wait instead<br /> + Until the next stanch ship her flag shall raise.<br /> + Who knows what myriad colonies there are<br /> + Of fairest fields, and rich, undreamed-of gains,<br /> + Thick-planted in the distant shining plains<br /> + Which we call sky because they lie so far?<br /> + Oh, write of me, not,--"Died in bitter pains,"<br /> + But, "Emigrated to another star!"</p></blockquote> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Mercy Philbrick's Choice, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE *** + +***** This file should be named 10519-h.htm or 10519-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/1/10519/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mercy Philbrick's Choice + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: December 23, 2003 [EBook #10519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE. + + +1876 + + + + +I. + +_To one who found us on a starless night, +All helpless, groping in a dangerous way, +Where countless treacherous hidden pitfalls lay, +And, seeing all our peril, flashed a light +To show to our bewildered, blinded sight, +By one swift, clear, and piercing ray, +The safe, sure path,--what words could reach the height +Of our great thankfulness? And yet, at most, +The most he saved was this poor, paltry life +Of flesh, which is so little worth its cost, +Which eager sows, but may not stay to reap, +And so soon breathless with the strain and strife, +Its work half-done, exhausted, falls asleep._ + +II. + +_But unto him who finds men's souls astray +In night that they know not is night at all, +Walking, with reckless feet, where they may fall +Each moment into deadlier deaths than slay +The flesh,--to him whose truth can rend away +From such lost souls their moral night's black pall,-- +Oh, unto him what words can hearts recall +Which their deep gratitude finds fit to say? +No words but these,--and these to him are best:-- +That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame, +His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine; +His memory be truth worshipped and confessed; +Our gratitude and love, the priestess line, +Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name._ + + + + +Mercy Philbrick's Choice. + + + + +Chapter I. + + + +It was late in the afternoon of a November day. The sky had worn all day +that pale leaden gray color, which is depressing even to the least +sensitive of souls. Now, at sunset, a dull red tint was slowly stealing +over the west; but the gray cloud was too thick for the sun to pierce, and +the struggle of the crimson color with the unyielding sky only made the +heavens look more stern and pitiless than before. + +Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut +off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in +which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic +in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a +fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and +only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and +gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can +look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your +neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you +say on a summer night, where windows are open. + +One cannot walk through the streets of a New England village, without +being impressed by a sense of this futile semblance of barrier, this +touching effort at withdrawal and reticence. Often we see the tacit +recognition of its uselessness in an old gate shoved back to its farthest, +and left standing so till the very grass roots have embanked themselves on +each side of it, and it can never again be closed without digging away the +sods in which it is wedged. The gate on which Stephen White was leaning +had stood open in that way for years before Stephen rented the house; had +stood open, in fact, ever since old Billy Jacobs, the owner of the house, +had been carried out of it dead, in a coffin so wide that at first the +bearers had thought it could not pass through the gate; but by huddling +close, three at the head and three at the feet, they managed to tug the +heavy old man through without taking down the palings. This was so long +ago that now there was nobody left who remembered Billy Jacobs distinctly, +except his widow, who lived in a poor little house on the outskirts of the +town, her only income being that derived from the renting of the large +house, in which she had once lived in comfort with her husband and son. +The house was a double house; and for a few years Billy Jacobs's twin +brother, a sea captain, had lived in the other half of it. But Mrs. Billy +could not abide Mrs. John, and so with a big heart wrench the two +brothers, who loved each other as only twin children can love, had +separated. Captain John took his wife and went to sea again. The ship was +never heard of, and to the day of Billy Jacobs's death he never forgave +his wife. In his heart he looked upon her as his brother's murderer. Very +much like the perpetual presence of a ghost under her roof it must have +been to the woman also, the unbroken silence of those untenanted rooms, +and that never opened door on the left side of her hall, which she must +pass whenever she went in or out of her house. There were those who said +that she was never seen to look towards that door; and that whenever a +noise, as of a rat in the wall, or a blind creaking in the wind, came from +that side of the house, Mrs. Billy turned white, and shuddered. Well she +might. It is a fearful thing to have lying on one's heart in this life the +consciousness that one has been ever so innocently the occasion, if not +the cause, of a fellow-creature's turning aside into the path which was +destined to take him to his death. + +The very next day after Billy Jacobs's funeral, his widow left the house. +She sold all the furniture, except what was absolutely necessary for a +very meagre outfitting of the little cottage into which she moved. The +miserly habit of her husband seemed to have suddenly fallen on her like a +mantle. Her life shrank and dwindled in every possible way; she almost +starved herself and her boy, although the rent of her old homestead was +quite enough to make them comfortable. In a few years, to complete the +poor woman's misery, her son ran away and went to sea. The sea-farer's +stories which his Uncle John had told him, when he was a little child, +had never left his mind; and the drearier his mother made life for him on +land, the more longingly he dwelt on his fancies of life at sea, till at +last, when he was only fifteen, he disappeared one day, leaving a note, +not for his mother, but for his Sunday-school teacher,--the only human +being he loved. This young woman carried the note to Mrs. Jacobs. She read +it, made no comment, and handed it back. Her visitor was chilled and +terrified by her manner. + +"Can I do any thing for you, Mrs. Jacobs?" she said. "I do assure you I +sympathize with you most deeply. I think the boy will soon come back. He +will find the sea life very different from what he has dreamed." + +"No, you can do nothing for me," replied Mrs. Jacobs, in a voice as +unmoved as her face. "He will never come back. He will be drowned." And +from that day no one ever heard her mention her son. It was believed, +however, that she had news from him, and that she sent him money; for, +although the rents of her house were paid to her regularly, she grew if +possible more and more penurious every year, allowing herself barely +enough food to support life, and wearing such tattered and patched clothes +that she was almost an object of terror to children when they met her in +lonely fields and woods, bending down to the ground and searching for +herbs like an old witch. At one time, also, she went in great haste to a +lawyer in the village, and with his assistance raised three thousand +dollars on a mortgage on her house, mortgaging it very nearly to its full +value. In vain he represented to her that, in case the house should chance +to stand empty for a year, she would have no money to pay the interest on +her mortgage, and would lose the property. She either could not +understand, or did not care for what he said. The house always had brought +her in about so many dollars a year; she believed it always would; at any +rate, she wanted this money. And so it came to pass that the mortgage on +the old Jacobs house had come into Stephen White's hands, and he was now +living in one half of it, his own tenant and landlord at once, as he often +laughingly said. + +These old rumors and sayings about the Jacobs's family history were +running in Stephen's head this evening, as he stood listlessly leaning on +the gate, and looking down at the unsightly spot of bare earth still left +where the gate had so long stood pressed back against the fence. + +"I wonder how long it'll take to get that old rut smooth and green like +the rest of the yard," he thought. Stephen White absolutely hated +ugliness. It did not merely irritate and depress him, as it does everybody +of fine fastidiousness: he hated not only the sight of it, he hated it +with a sort of unreasoning vindictiveness. If it were a picture, he wanted +to burn the picture, cut it, tear it, trample it under foot, get it off +the face of the earth immediately, at any cost or risk. It had no business +to exist: if nobody else would make way with it, he must. He often saw +places that he would have liked to devastate, to blot out of existence if +he could, just because they were barren and unsightly. Once, when he was a +very little child, he suddenly seized a book of his father's,--an old, +shabby, worn dictionary,--and flung it into the fire with uncontrollable +passion; and, on being asked why he did it, had nothing to say in +justification of his act, except this extraordinary statement: "It was an +ugly book; it hurt me. Ugly books ought to go in the fire." What the child +suffered, and, still more, what the man suffered from this hatred of +ugliness, no words could portray. Ever since he could remember, he had +been unhappy from the lack of the beautiful in the surroundings of his +daily life. His father had been poor; his mother had been an invalid; and +neither father nor mother had a trace of the artistic temperament. From +what long-forgotten ancestor in his plain, hard-working family had come +Stephen's passionate love of beauty, nobody knew. It was the despair of +his father, the torment of his mother. From childhood to boyhood, from +boyhood to manhood, he had felt himself needlessly hurt and perversely +misunderstood on this one point. But it had not soured him: it had only +saddened him, and made him reticent. In his own quiet way, he went slowly +on, adding each year some new touch of simple adornment to their home. +Every dollar he could spare out of his earnings went into something for +the eye to feast on; and, in spite of the old people's perpetual grumbling +and perpetual antagonism, it came about that they grew to be, in a surly +fashion, proud of Stephen's having made their home unlike the homes of +their neighbors. + +"That's Stephen's last notion. He's never satisfied without he's sticking +up suthin' new or different," they would say, as they called attention to +some new picture or shelf or improvement in the house. "It's all +tom-foolery. Things was well enough before." But in their hearts they were +secretly a little elate, as in latter years they had come to know, by +books and papers which Stephen forced them to hear or to read, that he was +really in sympathy with well-known writers in this matter of the adornment +of homes, the love of beautiful things even in every-day life. + +A little more than a year before the time at which our story begins, +Stephen's father had died. On an investigation of his affairs, it was +found that after the settling of the estate very little would remain for +Stephen and his mother. The mortgage on the old Jacobs house was the +greater part of their property. Very reluctantly Stephen decided that +their wisest--in fact, their only--course was to move into this house to +live. Many and many a time he had walked past the old house, and thought, +as he looked at it, what a bare, staring, hopeless, joyless-looking old +house it was. It had originally been a small, square house. The addition +which Billy Jacobs had made to it was oblong, running out to the south, +and projecting on the front a few feet beyond the other part. This +obtrusive jog was certainly very ugly; and it was impossible to conceive +of any reason for it. Very possibly, it was only a carpenter's blunder; +for Billy Jacobs was, no doubt, his own architect, and left all details of +the work to the builders. Be that as it may, the little, clumsy, +meaningless jog ruined the house,--gave it an uncomfortably awry look, +like a dining-table awkwardly pieced out for an emergency by another table +a little too narrow. + +The house had been for several years occupied by families of mill +operatives, and had gradually acquired that indefinable, but unmistakable +tenement-house look, which not even neatness and good repair can wholly +banish from a house. The orchard behind the house had so run down for want +of care that it looked more like a tangle of wild trees than like any +thing which had ever been an orchard. Yet the Roxbury Russets and Baldwins +of that orchard had once been Billy Jacobs's great pride, the one point of +hospitality which his miserliness never conquered. Long after it would +have broken his heart to set out a generous dinner for a neighbor, he +would feast him on choice apples, and send him away with a big basket full +in his hands. Now every passing school-boy helped himself to the wan, +withered, and scanty fruit; and nobody had thought it worth while to mend +the dilapidated fences which might have helped to shut them out. + +Even Mrs. White, with all her indifference to externals, rebelled at first +at the idea of going to live in the old Jacobs house. + +"I'll never go there, Stephen," she said petulantly. "I'm not going to +live in half a house with the mill people; and it's no better than a barn, +the hideous, old, faded, yellow thing!" + +If it crossed Stephen's mind that there was a touch of late retribution +in his mother's having come at last to a sense of suffering because she +must live in an unsightly house, he did not betray it. + +He replied very gently. He was never heard to speak other than gently to +his mother, though to every one else his manner was sometimes brusque and +dictatorial. + +"But, mother, I think we must. It is the only way that we can be sure of +the rent. And, if we live ourselves in one half of it, we shall find it +much easier to get good tenants for the other part. I promise you none of +the mill people shall ever live there again. Please do not make it hard +for me, mother. We must do it." + +When Stephen said "must," his mother never gainsaid him. He was only +twenty-five, but his will was stronger than hers,--as much stronger as his +temper was better. Persons judging hastily, by her violent assertions and +vehement statements of her determination, as contrasted with Stephen's +gentle, slow, almost hesitating utterance of his opinions or intentions, +might have assumed that she would always conquer; but it was not so. In +all little things, Stephen was her slave, because she was a suffering +invalid and his mother. But, in all important decisions, he was the +master; and she recognized it, and leaned upon it in a way which was +almost ludicrous in its alternation with her petulance and perpetual +dictating to him in trifles. + +And so they went to live in the old Jacobs house. They took the northern +half of it, the part in which the sea captain and his wife had lived. +This half of the house was not so pleasant as the other, had less sun, and +had no door upon the street; but it was smaller and better suited to their +needs, and moreover, Stephen said to his mother,-- + +"We must live in the half we should find it hardest to rent to a desirable +tenant." + +For the first six months after they moved in, the "wing," as Mrs. White +persisted in calling it, though it was larger by two rooms than the part +she occupied herself, stood empty. There would have been plenty of +applicants for it, but it had been noised in the town that the Whites had +given out that none but people as good as they were themselves would be +allowed to rent the house. This made a mighty stir among the mill +operatives and the trades-people, and Stephen got many a sour look and +short answer, whose real source he never suspected. + +"Ahem! there he goes with his head in the clouds, damn him!" muttered +Barker the grocer, one day, as Stephen in a more than ordinarily +absent-minded fit had passed Mr. Barker's door without observing that Mr. +Barker stood in it, ready to bow and smile to the whole world. Mr. +Barker's sister had just married an overseer in the mill; and they had +been very anxious to set up housekeeping in the Jacobs house, but had been +prevented from applying for it by hearing of Mrs. White's determination to +have no mill people under the same roof with herself. + +"Mill people, indeed!" exclaimed Jane Barker, when her lover told her, in +no very guarded terms, the reason they could not have the house on which +she had set her heart. + +"Mill people, indeed! I'd like to know if they're not every whit's good's +an old shark of a lawyer like Hugh White was! I'll be bound, if poor old +granny Jacobs hadn't lost what little wit she ever had, it 'ud be very +soon seen whether Madam White's got the right to say who's to come and +who's to go in that house. It's a nasty old yaller shell anyhow, not to +say nothin' o' it's bein' haunted, 's like 's not. But there ain't no +other place so handy to the mill for us, an' I guess our money's good ez +any lawyer's money, o' the hull on 'em any day. Mill people, indeed! I'll +jest give Steve White a piece o' my mind, the first time I see him on the +street." + +Jane and her lover were sitting on the tops of two barrels just outside +the grocery door, when this conversation took place. Just as the last +words had left her lips, she looked up and saw Stephen approaching at a +very rapid pace. The unusual sight of two people perched on barrels on the +sidewalk roused Stephen from the deep reverie in which he habitually +walked. Lifting his hat as courteously as if he were addressing the most +distinguished of women, he bowed, and said smiling, "How do you do, Miss +Jane?" and "Good-morning, Mr. Lovejoy," and passed on; but not before Jane +Barker had had time to say in her gentlest tones, "Very well, thank you, +Mr. Stephen," while an ugly sneer spread over the face of Reuben Lovejoy. + +"Woman all over!" he muttered. "Never saw one on ye yet thet wasn't +caught by a bow from a palaverin' fool." + +Jane laughed nervously. She herself felt ashamed of having so soon given +the lie to her own words of bravado; but she was woman enough not to admit +her mortification. + +"I know he's a palaverin' fool's well's you do; but I reckon I've got some +manners o' my own, 's well's he. When a man bids me a pleasant +good-mornin', I ain't a-goin' to take that time to fly out at him, however +much I've got agin him." + +And Reuben was silenced. The under-current of ill-feeling against Stephen +and his mother went steadily on increasing. There is a wonderful force in +these slow under-currents of feeling, in small communities, for or against +individuals. After they have once become a steady tide, nothing can check +their force or turn their direction. Sometimes they can be traced back to +their spring, as a stream can: one lucky or unlucky word or deed, years +ago, made a friend or an enemy of one person, and that person's influence +has divided itself again and again, as brooks part off and divide into +countless rivulets, and water whole districts. But generally one finds it +impossible to trace the like or dislike to its beginning. A stranger, +asking the reason of it, is answered in an off-hand way,--"Oh, +everybody'll tell you the same thing. There isn't a soul in the town but +hates him;" or, "Well, he's just the most popular man in the town. You'll +never hear a word said against him,--never; not if you were to settle +right down here, and live." + +It was months before Stephen realized that there was slowly forming in the +town a dislike to him. He was slow in discovering it, because he had +always lived alone; had no intimate friends, not even when he was a boy. +His love of books and his passionate love of beauty combined with his +poverty to hedge him about more effectually than miles of desert could +have done. His father and mother had lived upon fairly good terms with all +their neighbors, but had formed no very close bonds with any. In the +ordinary New England town, neighborhood never means much: there is a +dismal lack of cohesion to the relations between people. The community is +loosely held together by a few accidental points of contact or common +interest. The individuality of individuals is, by a strange sort of +paradox, at once respected and ignored. This is indifference rather than +consideration, selfishness rather than generosity; it is an unsuspected +root of much of our national failure, is responsible for much of our +national disgrace. Some day there will come a time when it will have +crystallized into a national apathy, which will perhaps cure itself, or +have to be cured, as indurations in the body are, by sharp crises or by +surgical operations. In the mean time, our people are living, on the +whole, the dullest lives that are lived in the world, by the so-called +civilized; and the climax of this dulness of life is to be found in just +such a small New England town as Penfield, the one of which we are now +speaking. + +When it gradually became clear to Stephen that he and his mother were +unpopular people, his first feeling was one of resentment, his second of +calm acquiescence: acquiescence, first, because he recognized in a measure +the justice of it,--they really did not care for their neighbors; why +should their neighbors care for them? secondly, a diminished familiarity +of intercourse would have to him great compensations. There were few +people in the town, whose clothes, whose speech, whose behavior, did not +jar upon his nerves. On the whole, he would be better content alone; and +if his mother could only have a little more independence of nature, more +resource within herself, "The less we see of them, the better," said +Stephen, proudly. + +He had yet to learn the lesson which, sooner or later, the proudest, most +scornful, most self-centred of human souls must learn, or must die of +loneliness for the want of learning, that humanity is one and indivisible; +and the man who shuts himself apart from his fellows, above all, the man +who thus shuts himself apart because he thinks of his fellows with pitying +condescension as his inferiors, is a fool and a blasphemer,--a fool, +because he robs himself of that good-fellowship which is the leaven of +life; a blasphemer, because he virtually implies that God made men unfit +for him to associate with. Stephen White had this lesson yet to learn. + +The practical inconvenience of being unpopular, however, he began to feel +keenly, as month after month passed by, and nobody would rent the other +half of the house in which he and his mother lived. Small as the rent +was, it was a matter of great moment to them; for his earnings as clerk +and copyist were barely enough to give them food. He was still retained by +his father's partner in the same position which he had held during his +father's life. But old Mr. Williams was not wholly free from the general +prejudice against Stephen, as an aristocratic fellow, given to dreams and +fancies; and Stephen knew very well that he held the position only as it +were on a sort of sufferance, because Mr. Williams had loved his father. +Moreover, law business in Penfield was growing duller and duller. A +younger firm in the county town, only twelve miles away, was robbing them +of clients continually; and there were many long days during which Stephen +sat idle at his desk, looking out in a vague, dreamy way on the street +below, and wondering if the time were really coming when Mr. Williams +would need a clerk no longer; and, if it did come, what he could possibly +find to do in that town, by which he could earn money enough to support +his mother. At such times, he thought uneasily of the possibility of +foreclosing the mortgage on the old Jacobs house, selling the house, and +reinvesting the money in a more advantageous way. He always tried to put +the thought away from him as a dishonorable one; but it had a fatal +persistency. He could not banish it. + +"Poor, half-witted old woman! she might a great deal better be in the +poor-house." + +"There is no reason why we should lose our interest, for the sake of +keeping her along." + +"The mortgage was for too large a sum. I doubt if the old house could +sell to-day for enough to clear it, anyhow." These were some of the +suggestions which the devil kept whispering into Stephen's ear, in these +long hours of perplexity and misgiving. It was a question of casuistry +which might, perhaps, have puzzled a finer moral sense than Stephen's. Why +should he treat old Mrs. Jacobs with any more consideration than he would +show to a man under the same circumstances? To be sure, she was a helpless +old woman; but so was his own mother, and surely his first duty was to +make her as comfortable as possible. + +Luckily for old Mrs. Jacobs, a tenant appeared for the "south wing." A +friend of Stephen's, a young clergyman living in a seaport town on Cape +Cod, had written to him, asking about the house, which he knew Stephen was +anxious to rent. He made these inquiries on behalf of two women, +parishioners of his, who were obliged to move to some inland town on +account of the elder woman's failing health. They were mother and +daughter, but both widows. The younger woman's marriage had been a +tragically sad one, her husband having died suddenly, only a few days +after their marriage. She had returned at once to her mother's house, +widowed at eighteen; "heart-broken," the young clergyman wrote, "but the +most cheerful person in this town,--the most cheerful person I ever knew; +her smile is the sunniest and most pathetic thing I ever saw." + +Stephen welcomed most gladly the prospect of such tenants as these. The +negotiations were soon concluded; and at the time of the beginning of our +story the two women were daily expected. + +A strange feverishness of desire to have them arrive possessed Stephen's +mind. He longed for it, and yet he dreaded it. He liked the stillness of +the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these +satisfactions were to be interfered with now. But he had a singular +consciousness that some new element was coming into his life. He did not +define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a +bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his +reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, +"Stephen, man, what is this? What are these two women to you, that your +imagination is taking these wild and superfluous leaps into their +history?" + +There was hardly a possible speculation as to their past history, as to +their looks, as to their future life under his roof, that Stephen did not +indulge in, as he stood leaning with his folded arms on the gate, in the +gray November twilight, where we first found him. His thoughts, as was +natural, centred most around the younger woman. + +"Poor thing! That was a mighty hard fate. Only nineteen years old +now,--six years younger than I am; and how much more she must know of life +than I do. I suppose she can't be a lady, exactly,--being a sea captain's +wife. I wonder if she's pretty? I think Harley might have told me more +about her. He might know I'd be very curious. + +"I wonder if mother'll take to them? If she does, it will be a great +comfort to her. She 's so alone." And Stephen's face clouded, as he +reflected how very seldom the monotony of the invalid's life was broken +now by a friendly visit from a neighbor. + +"If they should turn out really social, neighborly people that we liked, +we might move away the old side-board from before the hall door, and go in +and out that way, as the Jacobses used to. It would be unlucky though, I +reckon, to use that door. I guess I'll plaster it up some day." Like all +people of deep sentiment, Stephen had in his nature a vein of something +which bordered on superstition. + +The twilight deepened into darkness, and a cold mist began to fall in +slow, drizzling drops. Still Stephen stood, absorbed in his reverie, and +unmindful of the chill. + +The hall door opened, and an old woman peered out. She held a lamp in one +hand; the blast of cold air made the flame flicker and flare, and, as she +put up one hand to shade it, the light was thrown sharply across her +features, making them stand out like the distorted features of a hideous +mask. + +"Steve! Steve!" she called, in a shrill voice. "Supper's been waitin' more +'n half an hour. Lor's sake, what's the boy thinkin' on now, I wonder?" +she muttered in an impatient lower tone, as Stephen turned his head +slowly. + +"Yes, yes, Marty. Tell my mother I will be there in a moment," replied +Stephen, as he walked slowly toward the house; even then noting, with the +keen and relentless glance of a beauty-worshipper, how grotesquely ugly +the old woman's wrinkled face became, lighted up by the intense +cross-light. Old Marty's face had never looked other than lovingly into +Stephen's since he first lay in her arms, twenty-five years ago, when she +came, a smooth-cheeked, rosy country-woman of twenty-five, to nurse his +mother at the time of his birth. She had never left the home since. With a +faithfulness and devotion only to be accounted for by the existence of +rare springs of each in her own nature, surely not by any uncommon +lovableness in either Mr. or Mrs. White, or by any especial comforts in +her situation, she had stayed on a quarter of a century, in the hard +position of woman of all work in a poor family. She worshipped Stephen, +and, as I said, her face had never once looked other than lovingly into +his; but he could not remember the time when he had not thought her +hideous. She had a big brown mole on her chin, out of which grew a few +bristling hairs. It was an unsightly thing, no doubt, on a woman's chin; +and sometimes, when Marty was very angry, the hairs did actually seem to +bristle, as a cat's whiskers do. When Stephen could not speak plain, he +used to point his little dimpled finger at this mole and say, "Do doe +away,--doe away;" and to this day it was a torment to him. His eyes seemed +morbidly drawn toward it at times.. When he was ill, and poor Marty bent +over his bed, ministering to him as no one but a loving old nurse can, he +saw only the mole, and had to make an effort not to shrink from her. +To-night, as she lingered on the threshold, affectionately waiting to +light his path, he was thinking only of her ugliness. But when she +exclaimed, with the privileged irritability of an old servant,-- + +"Jest look at your feet, Steve! they're wet through, an' your coat too, a +standin' out in that drizzle. Anybody 'ud think you hadn't common sense," +he replied with perfect good nature, and as heartily loving a tone as if +he had been feasting on her beauty, instead of writhing inwardly at her +ugliness,-- + +"All right, Marty,--all right. I'm not so wet as I look. I'll change my +coat, and come in to supper in one minute. Don't you fidget about me so, +good Marty." Never was Stephen heard to speak discourteously or even +ungently to a human being. It would have offended his taste. It was not a +matter of principle with him,--not at all: he hardly ever thought of +things in that light. A rude or harsh word, a loud, angry tone, jarred on +his every sense like a discord in music, or an inharmonious color; so he +never used them. But as he ran upstairs, three steps at a time, after his +kind, off-hand words to Marty, he said to himself, "Good heavens! I do +believe Marty gets uglier every day. What a picture Rembrandt would have +made of her old face peering out into the darkness there to-night! She +would have done for the witch of Endor, watching to see if Samuel were +coming up." And as he went down more slowly, revolving in his mind what +plausible excuse he could give to his mother for his tardiness, he +thought, "Well, I do hope she'll be at least tolerably good-looking." + +Already the younger of the two women who were coming to live under his +roof was "she," in his thoughts. + + + + +Chapter II. + + + +In the mean time, the young widow, Mercy Philbrick, and her old and almost +childish mother, Mercy Carr, were coming by slow and tiring stage journeys +up the dreary length of Cape Cod. For thirty years the elder woman had +never gone out of sight of the village graveyard in which her husband and +four children were buried. To transplant her was like transplanting an old +weather-beaten tree, already dead at the top. Yet the physicians had said +that the only chance of prolonging her life was to take her away from the +fierce winds of the sea. She herself, while she loved them, shrank from +them. They seemed to pierce her lungs like arrows of ice-cold steel, at +once wounding and benumbing. Yet the habit and love of the seashore life +were so strong upon her that she would never have been able to tear +herself away from her old home, had it not been for her daughter's +determined will. Mercy Philbrick was a woman of slight frame, gentle, +laughing, brown eyes, a pale skin, pale ash-brown hair, a small nose; a +sweet and changeful mouth, the upper lip too short, the lower lip much too +full; little hands, little feet, little wrists. Not one indication of +great physical or great mental strength could you point out in Mercy +Philbrick; but she was rarely ill; and she had never been known to give +up a point, small or great, on which her will had been fully set. Even the +cheerfulness of which her minister, Harley Allen, had written to Stephen, +was very largely a matter of will with Mercy. She confronted grief as she +would confront an antagonist force of any sort: it was something to be +battled with, to be conquered. Fate should not worst her: come what might, +she would be the stronger of the two. When the doctor said to her,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, I fear that your mother cannot live through another +winter in this climate," Mercy looked at him for a moment with an +expression of terror. In an instant more, the expression had given place +to one of resolute and searching inquiry. + +"You think, then, that she might be well in a different climate?" + +"Perhaps not well, but she might live for years in a dryer, milder air. +There is as yet no actual disease in her lungs," the doctor replied. + +Mercy interrupted him. + +"You think she might live in comparative comfort? It would not be merely +prolonging her life as a suffering invalid?" she said; adding in an +undertone, as if to herself, "I would not subject her to that." + +"Oh, yes, undoubtedly," said the doctor. "She need never die of +consumption at all, if she could breathe only inland air. She will never +be strong again, but she may live years without any especial liability to +suffering." + +"Then I will take her away immediately," replied Mercy, in as confident +and simple a manner as if she had been proposing only to move her from one +room into another. It would not seem so easy a matter for two lonely +women, in a little Cape Cod village, without a male relative to help them, +and with only a few thousand dollars in the world, to sell their house, +break up all their life-long associations, and go out into the world to +find a new home. Associations crystallize around people in lonely and out +of the way spots, where the days are all alike, and years follow years in +an undeviating monotony. Perhaps the process might be more aptly called +one of petrifaction. There are pieces of exquisite agate which were once +soft wood. Ages ago, the bit of wood fell into a stream, where the water +was largely impregnated with some chemical matter which had the power to +eat out the fibre of the wood, and in each spot thus left empty to deposit +itself in an exact image of the wood it had eaten away. Molecule by +molecule, in a mystery too small for human eye to detect, even had a +watchful human eye been lying in wait to observe, the marvellous process +went on; until, after the lapse of nobody knows how many centuries, the +wood was gone, and in its place lay its exact image in stone,--rings of +growth, individual peculiarities of structure, knots, broken slivers and +chips; color, shape, all perfect. Men call it agatized wood, by a feeble +effort to translate the mystery of its existence; but it is not wood, +except to the eye. To the touch, and in fact, it is stone,--hard, cold, +unalterable, eternal stone. The slow wear of monotonous life in a set +groove does very much such a thing as this to human beings. To the eye +they retain the semblance of other beings; but try them by touch, that is +by contact with people, with events outside their groove, and they are +stone,--agatized men and women. Carry them where you please, after they +have reached middle or old age, and they will not change. There is no +magic water, a drop of which will restore to them the vitality and +pliability of their youth. They last well, such people,--as well, almost, +as agatized wood on museum shelves; and the most you can do for them is to +keep them well dusted. + +Old Mrs. Carr belonged, in a degree, to this order of persons. Only the +coming of Mercy's young life into the feeble current of her own had saved +it from entire stagnation. But she was already past middle age when Mercy +was born; and the child with her wonderful joyousness, and the maiden with +her wondrous cheer, came too late to undo what the years had done. The +most they could do was to interrupt the process, to stay it at that point. +The consequence was that Mrs. Carr at sixty-five was a placid sort of +middle-aged old lady, very pleasant to talk with as you would talk with a +child, very easy to take care of as you would take care of a child, but, +for all purposes of practical management or efficient force, as helpless +as a baby. + +When Mercy told her what the doctor had said of her health, and that they +must sell the house and move away before the winter set in, she literally +opened her mouth too wide to speak for a minute, and then gasped out like +a frightened child,-- + +"O Mercy, don't let's do it!" + +As Mercy went on explaining to her the necessity of the change, and the +arrangements she proposed to make, the poor old woman's face grew longer +and longer; but, some time before Mercy had come to the end of her +explanation, the childish soul had accepted the whole thing as fixed, had +begun already to project itself in childish imaginations of detail; and to +Mercy's infinite relief and half-sad amusement, when she ceased speaking, +her mother's first words were, eagerly,-- + +"Well, Mercy, if we go 'n the stage, 'n' I s'pose we shall hev to, don't +ye think my old brown merino'll do to wear?" + +Fortune favored Mercy's desire to sell the house. Stephen's friend, the +young minister, had said to himself many times, as he walked up to its +door between the quaint, trim beds of old-fashioned pinks and ladies' +delights and sweet-williams which bordered the little path, "This is the +only house in this town I want to live in." As soon as he heard that it +was for sale, he put on his hat, and fairly ran to buy it. Out of breath, +he took Mercy's hands in his, and exclaimed,-- + +"O Mercy, do you really want to sell this house?" + +Very unworldly were this young man and this young woman, in the matter of +sale and purchase. Adepts in traffic would have laughed, had they +overheard the conversation. + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Allen, I do. I must sell it; and I am afraid I shall +have to sell it for a great deal less than it is worth," replied Mercy. + +"No, you sha'n't, Mercy! I'll buy it myself. I've always wanted it. But +why in the world do you want to sell it? Where will you live yourself? +There isn't another house in the village you'd like half so well. Is it +too large for you?" continued Mr. Allen, hurriedly. Then Mercy told him +all her plans, and the sad necessity for her making the change. The young +minister did not speak for some moments. He seemed lost in thought. Then +he exclaimed,-- + +"I do believe it's a kind of Providence!" and drew a letter from his +pocket, which he had only two days before received from Stephen White. +"Mercy," he went on, "I believe I've got the very thing you want right +here;" and he read her the concluding paragraph of the letter, in which +Stephen had said: "Meantime, I am waiting as patiently as I can for a +tenant for the other half of this house. It seems to be very hard to find +just the right sort of person. I cannot take in any of the mill +operatives. They are noisy and untidy; and the bare thought of their being +just the other side of the partition would drive my mother frantic. I wish +so much I could get some people in that would be real friends for her. She +is very lonely. She never leaves her bed; and I have to be away all day." + +Mercy's face lighted up. She liked the sound of each word that this +unknown man wrote. Very eagerly she questioned Mr. Allen about the town, +its situation, its healthfulness, and so forth. As he gave her detail +after detail, she nodded her head with increasing emphasis, and finally +exclaimed: "That is precisely such a spot as Dr. Wheeler said we ought to +go to. I think you're right, Mr. Allen. It's a Providence. And I'd be so +glad to be good to that poor old woman, too. What a companion she'd be for +mother! that is, if I could keep them from comparing notes for ever about +their diseases. That's the worst of putting invalid old women together," +laughed Mercy with a kindly, merry little laugh. + +Mr. Allen had visited Penfield only once. When he and Stephen were boys at +school together, he had passed one of the short vacations at Stephen's +house. He remembered very little of Stephen's father and mother, or of +their way of life. He was at the age when house and home mean little to +boys, except a spot where shelter and food are obtained in the enforced +intervals between their hours of out-door life. But he had never forgotten +the grand out-look and off-look from the town. Lying itself high up on the +western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it +commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a +most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent +any danger from its moisture. To the south and south-west rose a fine +range of mountains, bold and sharp-cut, though they were not very high, +and were heavily wooded to their summits. The westernmost peak of this +range was separated from the rest by a wide river, which had cut its way +through in some of those forgotten ages when, if we are to believe the +geologists, every thing was topsy-turvy on this now meek and +well-regulated planet. + +The town, although, as I said, it lay on the western slope of a great +river terrace, held in its site three distinctly marked plateaus. From the +two highest of these, the views were grand. It was like living on a +mountain, and yet there was the rich beauty of coloring of the river +interval. Nowhere in all New England was there a fairer country than this +to look upon, nor a goodlier one in which to live. + +Mr. Allen's enthusiasm in describing the beauties of the place, and +Mercy's enthusiasm in listening, were fast driving out of their minds the +thought of the sale, which had been mentioned in the beginning of their +conversation. Mercy was the first to recall it. She blushed and hesitated, +as she said,-- + +"But, Mr. Allen, we can't go, you know, until I have sold this house. Did +you really want to buy it? And how much do you think I ought to ask for +it?" + +"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed the young minister. "Dear me, what +children we are! Mercy, I don't honestly know what you ought to ask for +the house. I'll find out." + +"Deacon Jones said he thought, taking in the cranberry meadow, it was +worth three thousand dollars," said Mercy; "but that seems a great deal to +me: though not in a good cranberry year, perhaps," added she, ingenuously, +"for last year the cranberries brought us in seventy-five dollars, besides +paying for the picking." + +"And the meadow ought to go with the house, by all means," said Mr. Allen. +"I want it for color in the background, when I look at the house as I +come down from the meeting-house hill. I wouldn't like to have anybody +else own the canvas on which the picture of my home will be oftenest +painted for my eyes. I'll give you three thousand dollars for the house, +Mercy. I can only pay two thousand down, and pay you interest on the other +thousand for a year or two. I'll soon clear it off. Will that do?" + +"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Allen. It will more than do," said poor +Mercy, who could not believe in such sudden good fortune; "but do you +think you ought to buy it so quick? Perhaps it wouldn't bring so much +money as that. I had not asked anybody except Deacon Jones." + +Mr. Allen laughed. "If you don't look out for yourself sharper than this, +Mercy," he said, "in the new place 'where you're going to live, you'll +fare badly. Perhaps it may be true, as you say, that nobody else would +give you three thousand dollars for the house, because nobody might happen +to want to live in it. But Deacon Jones knows better than anybody else the +value of property here, and I am perfectly willing to give you the price +he set on the place. I had laid by this two thousand dollars towards my +house; and I could not build such a house as this, to-day, for three +thousand dollars. But really, Mercy, you must look 'out for yourself +better than this." + +"I don't know," replied Mercy, looking out of the window, with an earnest +gaze, as if she were reading a writing a great way off,--"I don't know +about that. I doubt very much if looking out for one's self, as you call +it, is the best way to provide for one's self." + +That very night Mr. Allen wrote to Stephen; in two weeks, the whole matter +was settled, and Mercy and her mother had set out on their journey. They +carried with them but one small valise. The rest of their simple wardrobe +had gone in boxes, with the furniture, by sailing vessel, to a city which +was within three hours by rail of their new home. This was the feature of +the situation which poor Mrs. Carr could not accept. In the bottom of her +heart, she fully believed that they would never again see one of those +boxes. The contents of some which she had herself packed were of a most +motley description. In the beginning of the breaking up, while Mercy was +at her wits' end, with the unwonted perplexities of packing the whole +belongings of a house, her mother had tormented her incessantly by +bringing to her every few minutes some utterly incongruous and frequently +worthless article, and begging her to put it in at once, whatever she +might be packing. Any one who has ever packed for a long journey, with an +eager and excited child running up every minute with more and more +cumbrous toys, dogs, cats, Noah's arks, and so on, to be put in among +books and under-clothing, can imagine Mercy's despair at her mother's +restless activity. + +"Oh, mother, not in this box! Not in with the china!" would groan poor +Mercy, as her mother appeared with armfuls of ancient relics from the +garret, such as old umbrellas, bonnets, bundles of old newspapers, broken +spinning-wheels, andirons, and rolls of remains of old wall-paper, the +last of which had disappeared from the walls of the house, long before +Mercy was born. No old magpie was ever a more indiscriminate hoarder than +Mrs. Carr had been; and, among all her hoardings, there was none more +amusing than her hoarding of old wall-papers. A scrap a foot square seemed +to her too precious to throw away. "It might be jest the right size to +cover suthin' with," she would say; and, to do her justice, she did use in +the course of a year a most unexampled amount of such fragments. She had a +mania for papering and repapering and papering again every shelf, every +box, every corner she could get hold of. The paste and brush were like +toys to her; and she delighted in gay combinations, sticking on old bits +of borders in fantastic ways, in most inappropriate situations. + +"I do believe you'll paper the pigsty next, mother," said Mercy one day: +"there's nothing left you can paper except that." Mrs. Carr took the +suggestion in perfect good faith, and convulsed Mercy a few days later by +entering the kitchen with the following extraordinary remark,-- + +"I don't believe it's worth while to paper the pigsty. I've been looking +at it, and the boards they're so rough, the paper wouldn't lay smooth, +anyhow; and I couldn't well get at the inside o' the roof, while the pig's +in. It would look real neat, though. I'd like to do it." + +Mercy endured her mother's help in packing for one day. Then the +desperateness of the trouble suggested a remedy. Selecting a large, strong +box, she had it carried into the garret. + +"There, mother," she said, "now you can pack in this box all the old +lumber of all sorts which you want to carry. And, if this box isn't large +enough, you shall have two more. Don't tire yourself out: there's plenty +of time; and, if you don't get it all packed by the time I am done, I can +help you." + +Then Mercy went downstairs feeling half-guilty, as one does when one has +practised a subterfuge on a child. + +How many times that poor old woman packed and unpacked that box, nobody +could dream. All day long she trotted up and down, up and down; ransacking +closets, chests, barrels; sorting and resorting, and forgetting as fast as +she sorted. Now and then she would come across something which would rouse +an electric chain of memories in the dim chambers of her old, worn-out +brain, and she would sit motionless for a long time on the garret floor, +in a sort of trance. Once Mercy found her leaning back against a beam, +with her knees covered by a piece of faded blue Canton crape, on which her +eyes were fastened. She did not speak till Mercy touched her shoulder. + +"Oh, my! how you scared me, child!" she exclaimed. "D'ye see this ere blue +stuff? I hed a gown o' thet once: it was drefful kind o' clingy stuff. I +never felt exzackly decent in it, somehow: it hung a good deal like a +night-gownd; but your father he bought it for the color. He traded off +some shells for it in some o' them furrin places. You wouldn't think it +now, but it used to be jest the color o' a robin's egg or a light-blue +'bachelor's button;' and your father he used to stick one o' them in my +belt whenever they was in blossom, when I hed the gownd on. He hed a heap +o' notions about things matchin'. He brought me that gownd the v'yage he +made jest afore Caleb was born; and I never hed a chance to wear it much, +the children come so fast. It warn't re'ly worn at all, 'n' I hed it dyed +black for veils arterwards." + +It was from this father who used to "stick" pale-blue flowers in his +wife's belt, and whose love of delicate fabrics and tints made him +courageous enough to lead her draped in Canton crape into the unpainted +Cape Cod meeting-house, where her fellow-women bristled in homespun, that +Mercy inherited all the artistic side of her nature. She knew this +instinctively, and all her tenderest sentiment centred around the vague +memory she retained of a tall, dark-bearded man, who, when she was only +three years old, lifted her in his arms, called her his "little Mercy," +and kissed her over and over again. She was most loyally affectionate to +her mother, but the sentiment was not a wholly filial one. There was too +much reversal of the natural order of the protector and the protected in +it; and her life was on too different a plane of thought, feeling, and +interest from the life of the uncultured, undeveloped, childish, old +woman. Yet no one who saw them together would have detected any trace of +this shortcoming in Mercy's feeling towards her mother. She had in her +nature a fine and lofty fibre of loyalty which could never condescend even +to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all +consciousness of the possibility of any other course. This is a sort of +organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower +of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death +itself. It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men +and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be +of a loving nature. The cheaper and less lasting types of love are so much +louder of voice and readier of phrase, as in cloths cheap fabrics, poor to +wear, are often found printed in gay colors and big patterns. + +The day before they left home, Mercy, becoming alarmed by a longer +interval than usual without any sound from the garret, where her mother +was still at work over her fantastic collections of old odds and ends, ran +up to see what it meant. + +Mrs. Carr was on her knees before a barrel, which had held rags and +papers. The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor. She had +leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly. + +"Mother! mother! what is the matter?" exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for +she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry. Without speaking, +Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory. It was of a creamy +yellow, and shone like satin: a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from +it. As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window, +and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left. + +"What a lovely bit of carving! What is it, mother? Why does it make you +cry?" asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory. + +"It's Caley's whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience +Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, +an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought +that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I +was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum +in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every +mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the +next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n +yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed +that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--" + +"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle +all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink +rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one +o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer +ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus +used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth +an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old. But by the time he +was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could. And his father he'd +just lay back 'n his chair, and laugh 'n' laugh, 'n' call out, 'Blow away, +my hearty!' Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago'n yesterday. I wish I'd +ha' known. I wa'n't never friends with Patience any more arter that. I +never misgave me but what she'd got the whistle. It was such a curious +cut thing, and cost a heap o' money. Your father wouldn't never tell what +he gin for 't. Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday," and the +old woman wiped her eyes on her apron, and struggling up on her feet took +the whistle again from Mercy's hands. + +"How old would my brother Caley be now, if he had lived, mother?" said +Mercy, anxious to bring her mother gently back to the present. + +"Well, let me see, child. Why, Caley--Caley, he'd be--How old am I, Mercy? +Dear me! hain't I lost my memory, sure enough, except about these ere old +things? They seem's clear's daylight." + +"Sixty-five last July, mother," said Mercy. "Don't you know I gave you +your new specs then?" + +"Oh, yes, child,--yes. Well, I'm sixty-five, be I? Then Caley,--Caley, +he'd be, let me see--you reckon it, Mercy. I wuz goin' on nineteen when +Caley was born." + +"Why, mother," exclaimed Mercy, "is it really so long ago? Then my brother +Caleb would be forty-six years old now!" and mercy took again in her hand +the yellow ivory whistle, and ran her fingers over the faded and frayed +pink ribbon, and looked at it with an indefinable sense of its being a +strange link between her and a distant past, which, though she had never +shared it, belonged to her by right. Hardly thinking what she did, she +raised the whistle to her lips, and blew a loud, shrill whistle on it. Her +mother started. "O Mercy, don't, don't!" she cried. "I can't bear to hear +it." + +"Now, mother, don't you be foolish," said Mercy, cheerily. "A whistle's a +whistle, old or young, and made to be whistled with. We'll keep this to +amuse children with: you carry it in your pocket. Perhaps we shall meet +some children on the journey; and it'll be so nice for you to pop this out +of your pocket, and give it to them to blow." + +"So it will, Mercy, I declare. That 'ud be real nice. You're a +master-piece for thinkin' o' things." And, easily diverted as a child, the +old woman dropped the whistle into her deep pocket, and, forgetting all +her tears, returned to her packing. + +Not so Mercy. Having attained her end of cheering her mother, her own +thoughts reverted again and again all day long, and many times in after +years, whenever she saw the ivory whistle, to the strange picture of the +lonely old woman in the garret coming upon her first-born child's first +toy, lost for forty years; the picture, too, of the history of the quaint +piece of carving itself; the day it was slowly cut and chiselled by a +patient and ill-paid toiler in some city of China; its voyage in the +keeping of the ardent young husband hastening home to welcome his first +child; its forty years of silence and darkness in the old garret; and then +its return to life and light and sound, in the hands and lips of new +generations of children. + +The journey which Mercy had so much dreaded was unexpectedly pleasant. +Mrs. Carr proved an admirable traveller with the exception of her +incessant and garrulous anxiety about the boxes which had been left behind +on the deck of the schooner "Maria Jane," and could not by any +possibility overtake them for three weeks to come. She was, in fact, so +much of a child that she was in a state of eager delight at every new +scene and person. Her childishness proved the best of claims upon every +one's courtesy. Everybody was ready to help "that poor sweet old woman;" +and she was so simply and touchingly grateful for the smallest kindness +that everybody who had helped her once wanted to help her again. More than +one of their fellow-travellers remembered for a long time the bright-faced +young woman with her childish mother, and wondered where they could have +been going, and what was to be their life. + +On the fourth day, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, they +entered the beautiful river interval, through which the road to their new +home lay. Mercy sat with her face almost pressed against the panes of the +car-windows, eagerly scanning every feature of the landscape, to her so +new and wonderful. To the dweller by the sea, the first sight of mountains +is like the sight of a new heavens and a new earth. It is a revelation of +a new life. Mercy felt strangely stirred and overawed. She looked around +in astonishment at her fellow-passengers, not one of whom apparently +observed that on either hand were stretching away to the east and the west +fields that were, even in this late autumn, like carpets of gold and +green. Through these fertile meadows ran a majestic river, curving and +doubling as if loath to leave such fair shores. The wooded mountains +changed fast from green to purple, from purple to dark gray; and almost +before Mercy had comprehended the beauty of the region, it was lost from +her sight, veiled in the twilight's pale, indistinguishable tints. Her +mother was fast asleep in her seat. The train stopped every few moments at +some insignificant station, of which Mercy could see nothing but a narrow +platform, a dim lantern, and a sleepy-looking station-master. Slowly, one +or two at a time, the passengers disappeared, until she and her mother +were left alone in the car. The conductor and the brakeman, as they passed +through, looked at them with renewed interest: it was evident now that +they were going through to the terminus of the road. + +"Goin' through, be ye?" said the conductor. "It'll be dark when we get in; +an' it's beginnin' to rain. 'S anybody comin' to meet ye?" + +"No," said Mercy, uneasily. "Will there not be carriages at the depot? We +are going to the hotel. I believe there is but one." + +"Well, there may be a kerridge down to-night, an' there may not: there's +no knowin'. Ef it don't rain too hard, I reckon Seth'll be down." + +Mercy's sense of humor never failed her. She laughed heartily, as she +said,-- + +"Then Seth stays away, does he, on the nights when he would be sure of +passengers?" + +The conductor laughed too, as he replied,--- + +"Well, 'tisn't quite so bad's that. Ye see this here road's only a piece +of a road. It's goin' up through to connect with the northern roads; but +they 've come to a stand-still for want o' funds, an' more 'n half the +time I don't carry nobody over this last ten miles. Most o' the people +from our town go the other way, on the river road. It's shorter, an' some +cheaper. There isn't much travellin' done by our folks, anyhow. We're a +mighty dead an' alive set up here. Goin' to stay a spell?" he continued, +with increasing interest, as he looked longer into Mercy's face. + +"Probably," said Mercy, in a grave tone, suddenly recollecting that she +ought not to talk with this man as if he were one of her own village +people. The conductor, sensitive as are most New England people, spite of +their apparent familiarity of address, to the least rebuff, felt the +change in Mercy's tone, and walked away, thinking half surlily, "She +needn't put on airs. A schoolma'am, I reckon. Wonder if it can be her +that's going to teach the Academy?" + +When they reached the station, it was, as the conductor had said, very +dark; and it was raining hard. For the first time, a sense of her +unprotected loneliness fell upon Mercy's heart. Her mother, but +half-awake, clung nervously to her, asking purposeless and incoherent +questions. The conductor, still surly from his fancied rebuff at Mercy's +hands, walked away, and took no notice of them. The station-master was +nowhere to be seen. The two women stood huddling together under one +umbrella, gazing blankly about them. + +"Is this Mrs. Philbrick?" came in clear, firm tones, out of the darkness +behind them; and, in a second more, Mercy had turned and looked up into +Stephen White's face. + +"Oh, how good you were to come and meet us!" exclaimed Mercy. "You are Mr. +Allen's friend, I suppose." + +"Yes," said Stephen, curtly. "But I did not come to meet you. You must not +thank me. I had business here. However, I made the one carriage which the +town boasts, wait, in case you should be here. Here it is!" And, before +Mercy had time to analyze or even to realize the vague sense of +disappointment she felt at his words, she found herself and her mother +placed in the carriage, and the door shut. + +"Your trunks cannot go up until morning," he said, speaking through the +carriage window; "but, if you will give me your checks, I will see that +they are sent." + +"We have only one small valise," said Mercy: "that was under our seat. The +brakeman said he would take it out for us; but he forgot it, and so did +I." + +The train was already backing out of the station. Stephen smothered some +very unchivalrous words on his lips, as he ran out into the rain, overtook +the train, and swung himself on the last car, in search of the "one small +valise" belonging to his tenants. It was a very shabby valise: it had made +many a voyage with its first owner, Captain Carr. It was a very little +valise: it could not have held one gown of any of the modern fashions. + +"Dear me," thought Stephen, as he put it into the carriage at Mercy's +feet, "what sort of women are these I've taken under my roof! I expect +they'll be very unpleasing sights to my eyes. I did hope she'd be +good-looking." How many times in after years did Stephen recall with +laughter his first impressions of Mercy Philbrick, and wonder how he could +have argued so unhesitatingly that a woman who travelled with only one +small valise could not be good-looking. + +"Will you come to the house to-morrow?" he asked. + +"Oh, no," replied Mercy, "not for three or four weeks yet. Our furniture +will not be here under that time." + +"Ah!" said Stephen, "I had not thought of that. I will call on you at the +hotel, then, in a day or two." + +His adieus were civil, but only civil: that most depressing of all things +to a sensitive nature, a kindly indifference, was manifest in every word +he said, and in every tone of his voice. + +Mercy felt it to the quick; but she was ashamed of herself for the +feeling. "What business had I to expect that he was going to be our +friend?" she said in her heart. "We are only tenants to him." + +"What a kind-spoken young man he is, to be sure, Mercy!" said Mrs. Carr. + +So all-sufficient is bare kindliness of tone and speech to the unsensitive +nature. + +"Yes, mother, he was very kind," said Mercy; "but I don't think we shall +ever know him very well." + +"Why, Mercy, why not?" exclaimed her mother. "I should say he was most +uncommon friendly for a stranger, running back after our valise in the +rain, and a goin' to call on you to oncet." + +Mercy made no reply. The carriage rolled along over the rough and muddy +road. It was too dark to see any thing except the shadowy black shapes of +houses, outlined on a still deeper blackness by the light streaming from +their windows. There is no sight in the world so hard for lonely, homeless +people to see, as the sight of the lighted windows of houses after +nightfall. Why houses should look so much more homelike, so much more +suggestive of shelter and cheer and companionship and love, when the +curtains are snug-drawn and the doors shut, and nobody can look in, though +the lights of fires and lamps shine out, than they do in broad daylight, +with open windows and people coming and going through open doors, and a +general air of comradeship and busy living, it is hard to see. But there +is not a lonely vagabond in the world who does not know that they do. One +may see on a dark night many a wistful face of lonely man or lonely woman, +hurrying resolutely past, and looking away from, the illumined houses +which mean nothing to them except the keen reminder of what they are +without. Oh, the homeless people there are in this world! Did anybody ever +think to count up the thousands there are in every great city, who live in +lodgings and not in homes; from the luxurious lodger who lodges in the +costliest rooms of the costliest hotel, down to the most poverty-stricken +lodger who lodges in a corner of the poorest tenement-house? Homeless all +of them; their common vagabondage is only a matter of degrees of decency. +All honor to the bravery of those who are homeless because they must be, +and who make the best of it. But only scorn and pity for those who are +homeless because they choose to be, and are foolish enough to like it. + +Mercy had never before felt the sensation of being a homeless wanderer. +She was utterly unprepared for it. All through the breaking up of their +home and the preparations for their journey, she had been buoyed up by +excitement and anticipation. Much as she had grieved to part from some of +the friends of her early life, and to leave the old home in which she was +born, there was still a certain sense of elation in the prospect of new +scenes and new people. She had felt, without realizing it, a most +unreasonable confidence that it was to be at once a change from one home +to another home. In her native town, she had had a position of importance. +Their house was the best house in the town; judged by the simple standards +of a Cape Cod village, they were well-to-do. Everybody knew, and everybody +spoke with respect and consideration, of "Old Mis' Carr," or, as she was +perhaps more often called, "Widder Carr." Mercy had not thought--in her +utter inexperience of change, it could not have occurred to her--what a +very different thing it was to be simply unknown and poor people in a +strange place. The sense of all this smote upon her suddenly and keenly, +as they jolted along in the noisy old carriage on this dark, rainy night. +Stephen White's indifferent though kindly manner first brought to her the +thought, or rather the feeling, of this. Each new glimmer of the +home-lights deepened her sense of desolation. Every gust of rain that beat +on the carriage roof and windows made her feel more and more like an +outcast. She never forgot these moments. She used to say that in them she +had lived the whole life of the loneliest outcast that was ever born. Long +years afterward, she wrote a poem, called "The Outcast," which was so +intense in its feeling one could have easily believed that it was written +by Ishmael. When she was asked once how and when she wrote this poem, she +replied, "I did not write it: I lived it one night in entering a strange +town." In vain she struggled against the strange and unexpected emotion. A +nervous terror of arriving at the hotel oppressed her more and more; +although, thanks to Harley Allen's thoughtfulness, she knew that their +rooms were already engaged for them. She felt as if she would rather drive +on and on, in all the darkness and rain, no matter where, all night long, +rather than enter the door of the strange and public house, in which she +must give her name and her mother's name on the threshold. + +When the carriage stopped, she moved so slowly to alight that her mother +exclaimed petulantly,-- + +"Dear me, child, what's the matter with you? Ain't you goin' to git out? +Ain't this the tavern?" + +"Yes, mother, this is our place," said Mercy, in a low voice, unlike her +usual cheery, ringing tones, as she assisted her mother down the clumsy +steps from the old-fashioned, high vehicle. "They're expecting us: it is +all right." But her voice and face belied her words. She moved all +through the rest of the evening like one in a dream. She said little, but +busied herself in making her mother as comfortable as it was possible to +be in the dingy and unattractive little rooms; and, as soon as the tired +old woman had fallen asleep, Mercy sat down on the floor by the window, +and leaning her head on the sill cried hard. + + + + +Chapter III. + + + +The next morning the sun shone, and Mercy was herself again. Her +depression of the evening before seemed to her so causeless, so +inexplicable, that she recalled it almost with terror, as one might a +temporary insanity. She blushed to think of her unreasonable sensitiveness +to the words and tones of Stephen White. "As if it made any sort of +difference to mother and to me whether he were our friend or not. He can +do as he likes. I hope I'll be out when he calls," thought Mercy, as she +stood on the hotel piazza, after breakfast, scanning with a keen and eager +glance every feature of the scene. To her eyes, accustomed to the broad, +open, leisurely streets of the Cape Cod hamlet, its isolated little houses +with their trim flower-beds in front and their punctiliously kept fences +and gates, this somewhat untidy and huddled town looked unattractive. The +hotel stood on the top of one of the plateaus of which I spoke in the last +chapter. The ground fell away slowly to the east and to the south. A +poorly kept, oblong-shaped "common," some few acres in extent, lay just in +front of the hotel: it had once been fenced in; but the fences were sadly +out of repair, and two cows were grazing there this morning, as +composedly as if there were no town ordinance forbidding all running of +cattle in the streets. A few shabby old farm-wagons stood here and there +by these fences; the sleepy horses which had drawn them thither having +been taken out of the shafts, and tethered in some mysterious way to the +hinder part of the wagons. A court was in session; and these were the +wagons of lawyers and clients, alike humble in their style of equipage. On +the left-hand side of the hotel, down the eastern slope of the hill ran an +irregular block of brick buildings, no two of a height or size, The block +had burned down in spots several times, and each owner had rebuilt as much +or as little as he chose, which had resulted in as incoherent a bit of +architecture as is often seen. The general effect, however, was of a +tendency to a certain parallelism with the ground line: so that the block +itself seemed to be sliding down hill; the roof of the building farthest +east being not much above the level of the first story windows in the +building farthest west. To add to the queerness of this "Brick Row," as it +was called, the ingenuity of all the sign-painters of the region had been +called into requisition. Signs alphabetical, allegorical, and symbolic; +signs in black on white, in red on black, in rainbow colors on tin; signs +high up, and signs low down; signs swung, and signs posted,--made the +whole front of the Row look at a little distance like a wall of +advertisements of some travelling menagerie. There was a painted yellow +horse with a fiery red mane, which was the pride of the heart of Seth +Nims, the livery-stable keeper; and a big black dog's head with a gay +collar of scarlet and white morocco, which was supposed to draw the custom +of all owners of dogs to "John Locker, harness-maker." There was a +barber's pole, and an apothecary's shop with the conventional globes of +mysterious crimson and blue liquids in the window; and, to complete the +list of the decorations of this fantastic front, there had been painted +many years ago, high up on the wall, in large and irregular letters, the +sign stretching out over two-thirds of the row, "Miss Orra White's +Seminary for Young Ladies." Miss Orra White had been dead for several +years; and the hall in which she had taught her school, having passed +through many successive stages of degradation in its uses, had come at +last to be a lumber-room, from which had arisen many a waggish saying as +to the similarity between its first estate and its last. + +On the other side of the common, opposite the hotel, was a row of +dwelling-houses, which owing to the steep descent had a sunken look, as if +they were slipping into their own cellars. The grass was too green in +their yards, and the thick, matted plantain-leaves grew on both edges of +the sodden sidewalk. + +"Oh, dear," thought Mercy to herself, "I am sure I hope our house is not +there." Then she stepped down from the high piazza, and stood for a moment +on the open space, looking up toward the north. She could only see for a +short distance up the winding road. A high, wood-crowned summit rose +beyond the houses, which seemed to be built higher and higher on the +slope, and to be much surrounded by trees. A street led off to the west +also: this was more thickly built up. To the south, there was again a +slight depression; and the houses, although of a better order than those +on the eastern side of the common, had somewhat of the same sunken air. +Mercy's heart turned to the north with a sudden and instinctive +recognition. "I am sure that is the right part of the town for mother," +she said. "If Mr. White's house is down in that hollow, we'll not live in +it long." She was so absorbed in her study of the place, and in her +conjectures as to their home, that she did not realize that she herself +was no ordinary sight in that street: a slight, almost girlish figure, in +a plain, straight, black gown like a nun's, with one narrow fold of +transparent white at her throat, tied carelessly by long floating ends of +black ribbon; her wavy brown hair blown about her eyes by the wind, her +cheeks flushed with the keen air, and her eyes bright with excitement. +Mercy could not be called even a pretty woman; but she had times and +seasons of looking beautiful, and this was one of them. The hostler, who +was rubbing down his horses in the door of the barn, came out +wide-mouthed, and exclaimed under his breath,-- + +"Gosh! who's she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun +which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that +neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. +The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on +hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the +unconscious Mercy, and each, in their own way, paying tribute to her +appearance. + +"That's the gal thet comed last night with her mother. Darned sight +better-lookin' by daylight than she wuz then!" said the stable-boy. + +"Hm! boys an' men, ye 're all alike,--all for looks," said the cook, who +was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal +isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got +mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a lookin' for somebody +they're expectin'." + +"Steve White he was with 'em down to the depot," replied the stable-boy. +"Seth sed he handed on 'em into the kerridge, 's if they were regular +topknots, sure enough." + +"Hm! Seth Quin 's a fool, 'n' always wuz," replied the cook, with a +seemingly uncalled-for acerbity of tone. "I've allus observed that them +that hez the most to say about topknots hez the least idea of what +topknots really is. There ain't a touch o' topknot about that ere girl: +she's come o' real humbly people. Anybody with half an eye can see that. +Good gracious! I believe she's goin' to stand still, and let old man +Wheeler run over her. Look out there, look out, gal!" screamed the cook, +and pounded vigorously with her rolling-pin on the side of the door to +rouse Mercy's attention. Mercy turned just in time to confront a stout, +red-faced, old gentleman with a big cane, who was literally on the point +of walking over her. He was so near that, as she turned, he started back +as if she had hit him in the breast. + +"God bless my soul, God bless my soul, miss!" he exclaimed, in his +excitement, striking his cane rapidly against the ground. "I beg your +pardon, beg pardon, miss. Bad habit of mine, very bad habit,--walk along +without looking. Walked on a dog the other day; hurt dog; tumbled down +myself, nearly broke my leg. Bad habit, miss,--bad habit; too old to +change, too old to change. Beg pardon, miss." + +The old gentleman mumbled these curt phrases in a series of inarticulate +jerks, as if his vocal apparatus were wound up and worked with a crank, +but had grown so rusty that every now and then a wheel would catch on a +cog. He did not stand still for a moment, but kept continually stepping, +stepping, without advancing or retreating, striking his heavy cane on the +ground at each step, as if beating time to his jerky syllables. He had +twinkling blue eyes, which were half hid under heavy, projecting eyebrows, +and shut up tight whenever he laughed. His hair was long and thin, and +white as spun glass. Altogether, except that he spoke with an unmistakable +Yankee twang, and wore unmistakable Yankee clothes, you might have fancied +that he was an ancient elf from the Hartz Mountains. + +Mercy could not refrain from laughing in his face, as she retreated a few +steps towards the piazza, and said,-- + +"It is I who ought to beg your pardon. I had no business to be standing +stock-still in the middle of the highway like a post." + +"Sensible young woman! sensible young woman! God bless my soul! don't know +your face, don't know your face," said the old gentleman, peering out +from under the eaves of his eyebrows, and scrutinizing Mercy as a child +might scrutinize a new-comer into his father's house. One could not resent +it, any more than one could resent the gaze of a child. Mercy laughed +again. + +"No, sir, you don't know my face. I only came last night," she said. + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Fine young woman! fine young woman! +glad to see you,--glad, glad. Girls good for nothing, nothing, nothing at +all, nowadays," jerked on the queer old gentleman, still shifting rapidly +from one foot to the other, and beating time continuously with his cane, +but looking into Mercy's face with so kindly a smile that she felt her +heart warm with affection towards him. + +"Your father come with you? Come to stay? I'd like to know ye, child. Like +your face,--good face, good face, very good face," continued the +inexplicable old man. "Don't like many people. People are wolves, wolves, +wolves. 'D like to know you, child. Good face, good face." + +"Can he be crazy?" thought Mercy. But the smile and the honest twinkle of +the clear blue eye were enough to counterbalance the incoherent talk: the +old man was not crazy, only eccentric to a rare degree. Mercy felt +instinctively that she had found a friend, and one whom she could trust +and lean on. + +"Thank you, sir," she said. "I'm very glad you like my face. I like yours, +too,--you look so merry. I think I and my mother will be very glad to know +you. We have come to live here in half of Mr. Stephen White's house." + +"Merry, merry? Nobody calls me merry. That's a mistake, child,--mistake, +mistake. Mistake about the house, too,--mistake. Stephen White hasn't any +house,--no, no, hasn't any house. My name's Wheeler, Wheeler. Good enough +name. 'Old Man Wheeler' some think's better. I hear 'em: my cane don't +make so much noise but I hear 'em. Ha! ha! wolves, wolves, wolves! People +are all wolves, all alike, all alike. Got any money, child?" With this +last question, the whole expression of his face changed; the very features +seemed to shrink; his eyes grew dark and gleaming as they fastened on +Mercy's face. + +Even this did not rouse Mercy's distrust. There was something inexplicable +in the affectionate confidence she felt in this strange, old man. + +"Only a little, sir," she said. "We are not rich; we have only a little." + +"A little's a good deal, good deal, good deal. Take care of it, child. +People'll git it away from you. They're nothing but wolves, wolves, +wolves;" and, saying these words, the old man set off at a rapid pace down +the street, without bidding Mercy good-morning. + +As she stood watching him with an expression of ever-increasing +astonishment, he turned suddenly, planted his stick in the ground, and +called,-- + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul! Bad habit, bad habit. Never do say +good-morning,--bad habit. Too old to change, too old to change. Bad habit, +bad habit." And with a nod to Mercy, but still not saying good-morning, +he walked away. + +Mercy ran into the house, breathless with amusement and wonder, and gave +her mother a most graphic account of this strange interview. + +"But, for all his queerness, I like him, and I believe he'll be a great +friend of ours," she said, as she finished her story. + +Mrs. Carr was knitting a woollen stocking. She had been knitting woollen +stockings ever since Mercy could remember. She always kept several on hand +in different stages of incompletion: some that she could knit on in the +dark, without any counting of stitches; others that were in the process of +heeling or toeing, and required the closest attention. She had been +setting a heel while Mercy was speaking, and did not reply for a moment. +Then, pushing the stitches all into a compact bunch in the middle of one +needle, she let her work fall into her lap, and, rolling the disengaged +knitting-needle back and forth on her knee to brighten it, looked at Mercy +reflectively. + +"Mercy," said she, "queer people allers do take to each other. I don't +believe he's a bit queerer 'n you are, child." And Mrs. Carr laughed a +little laugh, half pride and half dissatisfaction. "You're jest like your +father: he'd make friends with a stranger, any day, on the street, in two +jiffeys, if he took a likin' to him; and there might be neighbors a livin' +right long 'side on us, for years an' years, thet he'd never any more 'n +jest pass the time o' day with, 'n' he wa'n't a bit stuck up, either. I +used ter ask him, often 'n' often, what made him so offish to sum folks, +when I knew he hadn't the least thing agin 'em; and he allers said, sez +he, 'Well, I can't tell ye nothin' about it, only jest this is the way 't +is: I can't talk to 'em; they sort o' shet me up, like. I don't feel +nateral, somehow, when they're round!'" + +"O mother!" exclaimed Mercy, "I think I must be just like father. That is +exactly the way I feel so often. When I get with some people, I feel just +as if I had been changed into somebody else. I can't bear to open my +mouth. It is like a bad dream, when you dream you can't move hand nor +foot, all the time they're in the room with me." + +"Well, I thank the Lord, I don't never take such notions about people," +said Mrs. Carr, settling herself back in her chair, and beginning to make +her needles fly. "Nobody don't never trouble me much, one way or the +other. For my part, I think folks is alike as peas. We shouldn't hardly +know 'em apart, if 't wa'n't for their faces." + +Mercy was about to reply, "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; +and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But +she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well +as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the +childish intellect to grasp. + +Mercy was impatient to go at once to see their new home; but she could not +induce her mother to leave the house. + +"O Mercy!" she exclaimed pathetically, "ef yer knew what a comfort 't was +to me jest to set still in a chair once more. It seems like heaven, arter +them pesky joltin' cars. I ain't in no hurry to see the house. It can't +run away, I reckon; and we're sure of it, ain't we? There ain't any thing +that's got to be done, is there?" she asked nervously. + +"Oh, no, mother. It is all sure. We have leased the house for one year; +and we can't move in until our furniture comes, of course. But I do long +to see what the place is like, don't you?" replied Mercy, pleadingly. + +"No, no, child. Time enough when we move in. 'T ain't going to make any +odds what it's like. We're goin' to live in it, anyhow. You jest go by +yourself, ef you want to so much, an' let me set right here. It don't seem +to me 's I'll ever want to git out o' this chair." At last, very +unwillingly, late in the afternoon, Mercy went, leaving her mother alone +in the hotel. + +Without asking a question of anybody, she turned resolutely to the north. + +"Even if our house is not on this street," she said to herself, "I am +going to see those lovely woods;" and she walked swiftly up the hill, with +her eyes fixed on the glowing dome of scarlet and yellow leaves which +crowned it. The trees were in their full autumnal splendor: maples, +crimson, scarlet, and yellow; chestnuts, pale green and yellow; beeches, +shining golden brown; and sumacs in fiery spikes, brighter than all the +rest. There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their +green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors. Mercy had +often read of the glories of autumn in New England's thickly wooded +regions; but she had never dreamed that it could be so beautiful as this. +Rows of young maples lined the street which led up to this wooded hill. +Each tree seemed a full sheaf of glittering color; and yet the path below +was strewn thick with fallen leaves no less bright. Mercy walked +lingeringly, each moment stopping to pick up some new leaf which seemed +brighter than all the rest. In a very short time, her hands were too full; +and in despair, like an over-laden child, she began to scatter them along +the way. She was so absorbed in her delight in the leaves that she hardly +looked at the houses on either hand, except to note with an unconscious +satisfaction that they were growing fewer and farther apart, and that +every thing looked more like country and less like town than it had done +in the neighborhood of the hotel. + +Presently she came to a stretch of stone wall, partly broken down, in +front of an old orchard whose trees were gnarled and moss-grown. +Blackberry-vines had flung themselves over this wall, in and out among the +stones. The leaves of these vines were almost as brilliant as the leaves +of the maple-trees. They were of all shades of red, up to the deepest +claret; they were of light green, shading into yellow, and curiously +mottled with tiny points of red; all these shades and colors sometimes +being seen upon one long runner. The effect of these wreaths and tangles +of color upon the old, gray stones was so fine that Mercy stood still and +involuntarily exclaimed aloud. Then she picked a few of the most +beautiful vines, and, climbing up on the wall, sat down to arrange them +with the maple-leaves she had already gathered. She made a most +picturesque picture as she sat there, in her severe black gown and quaint +little black bonnet, on the stone wall, surrounded by the bright vines and +leaves; her lap full of them, the ground at her feet strewed with them, +her little black-gloved hands deftly arranging and rearranging them. She +looked as if she might be a nun, who had run away from her cloister, and +coming for the first time in her life upon gay gauds of color, in strange +fabrics, had sat herself down instantly to weave and work with them, +unaware that she was on a highway. + +This was the picture that Stephen White saw, as he came slowly up the road +on his way home after an unusually wearying day. He slackened his pace, +and, perceiving how entirely unconscious Mercy was of his approach, +deliberately studied her, feature, dress, attitude,--all, as +scrutinizingly as if she had been painted on canvas and hanging on a wall. + +"Upon my word," he said to himself, "she isn't bad-looking, after all. I'm +not sure that she isn't pretty. If she hadn't that inconceivable bonnet on +her head,--yes, she is very pretty. Her mouth is bewitching. I declare, I +believe she is beautiful," were Stephen's successive verdicts, as he drew +nearer and nearer to Mercy. Mercy was thinking of him at that very +moment,--was thinking of him with a return of the annoyance and +mortification which had stung her at intervals all day, whenever she +recalled their interview of the previous evening. Mercy combined, in a +very singular manner, some of the traits of an impulsive nature with those +of an unimpulsive one. She did things, said things, and felt things with +the instantaneous intensity of the poetic temperament; but she was quite +capable of looking at them afterward, and weighing them with the cool and +unbiassed judgment of the most phlegmatic realist. Hence she often had +most uncomfortable seasons, in which one side of her nature took the other +side to task, scorned it and berated it severely; holding up its actions +to its remorseful view, as an elder sister might chide a younger one, who +was incorrigibly perverse and wayward. + +"It was about as silly a thing as you ever did in your life. He must have +thought you a perfect fool to have supposed he had come down to meet you," +she was saying to herself at the very moment when the sound of Stephen's +footsteps first reached her ear, and caused her to look up. The sight of +his face at that particular moment was so startling and so unpleasant to +her that it deprived her of all self-possession. She gave a low cry, her +face was flooded with crimson, and she sprang from the wall so hastily +that her leaves and vines flew in every direction. + +"I am very sorry I frightened you so, Mrs. Philbrick," said Stephen, quite +unconscious of the true source of her confusion. "I was just on the point +of speaking, when you heard me. I ought to have spoken before, but you +made so charming a picture sitting there among the leaves and vines that I +could not resist looking at you a little longer." + +Mercy Philbrick hated a compliment. This was partly the result of the +secluded life she had led; partly an instinctive antagonism in her +straightforward nature to any thing which could be even suspected of not +being true. The few direct compliments she had received had been from men +whom she neither respected nor trusted. These words, coming from Stephen +White, just at this moment, were most offensive to her. + +Her face flushed still deeper red, and saying curtly,--"You frightened me +very much, Mr. White; but it is not of the least consequence," she turned +to walk back to the village. Stephen unconsciously stretched out his hand +to detain her. + +"But, Mrs. Philbrick," he said eagerly, "pray tell me what you think of +the house. Do you think you can be contented in it?" + +"I have not seen it," replied Mercy, in the same curt tone, still moving +on. + +"Not seen it!" exclaimed Stephen, in a tone which was of such intense +astonishment that it effectually roused Mercy's attention. "Not seen it! +Why, did you not know you were on your own stone wall? There is the +house;" and Mercy, following the gesture of his hand, saw, not more than +twenty rods beyond the spot where she had been sitting, a shabby, faded, +yellow wooden house, standing in a yard which looked almost as neglected +as the orchard, from which it was only in part separated by a tumbling +stone wall. + +Mercy did not speak. Stephen watched her face in silence for a moment; +then he laughed constrainedly, and said,-- + +"Don't be afraid, Mrs. Philbrick, to say outright that it is the +dismallest old barn you ever saw. That's just what I had said about it +hundreds of times, and wondered how anybody could possibly live in it. But +necessity drove us into it, and I suppose necessity has brought you to it, +too," added Stephen, sadly. + +Mercy did not speak. Very deliberately her eyes scanned the building. An +expression of scorn slowly gathered on her face. + +"It is not so forlorn inside as it is out," said Stephen. "Some of the +rooms are quite pleasant. The south rooms in your part of the house are +very cheerful." + +Mercy did not speak. Stephen went on, beginning to be half-angry with this +little, unknown woman from Cape Cod, who looked with the contemptuous +glance of a princess upon the house in which he and his mother dwelt,-- + +"You are quite at liberty to throw up your lease, Mrs. Philbrick, if you +choose. It was, perhaps, hardly fair to have let you hire the house +without seeing it." + +Mercy started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. White. I should not think of such a +thing as giving up the lease. I am very sorry you saw how ugly I think the +house. I do think it is the very ugliest house I ever saw," she continued, +speaking with emphatic deliberation; "but, then, I have not seen many +houses. In our village at home, all the houses are low and broad and +comfortable-looking. They look as if they had sat down and leaned back +to take their ease; and they are all neat and clean-looking, and have rows +of flower-beds from the gate to the front door. I never saw a house built +with such a steep angle to its roof as this has," said Mercy, looking up +with the instinctive dislike of a natural artist's eye at the ridgepole of +the old house. + +"We have to have our roofs at a sharp pitch, to let the snow slide off in +winter," said Stephen, apologetically, "we have such heavy snows here; but +that doesn't make the angle any less ugly to look at." + +"No," said Mercy; and her eyes still roved up and down and over the house, +with not a shadow of relenting in their expression. It was Stephen's turn +to be silent now. He watched her, but did not speak. + +Mercy's face was not merely a record of her thoughts: it was a photograph +of them. As plainly as on a written page held in his hand, Stephen White +read the successive phases of thought and struggle which passed through +Mercy's mind for the next five minutes; and he was not in the least +surprised when, turning suddenly towards him with a very sweet smile, she +said in a resolute tone,-- + +"There! that's done with. I hope you will forgive my rudeness, Mr. White; +but the truth is I was awfully shocked at the first sight of the house. It +isn't your house, you know, so it isn't quite so bad for me to say so; and +I'm so glad you hate it as much as I do. Now I am never going to think +about it again,--never." + +"Why, can you help it, Mrs. Philbrick?" asked Stephen, in a wondering +tone. "I can't. I hate it more and more, I verily believe, each time I +come home; and I think that, if my mother weren't in it, I should burn it +down some night." + +Mercy looked at him with a certain shade of the same contempt with which +she had looked at the house; and Stephen winced, as she said coolly,-- + +"Why, of course I can help it. I should be very much ashamed of myself if +I couldn't. I never allow myself to be distressed by things which I can't +help,--at least, that sort of thing," added Mercy, her face clouding with +the sudden recollection of a grief that she had not been able to rise +above. "Of course, I don't mean real troubles, like grief about any one +you love. One can't wholly conquer such troubles as that; but one can do a +great deal more even with these than people usually suppose. I am not sure +that it is right to let ourselves be unhappy about any thing, even the +worst of troubles. But I must hurry home now. It is growing late." + +"Mrs. Philbrick," exclaimed Stephen, earnestly: "please come into the +house, and speak to my mother a moment. You don't know how she has been +looking forward to your coming." + +"Oh, no, I cannot possibly do that," replied Mercy. "There is no reason +why I should call on your mother, merely because we are going to live in +the same house." + +"But I assure you," persisted Stephen, "that it will give her the greatest +pleasure. She is a helpless cripple, and never leaves her bed. She has +probably been watching us from the window. She always watches for me. She +will wonder if I do not bring you in to see her. Please come," he said +with a tone which it was impossible to resist; and Mercy went. + +Mrs. White had indeed been watching them from the window; but Stephen had +reckoned without his host, or rather without his hostess, when he assured +Mercy that his mother would be so glad to see her. The wisest and the +tenderest of men are continually making blunders in their relations with +women; especially if they are so unfortunate as to occupy in any sense a +position involving a relation to two women at once. The relation may be +ever so rightful and honest to each woman; the women may be good women, +and in their right places; but the man will find himself perpetually +getting into most unexpected hot water, as many a man could testify +pathetically, if he were called upon. + +Mrs. White had been watching her son through the whole of his conversation +with Mercy. She could see only dimly at such a distance; but she had +discerned that it was a woman with whom he stood talking so long. It was +nearly half an hour past supper-time, and supper was Mrs. White's one +festivity in the course of the day. Their breakfast and their mid-day +dinner were too hurried meals for enjoyment, because Stephen was obliged +to make haste to the office; but with supper there was nothing to +interfere. Stephen's work for the day was done: he took great pains to +tell her at this time every thing which he had seen or heard which could +give her the least amusement. She looked forward all through her long +lonely days to the evenings, as a child looks forward to Saturday +afternoons. Like all invalids whose life has been forced into grooves, she +was impatient and unreasonable when anybody or any thing interfered with +her routine. A five minutes' delay was to her a serious annoyance, and +demanded an accurate explanation. Stephen so thoroughly understood this +exactingness on her part that he adjusted his life to it, as a +conscientious school-boy adjusts his to bells and signals, and never +trespassed knowingly. If he had dreamed that it was past tea-time, on this +unlucky night, he would never have thought of asking Mercy to go in and +see his mother. But he did not; and it was with a bright and eager face +that he threw open the door, and said in the most cordial tone,-- + +"Mother, I have brought Mrs. Philbrick to see you." + +"How do you do, Mrs. Philbrick?" was the rejoinder, in a tone and with a +look so chilling that poor Mercy's heart sank within her. She had all +along had an ideal in her own mind of the invalid old lady, Mr. White's +mother, to whom she was to be very good, and who was to be her mother's +companion. She pictured her as her own mother would be, a good deal older +and feebler, in a gentle, receptive, patient old age. Of so repellent, +aggressive, unlovely an old woman as this she had had no conception. It +would be hard to do justice in words to Mrs. White's capacity to be +disagreeable when she chose. She had gray eyes, which, though they had a +very deceptive trick of suffusing with tears as of great sensibility on +occasion, were capable of resting upon a person with a positively unhuman +coldness; her voice also had at these times a distinctly unhuman quality +in its tones. She had apparently no conception of any necessity of +controlling her feelings, or the expression of them. If she were pleased, +if all things went precisely as she liked, if all persons ministered to +her pleasure, well and good,--she would be graciously pleased to smile, +and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not +consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person +who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who was +responsible for her annoyance. + +As soon as Stephen's eyes fell on her face, on this occasion, he felt with +a sense of almost terror that he had made a fatal mistake, and he knew +instantly that it must be much later than he had supposed; but he plunged +bravely in, like a man taking a header into a pool he fears he may drown +in, and began to give a voluble account of how he had found Mrs. Philbrick +sitting on their stone wall, so absorbed in looking at the bright leaves +that she had not even seen the house. He ran on in this strain for some +minutes, hoping that his mother's mood might soften, but in vain. She +listened with the same stony, unresponsive look on her face, never taking +the stony, unresponsive eyes from his face; and, as soon as he stopped +speaking, she said in an equally stony voice,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, will you be so good as to take off your bonnet and take +tea with us? It is already long past our tea-hour!" + +Mercy sprang to her feet, and said impulsively, "Oh, no, I thank you. I +did not dream that it was so late. My mother will be anxious about me. I +must go. I am very sorry I came in. Good-evening." + +"Good-evening, Mrs. Philbrick," in the same slow and stony syllables, came +from Mrs. White's lips, and she turned her head away immediately. + +Stephen, with his face crimson with mortification, followed Mercy to the +door. In a low voice, he said, "I hope you will be able to make allowances +for my mother's manner. It is all my fault. I know that she can never bear +to have me late at meals, and I ought never to allow myself to forget the +hour. It is all my fault" + +Mercy's indignation at her reception was too great for her sense of +courtesy. + +"I don't think it was your fault at all, Mr. White," she exclaimed. +"Good-night," and she was out of sight before Stephen could think of a +word to say. + +Very slowly he walked back into the sitting-room. He had seldom been so +angry with his mother; but his countenance betrayed no sign of it, and he +took his seat opposite her in silence. Silence, absolute, unconquerable +silence, was the armor which Stephen White wore. It was like those +invisible networks of fine chains worn next the skin, in which many men in +the olden time passed unscathed through years of battles, and won the +reputation of having charmed lives. No one suspected the secret. To the +ordinary beholder, the man seemed accoutred in the ordinary fashion of +soldiers; but, whenever a bullet struck him, it glanced off harmlessly as +if turned back by a spell. It was so with Stephen White's silence: in +ordinary intercourse, he was social genial; he talked more than average +men talk; he took or seemed to take, more interest than men usually take +in the common small talk of average people; but the instant there was a +manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched +himself in silence. This was especially the case when he was reproached or +aroused by his mother. It was often more provoking to her than any amount +of retort or recrimination could have been. She had in her nature a +certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small +offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its +details; all the while making it out a matter of personal unkindness or +indifference to her that it should have happened. When she was in these +moods, Stephen's silence sometimes provoked her past endurance. + +"Can't you speak, Stephen?" she would exclaim. + +"What would be the use, mother?" he would say sadly. "If you do not know +that the great aim of my life is to make you happy, it is of no use for me +to keep on saying it. If it would make you any happier to keep on +discussing and discussing this question indefinitely, I would endure even +that; but it would not." + +To do Mrs. White justice, she was generally ashamed of these ebullitions +of unreasonable ill-temper, and endeavored to atone for them afterward by +being more than ordinarily affectionate and loving in her manner towards +Stephen. But her shame was short-lived, and never made her any the less +unreasonable or exacting when the next occasion occurred; so that, +although Stephen received her affectionate epithets and caresses with +filial responsiveness, he was never in the slightest degree deluded by +them. He took them for what they were worth, and held himself no whit +freer from constraint, no whit less ready for the next storm. By the very +fact of the greater fineness of his organization, this tyrannical woman +held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it +had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which +compelled respect. He had accepted this burden as the one great duty of +his life; and, whatever became of him, whatever became of his life, the +burden should be carried. This helpless woman, who stood to him in the +relation of mother, should be made happy. From the moment of his father's +death, he had assumed this obligation as a sacrament; and, if it lasted +his life out, he would never dream of evading or lessening it. In this +fine fibre of loyalty, Stephen White and Mercy Philbrick were alike: +though it was in him more an exalted sentiment; in her, simply an organic +necessity. In him, it would always have been in danger of taking morbid +shapes and phases; of being over-ridden and distorted at any time by +selfishness or wickedness in its object, as it had been by his selfish +mother. In Mercy, it was on a higher and healthier plane. Without being a +shade less loyal, she would be far clearer-sighted; would render, but not +surrender; would give a lifetime of service, but not a moment of +subjection. There was a shade of something feminine in Stephen's loyalty, +of something perhaps masculine in Mercy's; but Mercy's was the best, the +truest. + +"I wouldn't allow my mother to treat a stranger like that," she thought +indignantly, as she walked away after Mrs. White's inhospitable invitation +to tea. "I wouldn't allow her. I would make her see the shamefulness of +it. What a weak man Mr. White must be!" + +Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have +seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression +of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of +ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had +strength, however much she might have undervalued its type. + +"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen, +than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward +to, all day long. You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did +you not know how late it was?" + +"No, mother. If I had, I should have come in." + +"I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you?" + +"Yes, mother." + +"Well, I'd like to know what excuse there is for a man's not knowing what +time it is, when he has a watch in his pocket? And then you must needs +bring her in here, of all things,--when you know I hate to see people +near my meal-times, and you must have known it was near supper-time. At +any rate, watch or no watch, I suppose you didn't think you'd started to +come home in the middle of the afternoon, did you? And what did you want +her to come in for, anyhow? I'd like to know that. Answer me, will you?" + +"Simply because I thought that it would give you pleasure to see some one, +mother. You often complain of being so lonely, of no one's coming in," +replied Stephen, in a tone which was pathetic, almost shrill, from its +effort to be patient and calm. + +"I wish, if you can't speak in your own voice, you wouldn't speak at all," +said the angry woman. "What makes you change your voice so?" + +Stephen made no reply. He knew very well this strange tone which sometimes +came into his voice, when his patience was tried almost beyond endurance. +He would have liked to avoid it; he was instinctively conscious that it +often betrayed to other people what he suffered. But it was beyond his +control: it seemed as if all the organs of speech involuntarily clenched +themselves, as the hand unconsciously clenches itself when a man is +enraged. + +Mrs. White persisted. "Your voice, when you're angry, 's enough to drive +anybody wild. I never heard any thing like it. And I'm sure I don't see +what you have to be angry at now. I should think I was the one to be +angry. You're all I've got in the world, Stephen; and you know what a life +I lead. It isn't as if I could go about, like other women; then I +shouldn't care where you spent your time, if you didn't want to spend it +with me." And tears, partly of ill-temper, partly of real grief, rolled +down the hard, unlovely, old face. + +This was only one evening. There are three hundred and sixty-five in a +year. Was not the burden too heavy for mortal man to carry? + + + + +Chapter IV. + + + +Mercy said nothing to her mother of Mrs. White's rudeness. She merely +mentioned the fact of her having met Mr. White near the house, and having +gone with him, at his request, to speak to his mother. + +"What's she like, Mercy?" asked Mrs. Carr, eagerly. "Is she goin' to be +company for me?" + +"I could not tell, mother," replied Mercy, indifferently; "for it was just +their tea-hour, and I did not stay a minute,--only just to say, How d'ye +do, and Good-evening. But Mr. White says she is very lonely; people don't +go to see her much: so I should think she would be very glad of somebody +her own age in the house, to come and sit with her. She looks very ill, +poor soul. She hasn't been out of her bed, except when she was lifted, for +eight years." + +"Dear me! dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I hope I'll never be that +way. What'u'd you ever do child, if I'd get to be like that?" + +"No danger, mother dear, of your ever being like Mrs. White," said Mercy, +with an incautious emphasis, which, however, escaped Mrs. Carr's +recognition. + +"Why, how can you be so sure I mightn't ever get into jest so bad a way, +child? There's none of us can say what diseases we're likely to hev or +not to hev. Now there's never been a case o' lung trouble in our family +afore mine, not 's fur back 's anybody kin trace it out; 'n' there's been +two cancers to my own knowledge; 'n' I allus hed a most awful dread o' +gettin' a cancer. There ain't no death like thet. There wuz my mother's +half-sister, Keziah,--she that married Elder Swift for her second husband. +She died o' cancer; an' her oldest boy by her first husband he hed it in +his face awful. But he held on ter life 's ef he couldn't say die, nohow; +and I tell yer, Mercy, it wuz a sight nobody'd ever forget, to see him +goin' round the street with one side o' his face all bound up, and his +well eye a rolling round, a-doin' the work o' two. He got so he couldn't +see at all out o' either eye afore he died, 'n' you could hear his +screeches way to our house. There wouldn't no laudalum stop the pain a +mite." + +"Oh, mother! don't! don't!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is too dreadful to talk +about. I can't bear to think that any human being has ever suffered so. +Please don't ever speak of cancers again." + +Mrs. Carr looked puzzled and a little vexed, as she answered, "Well, I +reckon they've got to be talked about a good deal, fust and last, 's long +'s there's so many dies on 'em. But I don't know 's you 'n' I've got any +call to dwell on 'em much. You've got dreadful quick feelin's, Mercy, +ain't you? You allus was orful feelin' for everybody when you wuz little, +'n' I don't see 's you've outgrowed it a bit. But I expect it's thet makes +you sech friends with folks, an' makes you such a good gal to your poor +old mother. Kiss me, child," and Mrs. Carr lifted up her face to be +kissed, as a child lifts up its face to its mother. She did this many +times a day; and, whenever Mercy bent down to kiss her, she put her hands +on the old woman's shoulders, and said, "Dear little mother!" in a tone +which made her mother's heart warm with happiness. + +It is a very beautiful thing to see just this sort of relation between an +aged parent and a child, the exact reversal of the bond, and the bond so +absolutely fulfilled. It seems to give a new and deeper sense to the word +"filial," and a new and deeper significance to the joy of motherhood or +fatherhood. Alas, that so few sons and daughters are capable of it! so few +helpless old people know the blessedness of it! No little child six years +old ever rested more entirely and confidingly in the love and kindness and +shelter and direction of its mother than did Mrs. Carr in the love and +kindness and shelter and direction of her daughter Mercy. It had begun to +be so, while Mercy was yet a little girl. Before she was fifteen years +old, she felt a responsibility for her mother's happiness, a watchfulness +over her mother's health, and even a care of her mother's clothes. With +each year, the sense of these responsibilities grew deeper; and after her +marriage, as she was denied the blessing of children, all the deep +maternal instincts of her strong nature flowed back and centred anew +around this comparatively helpless, aged child whom she called mother, and +treated with never-failing respect. + +When Mrs. Carr first saw the house they were to live in, she exclaimed,-- + +"O Lor', Mercy! Is thet the house?" Then, stepping back a few steps, +shoving her spectacles high on her nose, and with her head well thrown +back, she took a survey of the building in silence. Then she turned slowly +around, and, facing Mercy, said in a droll, dry way, not uncommon with +her,-- + +"'Bijah Jenkins's barn!" + +Mercy laughed outright. + +"So it is, mother. I hadn't thought of it. It looks just like that old +barn of Deacon Jenkins's." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Carr. "That's it, exzackly. Well, I never thought o' +offerin' to hire a barn to live in afore, but I s'pose 't'll do till we +can look about. Mebbe we can do better." + +"But we've taken it for a year, mother," said Mercy, a little dismayed. + +"Oh, hev we? Well, well, I daresay it's comfortable enough; so the sun +shines in mornin's, thet's the most I care for. You'll make any kind o' +house pooty to look at inside, an' I reckon we needn't roost on the fences +outside, a-lookin' at it, any more'n we choose to. It does look, for all +the world though, like 'Bijah Jenkins's old yaller barn; 'n' thet there +jog's jest the way he jined on his cow-shed. I declare it's too +redicklus." And the old lady laughed till she had to wipe her spectacles. + +"It could be made very pretty, I think," said Mercy, "for all it is so +hideous now. I know just what I'd do to it, if it were mine. I'd throw +out a big bay window in that corner where the jog is, and another on the +middle of the north side, and then run a piazza across the west side, and +carry the platform round both the bay windows. I saw a picture of a house +in a book Mr. Allen had, which looked very much as this would look then. +Oh, but I'd like to do it!" Mercy's imagination was so fired with the +picture she had made to herself of the house thus altered and improved, +that she could not easily relinquish it. + +"But, Mercy, you don't know the lay o' the rooms, child. You don' 'no' +where that ere jog comes. Your bay window mightn't come so's't would be of +any use. Yer wouldn't build one jest to look at, would you?" said her +mother. + +"I'm not so sure I wouldn't, if I had plenty of money," replied Mercy, +laughing. "But I have no idea of building bay windows on other people's +houses. I was only amusing myself by planning it. I'd rather have that +house, old and horrid as it is, than any house in the town. I like the +situation so much, and the woods are so beautiful. Perhaps I'll earn a lot +of money some day, and buy the place, and make it just as we like it." + +"You earn money, child!" said Mrs. Carr, in a tone of unqualified wonder. +"How could you earn money, I'd like to know?" + +"Oh, make bonnets or gowns, dear little mother, or teach school," said +Mercy, coloring. "Mr. Allen said I was quite well enough fitted to teach +our school at home, if I liked." + +"But, Mercy, child, you'd never go to do any such thing's thet, would yer +now?" said her mother, piteously. "Don't ye hev all ye want, Mercy? Ain't +there money enough for our clothes? I'm sure I don't need much; an' I +could do with a good deal less, if there was any thing you wanted, dear. +Your father he 'd never rest in his grave, ef he thought his little Mercy +was a havin' to arn money for her livin'. You didn't mean it, child, did +yer? Say yer didn't mean it, Mercy," and tears stood in the poor old +woman's eyes. + +It is strange what a tenacious pride there was in the hearts of our old +sea-faring men of a half century ago. They had the same feeling that kings +and emperors might have in regard to their wives and daughters, that it +was a disgrace for them to be obliged to earn money. It would be an +interesting thing to analyze this sentiment, to trace it to its roots: it +was so universal among successful sea-faring men that it must have had its +origin in some trait distinctively peculiar to their profession. All the +other women in the town or the village might eke out the family incomes by +whatever devices they pleased; but the captains' wives were to be ladies. +They were to wear silk gowns brought from many a land; they were to have +ornaments of quaint fashion, picked up here and there; they were to have +money enough in the bank to live on in quiet comfort during the intervals +when the husbands sailed away to make more. So strong was this feeling +that it crystallized into a traditionary custom of life, which even +poverty finds it hard to overcome. You shall find to-day, in any one of +the seaport cities or towns of New England, widows and daughters of +sea-captains, living, or rather seeming to live, upon the most beggarly +incomes, but still keeping up a certain pathetic sham of appearance of +being at ease. If they are really face to face with probable starvation, +they may go to some charitable institution where fine needlework is given +out, and earn a few dollars in that way. But they will fetch and carry +their work by night, and no neighbor will ever by any chance surprise them +with it in their hands. Most beautifully is this surreptitious sewing +done; there is no work in this country like it. The tiny stitches bear the +very aroma of sad and lonely leisure in them; a certain fine pride, too, +as if the poverty-constrained lady would in no wise condescend to depart +from her own standard in the matter of a single loop or stitch, no matter +to what plebeian uses the garment might come after it should leave her +hands. + +Mercy's deep blush when she replied to her mother's astonished inquiry, +how she could possibly earn any money, sprung from her consciousness of a +secret,--a secret so harmless in itself, that she was ashamed of having +any feeling of guilt in keeping it a secret; and yet, her fine and +fastidious honesty so hated even the semblance of concealment, that the +mere withholding of a fact, simply because she disliked to mention it, +seemed to her akin to a denial of it. If there is such a thing in a human +being as organic honesty,--an honesty which makes a lie not difficult, but +impossible, just as it is impossible for men to walk on ceilings like +flies, or to breathe in water like fishes,--Mercy Philbrick had it. The +least approach to an equivocation was abhorrent to her: not that she +reasoned about it, and submitting it to her conscience found it wicked, +and therefore hateful; but that she disliked it instinctively,--as +instinctively as she disliked pain. Her moral nerves shrank from it, just +as nerves of the body shrink from suffering; and she recoiled from the +suggestion of such a thing with the same involuntary quickness with which +we put up the hand to ward off a falling blow, or drop the eyelid to +protect an endangered eye. Physicians tell us that there are in men and +women such enormous differences in this matter of sensitiveness to +physical pain that one person may die of a pain which would be +comparatively slight to another; and this is a fact which has to be taken +very carefully into account, in all dealing with disease in people of the +greatest capacity for suffering. May there not be equally great +differences in souls, in the matter of sensitiveness to moral +hurt?--differences for which the soul is not responsible, any more than +the body is responsible for its skin's having been made thin or thick. +Will-power has nothing whatever to do with determining the latter +conditions. Let us be careful how far we take it to task for failing to +control the others. Perhaps we shall learn, in some other stage of +existence, that there is in this world a great deal of moral color +blindness, congenital, incurable; and that God has much more pity than we +suppose for poor things who have stumbled a good many times while they +were groping in darkness. + +People who see clearly themselves are almost always intolerant of those +who do not. We often see this ludicrously exemplified, even in the trivial +matter of near-sightedness. We are almost always a little vexed, when we +point out a distant object to a friend, and hear him reply,-- + +"No, I do not see it at all. I am near-sighted." + +"What! can't you see that far?" is the frequent retort, and in the pity is +a dash of impatience. + +There is a great deal of intolerance in the world, which is closely akin +to this; and not a whit more reasonable or righteous, though it makes +great pretensions to being both. Mercy Philbrick was full of such +intolerance, on this one point of honesty. She was intolerant not only to +others, she was intolerant to herself. She had seasons of fierce and +hopeless debating with herself, on the most trivial matters, or what would +seem so to nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand. During +such seasons as these, her treatment of her friends and acquaintances had +odd alternations of frank friendliness and reticent coolness. A sudden +misgiving whether she might not be appearing to like her friend more than +she really did would seize her at most inopportune moments, and make her +absent-minded and irresponsive. She would leave sentences abruptly +unfinished,--invitations, perhaps, or the acceptances of invitations, the +mere words of which spring readily to one's lips, and are thoughtlessly +spoken. But, in Mercy's times of conflict with herself, even these were +exaggerated in her view to monstrous deceits. She had again and again +held long conversations with Mr. Allen on this subject, but he failed to +help her. He was a good man, of average conscientiousness and average +perception: he literally could not see many of the points which Mercy's +keener analysis ferreted out, and sharpened into weapons for her own pain. +He thought her simply morbid. + +"Now, child," he would say,--for, although he was only a few years Mercy's +senior, he had taught her like a child for three years,--"now, child, +leave off worrying yourself by these fancies. There is not the least +danger of your ever being any thing but truthful. Nature and grace are +both too strong in you. There is no lie in saying to a person who has come +to see you in your own house, 'I am glad to see you,' for you are glad; +and, if not, you can make yourself glad, when you think how much pleasure +you can give the person by talking with him. You are glad, always, to give +pleasure to any human being, are you not?" + +"Yes," Mercy would reply unhesitatingly. + +"Very well. To the person who comes to see you, you give pleasure: +therefore, you are glad to see him." + +"But, Mr. Allen," would persist poor Mercy, "that is not what the person +thinks I mean. Very often some one comes to see me, who bores me so that I +can hardly keep awake. He would not be pleased if he knew that all my +cordial welcome really meant was,--'I'm glad to see you, because I'm a +benevolent person, and am willing to make my fellow-creatures happy at any +sacrifice, even at the frightful one of entertaining such a bore as you +are!' He would never come near me again, if he knew I thought that; and +yet, if I do think so, and make him think I do not, is not that the +biggest sort of a lie? Why, Mr. Allen, many a time when I have seen +tiresome or disagreeable people coming to our house, I have run away and +hid myself, so as not to be found; not in the least because I could not +bear the being bored by them, but because I could not bear the thought of +the lies I should speak, or at least act, if I saw them." + +"The interpretation a visitor chooses to put upon our kind cordiality of +manner to him is his own affair, not ours, Mercy. It is a Christian duty +to be cordial and kindly of manner to every human being: any thing less +gives pain, repels people from us, and hinders our being able to do them +good. There is no more doubt of this than of any other first principle of +Christian conduct; and I am very sorry that these morbid notions have +taken such hold of you. If you yield to them, you will make yourself soon +disliked and feared, and give a great deal of needless pain to your +neighbors." + +It was hard for Mr. Allen to be severe with Mercy, for he loved her as if +she were his younger sister; but he honestly thought her to be in great +danger of falling into a chronic morbidness on this subject, and he +believed that stern words were most likely to convince her of her mistake. +It was a sort of battle, however,--this battle which Mercy was forced to +fight,--in which no human being can help another, unless he has first been +through the same battle himself. All that Mr. Allen said seemed to Mercy +specious and, to a certain extent, trivial: it failed to influence her, +simply because it did not so much as recognize the point where her +difficulty lay. + +"If Mr. Allen tries till he dies, he will never convinc me that it is not +deceiving people to make them think you're glad to see them when you're +not," Mercy said to herself often, as, with flushed cheeks and tears in +her eyes, she walked home after these conversations. "He may make me think +that it is right to deceive them rather than to make them unhappy. It +almost seems as if it must be; yet, if we once admitted that, where +should we ever stop? It seems to me that would be a very dangerous +doctrine. A lie's a lie, let whoever will call it fine names, and pass it +off as a Christian duty The Bible does not say, 'Thou shalt not lie, +except when it is necessary to lie, to avoid hurting thy neighbor's +feelings,' It says, 'Thou shalt not lie.' Oh, what a horrible word 'lie' +is! It stings like a short, sharp stroke with a lash." And Mercy would +turn away from the thought with a shudder, and resolutely force hersef to +think of something else. Sometimes she would escape from the perplexity +for weeks: chance would so favor her, that no opportunity for what she +felt to be deceit would occur; but, in these intervals of relief, her +tortured conscience seemed only to renew its voices, and spring upon her +all the more fiercely on the next occasion. The effect, of all these +indecisive conflicts upon Mercy's character had not been good. They had +left her morally bruised, and therefore abnormally sensitive to the least +touch. She was in danger of becoming either a fanatic for truth, or +indifferent to it. Paradoxcal as it may seem, she was in almost as much +danger of the one as of the other. But always, when our hurts are fast +healing without help, the help comes. It is probable that there is to-day +on the earth a cure, either in herb or stone or spring, for every ill +which men's bodies can know. Ignorance and accident may hinder us long +from them, but sooner or later the race shall come to possess them all. So +with souls. There is the ready truth, the living voice, the warm hand, or +the final experience, waiting for each soul's need. We do not die till we +have found them. There were yet to enter into Mercy Philbrick's life a new +light and a new force, by the help of which she would see clearly and +stand firm. + +The secret which she had now for nearly a year kept from her mother was a +very harmless one. To people of the world, it would appear so trivial a +thing, that the conscience which could feel itself wounded by reticence on +such a point would seem hardly worth a sneer. Mr. Allen, who had been +Mercy's teacher for three years, had early seen in her a strong poetic +impulse, and had fostered and stimulated it by every means in his power. +He believed that in the exercise of this talent she would find the best +possible help for her loneliness and comfort for her sorrow. He recognized +clearly that, to so exceptional a nature as Mercy's, a certain amount of +isolation was inevitable, all through her life, however fortunate she +might be in entering into new and wider relations. The loneliness of +intense individuality is the loneliest loneliness in the world,--a +loneliness which crowds only aggravate, and which even the closest and +happiest companionship can only in part cure. The creative faculty is the +most inalienable and uncontrollable of individualities. It is at once its +own reward and its own penalty: until it has conquered the freedom of its +own city, in which it must for ever dwell, more or less apart, it is only +a prisoner in the cities of others. All this Mr. Allen felt for Mercy, +recognized in Mercy. He felt and recognized it by the instinct of love, +rather than by any intellectual perception. Intellectually, he was, in +spite of his superior culture, far Mercy's inferior. He had been brave +enough and manly enough to recognize this, and also to recognize what it +took still more manliness to recognize,--that she could never love a man +of his temperament. It would have been very easy for him to love Mercy. He +was not a man of a passionate nature; but he felt himself strangely +stirred whenever he looked into her sensitive, orchid-like face. He felt +in every fibre of him that to have the whole love of such a woman would be +bewildering joy; yet never for one moment did he allow himself to think of +seeking it. "I might make her think she loved me, perhaps," he said to +himself. "She is so lonely and sad, and has seen so few men; but it would +be base. She needs a nature totally different from mine, a life unlike the +life I shall lead. I will never try to make her love me. And he never did. +He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly, +and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to +her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife. No +doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged +bond. It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence +and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month +by month. Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely +together a year or two longer. The change could have been in but one +direction. They loved each other too much to ever love less: they might +have loved more; and Mercy's life had been more peaceful, her heart had +known a truer content, if she had never felt any stronger emotion than +that which Harley Allen's love would have roused in her bosom. But his +resolution was inexorable. His instinct was too keen, his will too strong: +he compelled all his home-seeking, wife-loving thoughts to turn away from +Mercy; and, six months after her departure, he had loyally and lovingly +promised to be the husband of another. In Mercy's future he felt an +intense interest; he would never cease to watch over her, if she would let +him; he would guide, mould, and direct her, until the time came--he knew +it would come--when she had outgrown his help, and ascended to a plane +where he could no longer guide her. His greatest fear was lest, from her +overflowing vitality and keen sensuous delight in all the surface +activities and pleasures of life, the intellectual side of her nature +should be kept in the background and not properly nourished. He had +compelled her to study, to think, to write. Who would do this for her in +the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he, +while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one. +He was too dreamy and pleasure-loving himself to be a spur to others. A +vague wonder, almost like a presentiment, haunted his thoughts continually +as to the nature of the relation which would exist between Stephen and +Mercy. One day he wrote a long letter to Stephen, telling him all about +Mercy,--her history; her peculiarities, mental and moral; her great need +of mental training; her wonderful natural gifts. He closed his letter in +these words:-- + +"There is the making of a glorious woman and, I think, a true poet in this +girl; but whether she ever makes either will depend entirely upon the +hands she falls into. She has a capacity for involuntary adaptation of +herself to any surroundings, and for an unconscious and indomitable +loyalty to the every-day needs of every-day life, which rarely go with the +poetic temperament. She would contentedly make bread and do nothing else, +till the day of her death, if that seemed to be the nearest and most +demanded duty. She would be heartily faithful and joyous every day, in +intercourse with only common and uncultivated people, if fate sets her +among them. She seems to me sometimes to be more literally a child of God, +in the true and complete sense of the word 'child,' than any one I ever +knew. She takes every thing which comes to her just as a happy and good +little child takes every thing that is given to him, and is pleased with +all; yet she is not at all a religious person. I am often distressed by +her lack of impulse to worship. I think she has no strong sense of a +personal God; yet her conscience is in many ways morbidly sensitive. She +is a most interesting and absorbing person,--one entirely unique in my +experience. Living with her, as you will, it will be impossible for you +not to influence her strongly, one way or the other; and I want to enlist +your help to carry on the work I have begun. She owes it to herself and to +the world not to let her mind be inactive. I am very much mistaken if she +has not within her the power to write poems, which shall take place among +the work that lasts." + +Mr. Allen read this letter over several times, and then, with a gesture of +impatience, tore the sheets down the middle, and threw them into the fire, +exclaiming,-- + +"Pshaw! as if there were any use in sending a man a portrait of a woman he +is to see every day. If Stephen is the person to amount to any thing in +her life, he will recognize her. If he is not, all my descriptions of her +will be thrown away. It is best to let things take their own course." + +After some deliberation, he decided to take a step, which he would never +have taken, had Mercy not been going away from his influence,--a step +which he had again and again said to himself he would hot risk, lest the +effect might be to hinder her intellectual growth. He sent two of her +poems to a friend of his, who was the editor of one of the leading +magazines in the country. The welcome they met exceeded even his +anticipations. By the very next mail, he received a note from his friend, +enclosing a check, which to Harley Allen's inexperience of such matters +seemed disproportionately large. "Your little Cape Cod girl is a wonder, +indeed," wrote the editor. "If she can keep on writing such verse as this, +she will make a name for herself. Send us some more: we'll pay her well +for it." + +Mr. Allen was perplexed. He had not once thought of the verses being paid +for. He had thought that to see her poems in print might give Mercy a new +incentive to work, might rouse in her an ambition, which would in part +take the place of the stimulus which his teachings had given her. He very +much disliked to tell her what he had done, and to give to her the money +she had unwittingly earned. He feared that she would resent it; he feared +that she would be too elated by it; he feared a dozen different things in +as many minutes, as he sat turning the check over and over in his hands. +But his fears were all unfounded. Mercy had too genuine an artistic nature +to be elated, too much simplicity to be offended. Her first emotion was +one of incredulity; her second, of unaffected and humble wonder that any +verses of hers should have been so well spoken of; and her next, of +childlike glee at the possibility of her earning any money. She had not a +trace of the false pride which had crystallized in her mother's nature +into such a barrier against the idea of a paid industry. + +"O Mr. Allen!" she exclaimed, "is it really possible? Do you think the +verses were really worth it? Are you quite sure the editor did not send +the money because the verses were written by a friend of yours?" + +Harley Allen laughed. + +"Editors are not at all likely, Mercy," he said, "to pay any more for +things than the things are worth. I think you will some day laugh +heartily, as you look back upon the misgivings with which you received the +first money earned by your pen. If you will only work faithfully and +painstakingly, you can do work which will be much better paid than this." + +Mercy's eyes flashed. + +"Oh! oh! Then I can have books and pictures, and take journeys," she said +in a tone of such ecstasy that Mr. Allen was surprised. + +"Why, Mercy," he replied, "I did not know you were such a discontented +girl. Have you always longed for all these things?" + +"I'm not discontented, Mr. Allen," answered Mercy, a little proudly. "I +never had a discontented moment in my life. I'm not so silly. I have never +yet seen the day which did not seem to me brimful and running over with +joys and delights; that is, except when I was for a little while bowed +down by a grief nobody could bear up under," she added, with a sudden +drooping of every feature in her expressive face, as she recalled the one +sharp grief of her life. "I don't see why a distinct longing for all sorts +of beautiful things need be in the least inconsistent with absolute +content. In fact, I know it isn't; for I have both." + +Mr. Allen was not enough of an idealist to understand this. He looked +puzzled, and Mercy went on,-- + +"Why, Mr. Allen, I should like to have our home perfectly beautiful, just +like the most beautiful houses I have read about in books. I should like +to have the walls hung full of pictures, and the rooms filled full of +books; and I should like to have great greenhouses full of all the rare +and exquisite flowers of the whole world. I'd like one house like the +house you told me of, full of all the orchids, and another full of only +palms and ferns. I should like to wear always the costliest of silks, very +plain and never of bright colors, but heavy and soft and shining; and +laces that were like fleecy clouds when they are just scattering. I should +like to be perfectly beautiful, and to have perfectly beautiful people +around me. But all this doesn't make me one bit less contented. I care +just as much for my few little, old books, and my two or three pictures, +and our beds of sweet-williams and pinks. They all give me such pleasure +that I'm just glad I'm alive every minute.--What are you thinking of, Mr. +Allen!" exclaimed Mercy, breaking off and coloring scarlet, as she became +suddenly aware that her pastor was gazing at her with a scrutinizing look +she had never seen on his face before. + +"Of your future life, Mercy,--of your future life. I am wondering what it +will be, and if the dear Lord will carry you safe through all the +temptations which the world must offer to one so sensitive as you are to +all its beauties," replied Mr. Allen, sadly. Mercy was displeased. She was +always intolerant of this class of references to the Lord. Her sense of +honesty took alarm at them. In a curt and half-petulant tone, she +answered,-- + +"I suppose ministers have to say such things, Mr. Allen; but I wish you +wouldn't say them to me. I do not think that the Lord made the beautiful +things in this world for temptations; and I believe he expects us to keep +ourselves out of mischief, and not throw the responsibility on to him!" + +"Oh, Mercy, Mercy! don't say such things! They sound irreverent: they +shock me!" exclaimed Mr. Allen, deeply pained by Mercy's tone and words. + +"I am very sorry to shock you, Mr. Allen," replied Mercy, in a gentler +tone. "Pray forgive me. I do not think, however, there is half as much +real irreverence in saying that the Lord expects us to look out for +ourselves and keep out of mischief as there is in teaching that he made a +whole world full of people so weak and miserable that they couldn't look +after themselves, and had to be lifted along all the time." + +Mr. Allen shook his head, and sighed. When Mercy was in this frame of +mind, it was of no use to argue with her. He returned to the subject of +her poetry. + +"If you will keep on reading and studying, Mercy, and will compel yourself +to write and rewrite carefully, there is no reason why you should not have +a genuine success as a writer, and put yourself in a position to earn +money enough to buy a great many comforts and pleasures for yourself, and +your mother also," he said. + +At the mention of her mother, Mercy started, and exclaimed irrelevantly,-- + +"Dear me! I never once thought of mother." + +Mr. Allen looked, as well he might, mystified. "Never once thought of her! +What do you mean, Mercy?" + +"Why, I mean I never once thought about telling her about the money. She +wouldn't like it." + +"Why not? I should think she would not only like the money, but be very +proud of your being able to earn it in such a way." + +"Perhaps that might make a difference," said Mercy, reflectively: "it +would seem quite different to her from taking in sewing, I suppose." + +"Well, I should think so," laughed Mr. Allen. "Very different, indeed." + +"But it's earning money, working for money, all the same," continued +Mercy; "and you haven't the least idea how mother feels about that. Father +must have been full of queer notions. She got it all from him. But I can't +see that there is any difference between a woman's taking money for what +she can do, and a man's taking money for what he can do. I can do sewing, +and you can preach; and of the two, if people must go without one or the +other, they could do without sermons better than without clothes,--eh, Mr. +Allen?" and Mercy laughed mischievously. "But once when I told mother I +believed I would turn dressmaker for the town, I knew I could earn ever so +much money, besides doing a philanthropy in getting some decent gowns into +the community, she was so horrified and unhappy at the bare idea that I +never have forgotten it. It is just so with ever so many women here. They +would rather half-starve than do any thing to earn money. For my part, I +think it is nonsense." + +"Certainly, Mercy,--certainly it is," replied Mr. Allen, anxious lest this +new barrier should come between Mercy and her work. "It is only a +prejudice. And you need never let your mother know any thing about it. +She is so old and feeble it would not be worth while to worry her." + +Mercy's eyes grew dark and stern as she fixed them on Mr. Allen. "I wonder +I believe any thing you say, Mr. Allen. How many things do you keep back +from me, or state differently from what they are, to save my feelings? or +to adapt the truth to my feebleness, which is not like the feebleness of +old age, to be sure, but is feebleness in comparison with your knowledge +and strength? I hate, hate, hate, your theories about deceiving people. I +shall certainly tell my mother, if I keep on writing, and am paid for it," +she said impetuously. + +"Very well. Of course, if you think it wrong to leave her in ignorance +about it, you must tell her. I myself see no reason for your mentioning +the fact, unless you choose to. You are a mature and independent woman: +she is old and childish. The relation between you is really reversed. You +are the mother, and she the child. Suppose she had become a writer when +you were a little girl: would it have been her duty to tell you of it?" +replied Mr. Allen. + +"I don't care! I shall tell her! I never have kept the least thing from +her yet, and I don't believe I ever will," said Mercy. "You'll never make +me think it's right, Mr. Allen. What a good Jesuit you'd have made, +wouldn't you?" + +Mr. Allen colored. "Oh, child, how unjust you are!" he exclaimed. "But it +must be all my stupid way of putting things. One of these days, you'll see +it all differently." + +And she did. Firm as were her resolutions to tell her mother every thing, +she could not find courage to tell her about the verses and the price paid +for them. Again and again she had approached the subject, and had been +frightened back,--sometimes by her own unconquerable dislike to speaking +of her poetry; sometimes, as in the instance above, by an outbreak on her +mother's part of indignation at the bare suggestion of her earning money. +After that conversation, Mercy resolved within herself to postpone the day +of the revelation, until there should be more to tell and more to show. + +"If ever I have a hundred dollars, I'll tell her then," she thought. "So +much money as that would make it seem better to her. And I will have a +good many verses by that time to read to her." And so the secret grew +bigger and heavier, and yet Mercy grew more used to carrying it, until she +herself began to doubt whether Mr. Allen were not right, after all; and if +it would not be a pity to trouble the feeble old heart with a needless +perplexity and pain. + + + + +Chapter V. + + + +When Stephen White saw his new tenants' first preparations for moving into +his house, he was conscious of a strangely mingled feeling, half +irritation, and half delight. Four weeks had passed since the unlucky +evening on which he had taken Mercy to his mother's room, and he had not +seen her face again. He had called at the hotel twice, but had found only +Mrs. Carr at home. Mercy had sent a messenger with only a verbal message, +when she wished the key of the house. + +She had an undefined feeling that she would not come into any relation +with Stephen White, if it could be avoided. She was heartily glad that she +had not been in the house when he called. And yet, had she been in the +habit of watching her own mental states, she would have discovered that +Stephen White was very much in her thoughts; that she had come to +wondering why she never met him in her walks; and, what was still more +significant, to mistaking other men for him, at a distance. This is one of +the oddest tricks of a brain preoccupied with the image of one human +being. One would think that it would make the eye clearer-sighted, +well-nigh infallible, in the recognition of the loved form. Not at all. +Waiting for her lover to appear, a woman will stand wearily watching at a +window, and think fifty times in sixty minutes that she sees him coming. +Tall men, short men, dark men, light men; men with Spanish cloaks, and men +in surtouts,--all wear, at a little distance, a tantalizing likeness to +the one whom they in no wise resemble. + +After such a watching as this, the very eye becomes disordered, as after +looking at a bright color it sees a spectrum of a totally different tint; +and, when the long looked-for person appears, he himself looks unnatural +at first, and strange. How well many women know this curious fact in +love's optics! I doubt if men ever watch long enough, and longingly +enough, for a woman's coming, to be so familiar with the phenomenon. +Stephen White, however, had more than once during these four weeks +quickened his pace to overtake some slender figure clad in black, never +doubting that it was Mercy Philbrick, until he came so near that his eyes +were forced to tell him the truth. It was truly a strange thing that he +and Mercy did not once meet during all these weeks. It was no doubt an +important element in the growth of their relation, this interval of +unacknowledged and combated curiosity about each other. Nature has a +myriad of ways of bringing about her results. Seed-time and harvest are +constant, and the seasons all keep their routine; but no two fields have +the same method or measure in the summer's or the winter's dealings. +Hearts lie fallow sometimes; and seeds of love swell very big in the +ground, all undisturbed and unsuspected. + +When Mercy and her mother drove up to the house, Stephen was standing at +his mother's window. It was just at dusk. + +"Here they are, mother," he said. "I think I will go out and meet them." + +Mrs. White lifted her eyes very slowly towards her son, and spoke in the +measured syllables and unvibrating tone which always marked her utterance +when she was displeased. + +"Do you think you are under any obligation to do that? Suppose they had +hired a house of you in some other part of the town: would you have felt +called upon to pay them that attention? I do not know what the usual +duties of a landlord are. You know best." + +Stephen colored. This was the worst of his mother's many bad traits,--an +instinctive, unreasoning, and unreasonable jealousy of any mark of +attention or consideration shown to any other person than herself, even if +it did not in the smallest way interfere with her comfort; and this cold, +sarcastic manner of speaking was, of all the forms of her ill-nature, the +one he found most unbearable. He made no reply, but stood still at the +window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she +helped her mother out of, and down from, the antiquated old carriage, and +carried parcel after parcel and laid them on the doorstep. + +Mrs. White continued in the same sarcastic tone,-- + +"Pray go and help move all their baggage in, Stephen, if it would give you +any pleasure. It is nothing to me, I am sure, if you choose to be all the +time doing all sorts of things for everybody. I don't see the least +occasion for it, that's all." + +"It seems to me only common neighborliness and friendly courtesy, mother," +replied Stephen, gently. "But you know you and I never agree upon such +points. Our views are radically different, and it is best not to discuss +them." + +"Views!" ejaculated Mrs. White, in a voice more like the low growl of some +animal than like any sound possible to human organs. "I don't want to hear +any thing about 'views' about such a trifle. Why don't you go, if you want +to, and be done with it?" + +"It is too late now," answered Stephen, in the same unruffled tone. "They +have gone in, and the carriage is driving off." + +"Well, perhaps they would like to have you put down their carpets for +them, or open their boxes," sneered Mrs. White, still with the same +intolerable sarcastic manner. "I don't doubt they could find some use for +your services." + +"O mother, don't!" pleaded Stephen, "please don't. I do not wish to go +near them or ever see them, if it will make you any less happy. Do let us +talk of something else." + +"Who ever said a word about your not going near them, I'd like to know? +Have I ever tried to shut you up, or keep you from going anywhere you +wanted to? Answer me that, will you?" + +"No, mother," answered Stephen, "you never have. But I wish I could make +you happier." + +"You do make me very happy, Steve," said Mrs. White, mollified by the +gentle answer. "You're a good boy, and always was; but it does vex me to +see you always so ready to be at everybody's beck and call; and, where +it's a woman, it naturally vexes me more. You wouldn't want to run any +risk of being misunderstood, or making a woman care about you more than +she ought." + +Stephen stared. This was a new field. Had his mother gone already thus far +in her thoughts about Mercy Philbrick? And was her only thought of the +possibility of the young woman's caring for him, and not in the least of +his caring for her? + +And what would ever become of the peace of their daily life, if this kind +of jealousy--the most exacting, most insatiable jealousy in the +world--were to grow up in her heart? Stephen was dumb with despair. The +apparent confidential friendliness and assumption of a tacit understanding +and agreement between him and her on the matter, with which his mother had +said, "You wouldn't want to be misunderstood, or make a woman care more +for you than she ought," struck terror to his very soul. The apparent +amicableness of her remark at the present moment did not in the least +blind him to the enormous possibilities of future misery involved in such +a train of feeling and thought on her part. He foresaw himself involved in +a perfect network of espionage and cross-questioning and suspicion, in +comparison with which all he had hitherto borne at his mother's hands +would seem trivial. All this flashed through his mind in the brief +instant that he hesitated before he replied in an off-hand tone, which for +once really blinded his mother,-- + +"Goodness, mother! whatever put such ideas into your head? Of course I +should never run any such risk as that." + +"A man can't possibly be too careful," remarked Mrs. White, sententiously. +"The world's full of gossiping people, and women are very impressionable, +especially such high-strung women as that young widow. A man can't +possibly be too careful. Read me the paper now, Stephen." + +Stephen was only too thankful to take refuge in and behind the newspaper. +A newspaper had so often been to him a shelter from his mother's eyes, a +protection from his mother's tongue, that, whenever he saw a storm or a +siege of embarrassing questioning about to begin, he looked around for a +newspaper as involuntarily as a soldier feels in his belt for his pistol. +He had more than once smiled bitterly to himself at the consciousness of +the flimsy bulwark; but he found it invaluable. Sometimes, it is true, her +impatient instinct made a keen thrust at the truth, and she would say +angrily,-- + +"Put down that paper! I want to see your face when I speak to you;" but +his reply, "Why, mother, I am reading. I was just going to read something +aloud to you," would usually disarm and divert her. It was one of her +great pleasures to have him read aloud to her. It mattered little what he +read: she was equally interested in the paragraphs of small local news, +and in the telegraphic summaries of foreign affairs. A revolt in a +distant European province, of which she had never heard even the name, was +neither more nor less exciting to her than the running away of a heifer +from the premises of an unknown townsman. + +All through the evening, the sounds of moving of furniture, and brisk +going up and down stairs, came through the partition, and interrupted +Stephen's thoughts as much as they did his mother's. They had lived so +long alone in the house in absolute quiet, save for the semi-occasional +stir of Marty's desultory house-cleaning, that these sounds were +disturbing, and not pleasant to hear. Stephen did not like them much +better than his mother did; and he gave her great pleasure by remarking, +as he bade her good-night,-- + +"I suppose those people next door will get settled in a day or two, and +then we can have a quiet evening again." + +"I should hope so," replied his mother. "I should think that a caravan of +camels needn't have made so much noise. It's astonishing to me that folks +can't do things without making a racket; but I think some people feel +themselves of more consequence when they're making a great noise." + +The next morning, as Stephen was bidding his mother good-morning, he +accidentally glanced out of the window, and saw Mercy walking slowly away +from the house with a little basket on her arm. + +"She'll go to market every morning," he thought to himself. "I shall see +her then." + +Not the slightest glance of Stephen's eye ever escaped his mother's +notice. + +"Ah! there goes the lady," she said. "I wonder if she is always going down +town at this hour? You will have to manage to go either earlier or later, +or else people will begin to talk about you." + +Stephen White had one rule of conduct: when he was uncertain what to do, +not to do any thing. He broke it in this instance, and had reason to +regret it long. He spoke impulsively on the instant, and revealed to +mother his dawning interest in Mercy, and planted then and there an +ineffaceable germ of distrust in her mind. + +"Now, mother," he said, "what's the use of you beginning to set up this +new worry? Mrs. Philbrick is a widow, and very sad and lonely. She is the +friend of my friend, Harley Allen; and I am in duty bound to show her some +attention, and help her if I can. She is also a bright, interesting +person; and I do not know so many such that I should turn my back on one +under my own roof. I have not so many social pleasures that I should give +up this one, just on account of a possible gossip about it." + +Silence would have been wiser. Mrs. White did not speak for a moment or +two; then she said, in a slow and deliberate manner, as if reflecting on a +problem,--"You enjoy Mrs. Philbrick's society, then, do you, Stephen? How +much have you seen of her?" + +Still injudicious and unlike himself, Stephen answered, "Yes, I think I +shall enjoy it very much, and I think you will enjoy it more than I shall; +for you may see great deal of her. I have only seen her once, you know." + +"I don't suppose she will care any thing about me," replied Mrs. White, +with an emphasis on the last personal pronoun which spoke volumes. "Very +few people do." + +Stephen made no reply. It had just dawned on his consciousness that he had +been blundering frightfully, and his mind stood still for a moment, as a +man halts suddenly, when he finds himself in a totally wrong road. To turn +short about is not always the best way of getting off a wrong road, though +it may be the quickest way. Stephen turned short about, and exclaimed with +a forced laugh, "Well, mother, I don't suppose it will make any great +difference to you, if she doesn't. It is not a matter of any moment, +anyhow, whether we see any thing of either of them or not. I thought she +seemed a bright, cheery sort of body, that's all. Good-by," and he ran out +of the house. + +Mrs. White lay for a long time with her eyes fixed on the wall. The +expression of her face was of mingled perplexity and displeasure. After a +time, these gave place to a more composed and defiant look. She had taken +her resolve, had marked out her line of conduct. + +"I won't say another word to Stephen about her," she thought. "I'll just +watch and see how things go. Nothing can happen in this house without my +knowing it." + +The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last +clause of her soliloquy. + +Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own +little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of +Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma. +Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail +a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a +complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high, +old-fashioned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their +sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her +father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him. + +"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, +as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It +looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such +clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a +jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized +the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all +were,--cheap, painted wood, of a shining red, and tawdry pictures on the +doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch +outline. + +"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp, +jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk. +She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who +was standing so near her that with each of his rapid shiftings from foot +to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're +ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you, +if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People +are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your +face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin' +at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash, +trash! People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly. + +"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the +muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on +the way." + +"Broken? Clock broken? Mend it, mend it, child. I'll show you a good man, +not this feller in here,--he's only good for outsides. Holler sham, holler +sham! What kind o' clock was it?" + +"Oh, that's the worst of it. It was an old clock my grandfather brought +from Holland. It reached up to the ceiling, and had beautiful carved work +on it. But it's in five hundred pieces, I do believe. A heavy box crushed +it. Even the brass work inside is all jammed and twisted. Our things came +by sea," replied Mercy. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Come on, come on! I'll show you," exclaimed +the eccentric old man, starting off at a quick pace. Mercy did not stir. +Presently, he looked back, wheeled, and came again so near that he nearly +trod on her gown. + +"Bless my soul! Didn't tell her,--bad habit, bad habit. Never do make +people understand. Come on, child,--come on! I've got a clock like yours. +Don't want it. Never use it. Run down twenty years ago. Guess we can find +it. Come on, come on!" he exclaimed. + +"But, Mr. Wheeler," said Mercy, half-frightened at his manner, yet +trusting him in spite of herself, "do you really want to sell the clock? +If you have no use for it, I'd be very glad to buy it of you, if it looks +even a little like our old one. I will bring my mother to look at it." + +"Fine young woman! fine young woman! Good face. Never mistaken in a face +yet. Don't sell clocks: never sold a clock yet. I'll give yer the clock, +if yer like it. Come on, child,--come on!" and he laid his hand on Mercy's +arm and drew her along. + +Mercy held back. "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "You're very kind. +But I think my mother would not like to have you give us a clock. I will +buy it of you; but I really cannot go with you now. Tell me where the +clock is, and I will come with my mother to see it." + +The old man stamped his foot and his cane both with impatience. "Pshaw! +pshaw!" he said: "women all alike, all alike." Then with an evident effort +to control his vexation, and speak more slowly, he said, "Can't you see +I'm an old man, child? Don't pester me now. Come, on, come on! I tell you +I want to show yer that clock. Give it to you 's well 's not. Stood in the +lumber-room twenty years. Come on, come on! It's right up here, ten +steps." And again he took Mercy by the arm. Reluctantly she followed him, +thinking to herself, "Oh, what a rash thing this is to do! How do I know +but he really is crazy?" + +He led the way up an outside staircase at the end of the Brick Row, and, +after fumbling a long time in several deep pockets, produced a huge rusty +iron key, and unlocked the door at the head of the stairs. A very strange +life that key had led in pockets. For many years it had slept under Miss +Orra White's maidenly black alpacas, and had been the token of confinement +and of release to scores of Miss Orra's unruly pupils; then it had had an +interval of dignified leisure, lifted to the level of the Odd Fellows +regalia, and only used by them on rare occasions. For the last ten years, +however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's +lumber-room. If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and +speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in +keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might +have indulged in fine conjectures, and have passed its lifetime in a state +of chronic bewilderment. Each time that the door of this old storehouse +opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing +no relation to any thing that had preceded it. "Old Man Wheeler" added to +all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts. +He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody. He drove hard +bargains, and was inexorable as to dates. When a debtor came, pleading for +a short delay on a payment, the old man had but one reply,-- + +"No, no, no! What yer got? what yer got? Gie me somethin', gie me +somethin'. Settle, settle, settle! Gie me any thin' yer got. Settle, +settle, settle!" The consequences of twenty years' such traffic as this +can more easily be imagined than described. The room was piled from floor +to roof with its miscellaneous collections: junk-shops, pawnbrokers' +cellars, and old women's garrets seemed all to have disgorged themselves +here. A huge stack of calico comforters, their tufts gray with dust and +cobwebs, lay on top of two old ploughs, in one corner: kegs of nails, +boxes of soap, rolls of leather, harnesses stiff and cracking with age, +piles of books, chairs, bedsteads, andirons, tubs, stone ware, crockery +ware, carpets, files of old newspapers, casks, feather-beds, jars of +druggists' medicines, old signboards, rakes, spades, school-desks,--in +short, all things that mortal man ever bought or sold,--were here, packed +in piles and layers, and covered with dust as with a gray coverlid. At +each foot-fall on the loose boards of the floor, clouds of stifling dust +arose, and strange sounds were heard in and behind the piles of rubbish, +as if all sorts of small animals might be skurrying about, and giving +alarms to each other. + +Mercy stood still on the threshold, her face full of astonishment. The +dust made her cough; and at first she could hardly see which way to step. +The old man threw down his cane, and ran swiftly from corner to corner, +and pile to pile, peering around, pulling out first one thing and then +another. He darted from spot to spot, bending lower and lower, as he grew +more impatient in his search, till he looked like a sort of human weasel +gliding about in quest of prey. + +"Trash, trash, nothin' but trash!" he muttered to himself as he ran. "Burn +it up some day. Trash, trash!" + +"How did you get all these queer things together, Mr. Wheeler?" Mercy +ventured to say at last "Did you keep a store?" + +The old man did not reply. He was tugging away at a high stack of rolls of +undressed leather, which reached to the ceiling in one corner. He pulled +them too hastily, and the whole stack tumbled forward, and rolled heavily +in all directions, raising a suffocating dust, through which the old man's +figure seemed to loom up as through a fog, as he skipped to the right and +left to escape the rolling bales. + +"O Mr. Wheeler!" cried Mercy, "are you hurt?" + +He laughed a choked laugh, more like a chuckle than like a laugh. + +"He! he! child. Dust don't hurt me. Goin' to return to 't presently. Made +on 't! made on 't! Don't see why folks need be so 'fraid on 't! He! he! 'T +is pretty choky, though." And he sat down on one of the leather rolls, and +held his sides through a hard coughing fit. As the dust slowly subsided, +Mercy saw standing far back in the corner, where the bales of leather had +hidden it, an old-fashioned clock, so like her own that she gave a low cry +of surprise. + +"Oh, is that the clock you meant, Mr. Wheeler?" she exclaimed. + +"Yes, yes, that's it. Nice old clock. Took it for debt. Cost me more'n +'t's wuth. As fur that matter, 'tain't wuth nothin' to me. Wouldn't hev it +in the house 'n' more than I'd git the town 'us tower in for a clock. D'ye +like it, child? Ye can hev it's well's not. I'd like to give it to ye." + +"I should like it very much, very much indeed," replied Mercy. "But I +really cannot think of taking it, unless you let us pay for it." + +The old man sprung to his feet with such impatience that the leather bale +rolled away from him, and he nearly lost his balance. Mercy sprang forward +and caught him. + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Don't pester me, child! Don't you see I'm +an old man? I tell ye I'll give ye the clock, an' I won't sell it ter +ye,--won't, won't, won't," and he picked up his cane, and stood leaning +upon it with both his hands clasped on it, and his head bent forward, +eagerly scanning Mercy's face. She hesitated still, and began to speak +again. + +"But, Mr. Wheeler,"-- + +"Don't 'but' me. There ain't any buts about it. There's the clock. Take +it, child,--take it, take it, take it, or else leave it, just's you like. +I ain't a-goin' to saddle ye with it; but I think ye'd be very silly not +to take it,--silly, silly." + +Mercy began to think so too. The clock was its own advocate, almost as +strong as the old man's pleading. + +"Very well, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "I will take the clock, though I don't +know what my mother will say. It is a most valuable present. I hope we +can do something for you some day." + +"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the old man. "Just like all the rest o' the +world. Got no faith,--can't believe in gettin' somethin' for nothin'. +You're right, child,--right, right. 'S a general thing, people are cheats, +cheats, cheats. Get all your money away,--wolves, wolves, wolves! Stay +here, child, a minute. I'll get two men to carry it." And, before Mercy +realized his intention, he had shut the door, locked it, and left her +alone in the warehouse. Her first sensation was of sharp terror; but she +ran to the one window which was accessible, and, seeing that it looked out +on the busiest thoroughfare of the town, she sat down by it to await the +old man's return. In a very few moments, she heard the sounds of steps on +the stairs, the door was thrown open, and the old man, still talking to +himself in muttered tones, pushed into the room two ragged vagabonds whom +he had picked up on the street. + +They looked as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With +gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted on the threshold. + +"Come in, come in! What 're ye 'bout? Earn yer money, earn yer money!" +exclaimed the old man, pointing to the clock, and bidding them take it up +and carry it out. + +"Now mind! Quarter a piece, quarter a piece,--not a cent more. Do ye +understand? Hark 'e! do ye understand? Not a cent more," he said, +following them out of the door. Then turning to Mercy, he exclaimed,-- + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Forgot you, child. Come on, come on! I'll +go with you, else those rascals will cheat you. Men are wolves, wolves, +wolves. They're to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece. +But I'll come on with you. Got half a dollar?" + +"Oh, yes," laughed Mercy, much pleased that the old man was willing she +should pay the porters. "Oh, yes, I have my portemonnaie here," holding it +up. "This is the cheapest clock ever sold, I think; and you are very good +to let me pay the men." + +The old man looked at her with a keen, suspicious glance. + +"Good? eh! good? Why, ye didn't think I was goin' to give ye money, did +ye? Oh, no, no, no! Not money. Never give money." + +This was very true. It would probably have cost him a severer pang to give +away fifty cents than to have parted with the entire contents of the +storehouse. Mercy laughed aloud. + +"Why, Mr. Wheeler," she said, "you have given me just the same as money. +Such a clock as this must have cost a good deal, I am sure." + +"No, no, child! It's very different, different. Clock wasn't any use to +me, wasn't wuth any thin'. Money's of use, use, use. Can't have enough +on't. People get it all away from you. They're wolves, wolves, wolves," +replied the old man, running along in advance of Mercy, and rapping one of +the men who were carrying the clock, sharply on his shoulder. + +"Keep your end up there! keep it up! I won't pay you, if you don't carry +your half," he exclaimed. + +It was a droll procession, and everybody turned to look at it: the two +ragged men carrying the quaint-fashioned old clock, from which the dust +shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it: +following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and +excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in +an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or +chastise the bearers of the clock. The eccentric old fellow used his cane +as freely as if it had been a hand. There were few boys in town who had +not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances knew the touch of +it far better than they knew the grip of his fingers. It "saved steps," he +used to say; though of steps the old man seemed any thing but chary, as he +was in the habit of taking them perpetually, without advancing or +retreating, changing from one foot to the other, as uneasily as a goose +does. + +Stephen White happened to be looking out of the window, when this unique +procession of the clock passed his office. He could not believe what he +saw. He threw up the window and leaned out, to assure himself that he was +not mistaken. Mercy heard the sound, looked up, and met Stephen's eye. She +colored violently, bowed, and involuntarily quickened her pace. Her +companion halted, and looked up to see what had arrested her attention. +When he saw Stephen's face, he said,-- + +"Pshaw!" and turned again to look at Mercy. The bright color had not yet +left her cheek. The old man gazed at her angrily for a moment, then +stopped short, planted his cane on the ground, and said in a loud tone, +all the while peering into her face as if he would read her very +thoughts,-- + +"Don't you know that Steve White isn't good for any thin'? Poor stock, +poor stock! Father before him poor stock, too. Don't you go to lettin' him +handle your money, child. Mind now! I'll be a good friend to you, if +you'll do 's I say; but, if Steve White gets hold on you, I'll have +nothin' to do with you. Mind that, eh? eh?" + +Mercy had a swift sense of angry resentment at these words; but she +repelled it, as she would have resisted the impulse to be angry with a +little child. + +"Mr. Wheeler," she said with a gentle dignity of tone, which was not +thrown away on the old man, "I do not know why you should speak so to me +about Mr. White. He is almost an entire stranger to me as yet. We live in +his house; but we do not know him or his mother yet, except in the most +formal way. He seems to be a very agreeable man," she added with a little +tinge of perversity. + +"Hm! hm!" was all the old man's reply; and he did not speak again till +they reached Mercy's gate. Here the clock-carriers were about to set their +burden down. Mr. Wheeler ran towards them with his cane outstretched. + +"Here! here! you lazy rascals! Into the house! into the house, else you +don't get any quarter! + +"Well I came along, child,--well I came along. They'd ha' left it right +out doors here. Cheats! People are all cheats, cheats, cheats," he +exclaimed. + +Into the house, without a pause, without a knock, into poor bewildered +Mrs. Carr's presence he strode, the men following fast on his steps, and +Mercy unable to pass them. + +"Where'll you have it? Where'll you have it, child? Bless my soul! where's +that girl!" he exclaimed, looking back at Mercy, who stood on the front +doorstep, vainly trying to hurry in to explain the strange scene to her +mother. Mrs. Carr was, as usual, knitting. She rose up suddenly, confused +at the strange apparitions before her, and let her knitting fall on the +floor. The ball rolled swiftly towards Mr. Wheeler, and tangled the yarn +around his feet. He jumped up and down, all the while brandishing his +cane, and muttering, "Pshaw! pshaw! Damn knitting! Always did hate the +sight on't." But, kicking out to the right and the left vigorously, he +soon snapped the yarn, and stood free. + +"Mother! mother!" called Mercy from behind, "this is the gentleman I told +you of,--Mr. Wheeler. He has very kindly given us this beautiful clock, +almost exactly like ours." + +The sound of Mercy's voice reassured the poor bewildered old woman, and, +dropping her old-fashioned courtesy, she said timidly,-- + +"Pleased to see you, sir. Pray take a chair." + +"Chair? chair? No, no! Never do sit down in houses,--never, never. +Where'll you have it, mum? Where'll you have it? + +"Don't you dare put that down! Wait till you are told to, you lazy +rascals!" he exclaimed, lifting his cane, and threatening the men who were +on the point of setting the clock down, very naturally thinking they might +be permitted at last to rest a moment. + +"Oh, Mr. Wheeler!" said Mercy, "let them put it down anywhere, please, for +the present. I never can tell at first where I want a thing to stand. I +shall have to try it in different corners before I am sure," and Mercy +took out her portemonnaie, and came forward to pay the bearers. As she +opened it, the old man stepped nearer to her, and peered curiously into +her hand. The money in the portemonnaie was neatly folded and assorted, +each kind by itself, in a separate compartment. The old man nodded, and +muttered to himself, "Fine young woman! fine young woman! Business, +business!--Who taught you, child, to sort your money that way?" he +suddenly asked. + +"Why, no one taught me," replied Mercy. "I found that it saved time not to +have to fumble all through a portemonnaie for a ten-cent piece. It looks +neater, too, than to have it all in a crumpled mass," she added, smiling +and looking up in the old man's face. "I don't like disorder. Such a place +as your store-room would drive me crazy." + +The old man was not listening. He was looking about the room with a +dissatisfied expression of countenance. In a few moments, he said +abruptly,-- + +"'S this all the furniture you've got?" + +Mrs. Carr colored, and looked appealingly at Mercy; but Mercy laughed, +and replied as she would have answered her own grandfather,-- + +"Oh, no, not all we have! We have five more rooms furnished. It is all we +have for this room, however. These rooms are all larger than our rooms +were at home, and so the things look scanty. But I shall get more by +degrees." + +"Hm! hm! Want any thing out o' my lumber-room? Have it's well's not. +Things no good to anybody." + +"Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Wheeler. We have all we need. I could not think of +taking any thing more from you. We are under great obligation to you now +for the clock," said Mercy; and Mrs. Carr bewilderedly ejaculated, "Oh, +no, sir,--no, sir! There isn't any call for you to give us any thin'." + +While they were speaking, the old man was rapidly going out of the house; +with quick, short steps like a child, and tapping his cane on the floor at +every step. In the doorway he halted a moment, and, without looking back, +said, "Well, well, let me know, if you do want any thing. Have it's well's +not," and he was gone. + +"Oh, Mercy! he's crazy, sure's you're alive. You'll get took up for hevin' +this clock. Whatever made you take it, child?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, +walking round and round the clock, and dusting it here and there with a +corner of her apron. + +"Well, mother, I am sure I don't know. I couldn't seem to help it: he was +so determined, and the clock was such a beauty. I don't think he is crazy. +I think he is simply very queer; and he is ever, ever so rich. The clock +isn't really of any value to him; that is, he'd never do any thing with +it. He has a huge room half as big as this house, just crammed with +things, all sorts of things, that he took for debts; and this clock was +among them. I think it gave the old man a real pleasure to have me take +it; so that is one more reason for doing it." + +"Well, you know best, Mercy," said Mrs. Carr, a little sadly; "but I can't +quite see it's you do. It seems to me amazin' like a charity. I wish he +hadn't never found you out." + +"I don't, mother. I believe he is going to be my best crony here," said +Mercy, laughing; "and I'm sure nobody can say any thing ill-natured about +such a crony as he would be. He must be seventy years old, at least." + +When Stephen came home that night, he received from his mother a most +graphic account of the arrival of the clock. She had watched the +procession from her window, and had heard the confused sounds of talking +and moving of furniture in the house afterward. Marty also had supplied +some details, she having been surreptitiously overlooking the whole +affair. + +"I must say," remarked Mrs. White, "that it looks very queer. Where did +she pick up Old Man Wheeler? Who ever heard of his being seen walking with +a woman before? Even as a young man, he never would have any thing to do +with them; and it was always a marvel how he got married. I used to know +him very well." + +"But, mother," urged Stephen, "for all we know, they may be relations or +old friends of his. You forget that we know literally nothing about these +people. So far from being queer, it may be the most natural thing in the +world that he should be helping her fit up her house." + +But in his heart Stephen thought, as his mother did, that it was very +queer. + + + + +Chapter VI. + + + +The beautiful white New England winter had set in. As far as the eye could +reach, nothing but white could be seen. The boundary, lines of stone walls +and fences were gone, or were indicated only by raised and rounded lines +of the same soft white. On one side of these were faintly pencilled dark +shadows in the morning and in the afternoon; but at high noon the fields +were as unbroken a white as ever Arctic explorer saw, and the roads shone +in the sun like white satin ribbons flung out in all directions. The +groves of maple and hickory and beech were bare. Their delicate gray tints +spread in masses over the hillsides like a transparent, gray veil, through +which every outline of the hills was clear, but softened. The massive +pines and spruces looked almost black against the white of the snow, and +the whole landscape was at once shining and sombre; an effect which is +peculiar to the New England winter in the hill country, and is always +either very depressing or very stimulating to the soul. Dreamy and inert +and phlegmatic people shiver and huddle, see only the sombreness, and find +the winter one long imprisonment in the dark. But to a joyous, brisk, +sanguine soul, the clear, crisp, cold air is like wine; and the whiteness +and sparkle and shine of the snow are like martial music, a constant +excitement and spell. + +Mercy's soul thrilled within her with new delight and impulse each day. +The winter had always oppressed her before. On the seashore, winter means +raw cold, a pale, gray, angry ocean, fierce winds, and scanty wet snows. +This brilliant, frosty air, so still and dry that it never seemed cold, +this luxuriance of snow piled soft and high as if it meant shelter and +warmth,--as indeed it does,--were very wonderful to Mercy. She would have +liked to be out of doors all day long: it seemed to her a fairer than +summer-time. She followed the partially broken trails of the wood-cutters +far into the depths of the forests, and found there on sunny days, in +sheltered spots, where the feet of the men and horses and the runners of +the heavy sledges had worn away the snow, green mosses and glossy ferns +and shining clumps of the hepatica. It was a startling sight on a December +day, when the snow was lying many inches deep, to come suddenly on Mercy +walking in the middle of the road, her hands filled with green ferns and +mosses and vines. There were three different species of ground-pine in +these woods, and hepatica and pyrola and wintergreen, and thickets of +laurel. What wealth for a lover of wild, out-door things! Each day Mercy +bore home new treasures, until the house was almost as green and fragrant +as a summer wood. Day after day, Mrs. White, from her point of observation +at her window, watched the lithe young figure coming down the road, +bearing her sheaves of boughs and vines, sometimes on her shoulder, as +lightly and gracefully as a peasant girl of Italy might bear her poised +basket of grapes. Gradually a deep wonder took possession of the lonely +old woman's soul. + +"Whatever can she do with all that green stuff?" she thought. "She's +carried in enough to trim the 'Piscopal church twice over." + +At last she shared her perplexity with Marty. + +"Marty," said she one day, "have you ever seen Mrs. Philbrick come into +the house without somethin' green in her hands? What do you suppose she's +goin' to do with it all?" + +"Lord knows," answered Marty. "I've been a speckkerlatin' about that very +thing myself. They can't be a brewin' beer this time o' year; but I see +her yesterday with her hands full o' pyroly." + +"I wish you would make an errand in there, Marty," said Mrs. White, "and +see if you can any way find out what it's all for. She's carried in pretty +near a grove of pine-trees, I should say." + +The willing Marty went, and returned with a most surprising tale. Every +room was wreathed with green vines. There were evergreen trees in boxes; +the window-seats were filled with pots of green things growing; waving +masses of ferns hung down from brackets on the walls. + +"I jest stood like a dumb critter the minnit I got in," said Marty. "I +didn't know whether I wuz in the house or out in the woods, the whole +place smelled o' hemlock so, an' looked so kind o' sunny and shady all ter +oncet.--I jest wished Steve could see it. He'd go wild," added the +unconsciously injudicious Marty. + +Mrs. White's face darkened instantly. + +"It must be very unwholesome to have rooms made so dark and damp," she +said. "I should think people might have more sense." + +"Oh, it wa'n't dark a mite!" interrupted Marty, eagerly. "There wuz a +blazin' fire on the hearth in the settin'-room, an' the sun a-streamin' +into both the south winders. It made shadders on the floor, jest as it +does in the woods. I'd jest ha' liked to set down there a spell, and not +do nothin' but watch 'em." + +At this moment, a low knock at the door interrupted the conversation. +Marty opened the door, and there stood Mercy herself, holding in her hands +some wreaths of laurel and pine, and a large earthen dish with ferns +growing in it. It was the day before Christmas; and Mercy had been busy +all day, putting up the Christmas decorations in her rooms. As she hung +cross after cross, and wreath after wreath, she thought of the poor, +lonely, and peevish old woman she had seen there weeks before, and +wondered if she would have any Christmas evergreens to brighten her room. + +"I don't suppose a man would ever think of such things," thought Mercy. +"I've a great mind to carry her in some. I'll never muster courage to go +in there, unless I go to carry her something; and I may as well do it +first as last. Perhaps she doesn't care any thing about things from the +woods; but I think they may do her good without her knowing it. Besides, I +promised to go." It was now ten days since Stephen, meeting Mercy in the +town one day, had stopped, and said to her, in a half-sad tone which had +touched her,-- + +"Do you really never mean to come again to see my mother? I do assure you +it would be a great kindness." + +His tone conveyed a great deal,--his tone and his eyes. They said as +plainly as words could have said,-- + +"I know that my mother treated you abominably, I know she is very +disagreeable; but, after all, she is helpless and alone, and if you could +only once get her to like you, and would come and see her now and then, it +would be a kindness to her, and a great help to me; and I do yearn to know +you better; and I never can, unless you will begin the acquaintance by +being on good terms with my mother." + +All this Stephen's voice and eyes had said to Mercy's eyes and heart, +while his lips, pronounced the few commonplace words which were addressed +to her ear. All this Mercy was revolving in her thoughts, as she deftly +and with almost a magic touch laid the soft mosses in the earthen dish, +and planted them thick with ferns and hepatica and partridge-berry vines +and wintergreen. But all she was conscious of saying to herself was, "Mr. +White asked me to go; and it really is not civil not to do it, and I may +as well have it over with." + +When Mrs. White's eyes first fell on Mercy in the doorway, they rested on +her with the same cold gaze which had so repelled her on their first +interview. But no sooner did she see the dish of mosses than her face +lighted up, and exclaiming, "Oh, where did you get those partridge-berry +vines?" she involuntarily stretched out her hands. The ice was broken. +Mercy felt at home at once, and at once conceived a true sentiment of +pity for Mrs. White, which never wholly died out of her heart. Kneeling on +the floor by her bed, she said eagerly,-- + +"I am so glad you like them, Mrs. White. Let me hold them down low, where +you can look at them." + +Some subtle spell must have linked itself in Mrs. White's brain with the +dainty red partridge berries. Her eyes filled with tears, as she lifted +the vines gently in her fingers, and looked at them. Mercy watched her +with great surprise; but with the quick instinct of a poet's temperament +she thought, "She hasn't seen them very likely since she was a little +girl." + +"Did you use to like them when you were a child, Mrs. White?" she asked. + +"I used to pick them when I was young," replied Mrs. White, +dreamily,--"when I was young: not when I was a child, though. May I have +one of them to keep?" she asked presently, still holding an end of one of +the vines in her fingers. + +"Oh, I brought them in for you, for Christmas," exclaimed Mercy. "They are +all for you." + +Mrs. White was genuinely astonished. No one had ever done this kind of +thing for her before. Stephen always gave her on her birthday and on +Christmas a dutiful and somewhat appropriate gift, though very sorely he +was often puzzled to select a thing which should not jar either on his own +taste or his mother's sense of utility. But a gift of this kind, a simple +little tribute to her supposed womanly love of the beautiful, a thoughtful +arrangement to give her something pleasant to look upon for a time, no +one had ever before made. It gave her an emotion of real gratitude, such +as she had seldom felt. + +"You are very kind, indeed,--very," she said with emphasis, and in a +gentler tone than Mercy had before heard from her lips. "I shall have a +great deal of comfort out of it." + +Then Mercy set the dish on a small table, and hung up the wreaths in the +windows. As she moved about the room lightly, now and then speaking in her +gay, light-hearted voice, Mrs. White thought to herself,-- + +"Steve was right. She is a wonderful cheery body." And, long after Mercy +had gone, she continued to think happily of the pleasant incident of the +fresh bright face and the sweet voice. For the time being, her jealous +distrust of the possible effect of these upon her son slumbered. + +When Stephen entered his mother's room that night, his heart gave a sudden +bound at the sight of the green wreaths and the dish of ferns. He saw them +on fhe first instant after opening the door; he knew in the same instant +that the hands of Mercy Philbrick must have placed them there; but, also, +in that same brief instant came to him an involuntary impulse to pretend +that he did not observe them; to wait till his mother should have spoken +of them first, that he might know whether she were pleased or not by the +gift. So infinitely small are the first beginnings of the course of deceit +into which tyranny always drives its victim. It could not be called a +deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed +in a room. No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit: for when +Mrs. White said, "Why, Stephen, you haven't noticed the greens! Look in +the windows!" his exclamation of apparent surprise, "Why, how lovely! +Where did they come from?" was a lie. It did not seem so, however, to +Stephen. It seemed to him simply a politic suppression of a truth, to save +his mother's feelings, to avoid a possibility of a war of words. Mercy +Philbrick, under the same circumstances, would have replied,-- + +"Oh, yes, I saw them as soon as I came in. I was waiting for you to tell +me about them," and even then would have been tortured by her conscience, +because she did not say why she was waiting. + +While his mother was telling him of Mercy's call, and of the report Marty +had brought back of the decorations of the rooms, Stephen stood with his +face bent over the ferns, apparently absorbed in studying each leaf +minutely; then he walked to the windows and examined the wreaths. He felt +himself so suddenly gladdened by these tokens of Mercy's presence, and by +his mother's evident change of feeling towards her, that he feared his +face would betray too much pleasure; he feared to speak, lest his voice +should do the same thing. He was forced to make a great effort to speak in +a judiciously indifferent tone, as he said,-- + +"Indeed, they are very pretty. I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; +and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas +Eve. I wish we had something to send in to them, don't you?" + +"Well, I've been thinking," said his mother, "that we might ask them to +come in and take dinner with us to-morrow. Marty's made some capital +mince-pies, and is going to roast a turkey. I don't believe they'll be +goin' to have any thing better, do you, Stephen?" + +Stephen walked very suddenly to the fire, and made a feint of rearranging +it, that he might turn his face entirely away from his mother's sight. He +was almost dumb with astonishment. A certain fear mingled with it. What +meant this sudden change? Did it portend good or evil? It seemed too +sudden, too inexplicable, to be genuine. Stephen had yet to learn the +magic power which Mercy Philbrick had to compel the liking even of people +who did not choose to like her. + +"Why, yes, mother," he said, "that would be very nice. It is a long time +since we had anybody to Christmas dinner." + +"Well, suppose you run in after tea and ask them," replied Mrs. White, in +the friendliest of tones. + +"Yes, I'll go," answered Stephen, feeling as if he were a man talking in a +dream. "I have been meaning to go in ever since they came." + +After tea, Stephen sat counting the minutes till he should go. To all +appearances, he was buried in his newspaper, occasionally reading a +paragraph aloud to his mother. He thought it better that she should remind +him of his intention to go; that the call should be purely at her +suggestion. The patience and silence with which he sat waiting for her to +remember and speak of it were the very essence of deceit again,--twice in +this one hour an acted lie, of which his dulled conscience took no note +or heed. Fine and impalpable as the meshes of the spider's-web are the +bands and bonds of a habit of concealment; swift-growing, too, and in +ever-widening circles, like the same glittering net woven for death. + +At last Mrs. White said, "Steve, I think it's getting near nine o'clock. +You'd better go in next door before it's any later." + +Stephen pulled out his watch. By his own sensations, he would have said +that it must be midnight. + +"Yes, it is half-past eight. I suppose I had better go now," he said, and +bade his mother good-night. + +He went out into the night with a sense of ecstasy of relief and joy. He +was bewildered at himself. How this strong sentiment towards Mercy +Philbrick had taken possession of him he could not tell. He walked up and +down in the snowy path in front of the house for some minutes, questioning +himself, sounding with a delicious dread the depths of this strange sea in +which he suddenly found himself drifting. He went back to the day when +Harley Allen's letter first told him of the two women who might become his +tenants. He felt then a presentiment that a new element was to be +introduced into his life; a vague, prophetic sense of some change at hand. +Then came the first interview, and his sudden disappointment, which he now +blushed to recollect. It seemed to him as if some magician must have laid +a spell upon his eyes, that he did not see even in that darkness how +lovely a face Mercy had, did not feel even through all the embarrassment +and strangeness the fascination of her personal presence. Then he dwelt +lingeringly on the picture, which had never faded from his brain, of his +next sight of her, as she sat on the old stone wall, with the gay +maple-leaves and blackberry-vines in her lap. From that day to the +present, he had seen her only a half dozen times, and only for a chance +greeting as they had passed each other in the street; but it seemed to him +that she had never been really absent from him, so conscious was he of her +all the time. So absorbed was he in these thoughts that a half-hour was +gone before he realized it, and the village bells were ringing for nine o' +clock when he knocked on the door of the wing. + +Mrs. Carr had rolled up her knitting, and was just on the point of going +upstairs. Their little maid of all work had already gone to bed, when +Stephen's loud knock startled them all. + +"Gracious alive! Mercy, what's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Carr, all sorts of +formless terrors springing upon her at once. Mercy herself was astonished, +and ran hastily to open the door. When she saw Stephen standing there, her +astonishment was increased, and she looked it so undisguisedly that he +said,-- + +"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Philbrick. I know it is late, but my mother sent +me in with a message." ... + +"Pray come in, Mr. White," interrupted Mercy. "It is not really late, only +we keep such absurdly early hours, and are so quiet, as we know nobody +here, that a knock at the door in the evening makes us all jump. Pray +come in," and she threw open the door into the sitting-room, where the +lamps had already been put out, and the light of a blazing hickory log +made long flickering shadows on the crimson carpet. In this dancing light, +the room looked still more like a grove than it had to Marty at high noon. +Stephen's eyes fastened hungrily on the sight. + +"Your room is almost too much to resist," he said; "but I will not come in +now. I did not know it was so late. My mother wishes to know if you and +your mother will not come in and eat a Christmas dinner with us to-morrow. +We live in the plainest way, and cannot entertain in the ordinary +acceptation of the term. We only ask you to our ordinary home-dinner," he +added, with a sudden sense of the incongruity between the atmosphere of +refined elegance which pervaded Mercy's simple, little room, and the +expression which all his efforts had never been able to banish from his +mother's parlor. + +"Oh thank you, Mr. White. You are very good. I think we should like to +come very much. Mother and I were just saying that it would be the first +Christmas dinner we ever ate alone. But you must come in, Mr. White,--I +insist upon it," replied Mercy, stretching out one hand towards him, as if +to draw him in. + +Stephen went. On the threshold of the sitting-room he paused and stood +silent for some minutes. Mercy was relighting the lamps. + +"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick!" he exclaimed, "won't you please not light the lamps. +This firelight on these evergreens is the loveliest thing I ever saw." + +Too unconventional to think of any reasons why she should not sit with +Stephen White alone by firelight in her own house, Mercy blew out the lamp +she had lighted, and drawing a chair close up to the hearth sat down, and +clasping her hands in her lap looked eagerly into Stephen's face, and said +as simply as a child,-- + +"I like firelight, too, a great deal better than any other light. Some +evenings we do not light the lamps at all. Mother can knit just as well +without much light, and I can think better." + +Mercy was sitting in a chair so low that, to look at Stephen, she had to +lift her face. It was the position in which her face was sweetest. Some +lines, which were a shade too strong and positive when her face fully +confronted you, disappeared entirely when it was thrown back and her eyes +were lifted. It was then as ingenuous and tender and trustful a face as if +she had been but eight instead of eighteen. + +Stephen forgot himself, forgot the fact that Mercy was comparatively a +stranger, forgot every thing, except the one intense consciousness of this +sweet woman-face looking up into his. Bending towards her, he said +suddenly,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, your face is the very loveliest face I have ever seen in +my life. Do not be angry with me. Oh, do not!" he continued, seeing the +color deepen in Mercy's cheeks, and a stern expression gathering in her +eyes, as she looked steadily at him with unutterable surprise. "Do not be +angry with me. I could not help saying it; but I do not say it as men +generally say such things. I am not like other men: I have lived alone +all my life with my mother. You need not mind my saying your face is +lovely, any more than my saying that the ferns on the walls are lovely." + +If Stephen had known Mercy from her childhood, he could not have framed +his words more wisely. Every fibre of her artistic nature recognized the +possibility of a subtle truth in what he said, and his calm, dreamy tone +and look heightened this impression. Moreover, as Stephen's soul had been +during all the past four weeks slowly growing into the feeling which made +it inevitable that he should say these words on first looking closely and +intimately into Mercy's face, so had her soul been slowly growing into the +feeling which made it seem not really foreign or unnatural to her that he +should say them. + +She answered him with hesitating syllables, quite unlike her usual fluent +speech. + +"I think you must mean what you say, Mr. White; and you do not say it as +other men have said it. But will you please to remember not to say it +again? We cannot be friends, if you do." + +"Never again, Mrs. Philbrick?" he said,--he could almost have said +"Mercy,"--and looked at her with a gaze of whose intentness he was hardly +aware. + +Mercy felt a strange terror of this man; a few minutes ago a stranger, now +already asking at her hands she hardly knew what, and compelling her in +spite of herself. But she replied very quietly, with a slight smile,-- + +"Never, Mr. White. Now talk of something else, please. Your mother seemed +very much pleased with the ferns I carried her to-day. Did she love the +woods, when she was well?" + +"I do not know. I never heard her say," answered Stephen, absently, still +gazing into Mercy's face. + +"But you would have known, surely, if she had cared for them," said Mercy, +laughing; for she perceived that Stephen had spoken at random. + +"Oh, yes, certainly,--certainly. I should have known," said Stephen, still +with a preoccupied air, and rising to go. "I thank you for letting me come +into this beautiful room with you. I shall always think of your face +framed in evergreens, and with flickering firelight on it." + +"You are not going away, are you, Mr. White?" asked Mercy, mischievously. + +"Oh, no, certainly not. I never go away. How could I go away? Why did you +ask?" + +"Oh," laughed Mercy, "because you spoke as if you never expected to see my +face after to-night. That's all." + +Stephen smiled. "I am afraid I seem a very absent-minded person," he said. +"I did not mean that at all. I hope to see you very often, if I may. +Good-night." + +"Good-night, Mr. White. We shall be very glad to see you as often as you +like to come. You may be sure of that; but you must come earlier, or you +will find us all asleep. Good-night." + +Stephen spent another half-hour pacing up and down in the snowy path in +front of the house. He did not wish to go in until his mother was asleep. +Very well he knew that it would be better that she did not see his face +that night. When he went in, the house was dark and still. As he passed +his mother's door, she called, "Steve!" + +"All right, mother. They'll come," he replied, and ran swiftly up to his +own room. + +During this half-hour, Mercy had been sitting in her low chair by the +fire, looking steadily into the leaping blaze, and communing very sternly +with her own heart on the subject of Stephen White. Her pitiless honesty +of nature was just as inexorable in its dealing with her own soul as with +others; she never paltered with, nor evaded an accusation of, her +consciousness. At this moment, she was indignantly admitting to herself +that her conduct and her feeling towards Stephen were both deserving of +condemnation. But, when she asked herself for their reason, no answer came +framed in words, no explanation suggested itself, only Stephen's face rose +up before her, vivid, pleading, as he had looked when he said, "Never +again, Mrs. Philbrick?" and as she looked again into the dark blue eyes, +and heard the low tones over again, she sank into a deeper and deeper +reverie, from which gradually all self-accusation, all perplexity, faded +away, leaving behind them only a vague happiness, a dreamy sense of joy. +If lovers could look back on the first quickening of love in their souls, +how precious would be the memories; but the unawakened heart never knows +the precise instant of the quickening. It is wrapped in a half-conscious +wonder and anticipation; and, by the time the full revelation comes, the +impress of the first moments has been wiped out by intenser experiences. +How many lovers have longed to trace the sweet stream back to its very +source, to the hidden spring which no man saw, but have lost themselves +presently in the broad greenness, undisturbed and fertile, through which, +like a hidden stream through an emerald meadow, the love had been flowing +undiscovered. + +Months after, when Mercy's thoughts reverted to this evening, all she +could recollect was that on the night of Stephen's first call she had been +much puzzled by his manner and his words, had thought it very strange that +he should seem to care-so much for her, and perhaps still more strange +that she herself found it not unpleasing that he did so. Stephen's +reminiscences were at once more distinct and more indistinct,--more +distinct of his emotions, more indistinct of the incidents. He could not +recollect one word which had been said: only his own vivid consciousness +of Mercy's beauty; her face "framed in evergreens, with the firelight +flickering on it," as he had told her he should always think of it. + +Christmas morning came, clear, cold, shining bright. A slight thaw the day +before had left every bough and twig and pine-needle covered with a +moisture that had frozen in the night into glittering crystal sheaths, +which flashed like millions of prisms in the sun. The beauty of the scene +was almost solemn. The air was so frosty cold that even the noon sun did +not melt these ice-sheaths; and, under the flood of the full mid-day +light, the whole landscape seemed one blaze of jewels. When Mercy and her +mother entered Mrs. White's room, half an hour before the dinner-hour, +they found her sitting with the curtains drawn, because the light had hurt +her eyes. + +"Oh, Mrs. White!" exclaimed Mercy. "It is cruel you should not see this +glorious spectacle! If you had the window open, the light would not hurt +your eyes. It is the glare of it coming through the glass. Let us wrap you +up, and draw you close to the window, and open it wide, so that you can +see the colors for a few minutes. It is just like fairy-land." + +Mrs. White looked bewildered. Such a plan as this of getting out-door air +she had never thought of. + +"Won't it make the room too cold?" she said. + +"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy; "and no matter if it does. We can soon warm it +up again. Please let me ask Marty to come?" And, hardly waiting for +permission, she ran to call Marty. Wrapped up in blankets, Mrs. White was +then drawn in her bed close to the open window, and lay there with a look +of almost perplexed delight on her face. When Stephen came in, Mercy stood +behind her, a fleecy white cloud thrown over her head, pointing out +eagerly every point of beauty in the view. A high bush of sweet-brier, +with long, slender, curving branches, grew just in front of the window. +Many of the cup-like seed-vessels still hung on the boughs: they were all +finely encrusted with frost. As the wind faintly stirred the branches, +every frost-globule flashed its full rainbow of color; the long sprays +looked like wands strung with tiny fairy beakers, inlaid with pearls and +diamonds. Mercy sprang to the window, took one of these sprays in her +fingers, and slowly waved it up and down in the sunlight. + +"Oh, look at it against the blue sky!" she cried. "Isn't it enough to make +one cry just to see it?" + +"Oh, how can mother help loving her?" thought Stephen. "She is the +sweetest woman that ever drew breath." + +Mrs. White seemed indeed to have lost all her former distrust and +antagonism. She followed Mercy's movements with eyes not much less eager +and pleased than Stephen's. It was like a great burst of sunlight into a +dark place, the coming of this earnest, joyous, outspoken nature into the +old woman's narrow and monotonous and comparatively uncheered life. She +had never seen a person of Mercy's temperament. The clear, decided, +incisive manner commanded her respect, while the sunny gayety won her +liking. Stephen had gentle, placid sweetness and much love of the +beautiful; but his love of the beautiful was an indolent, and one might +almost say a-haughty, demand in his nature. Mercy's was a bounding and +delighted acceptance. She was cheery: he was only placid. She was full of +delight; he, only of satisfaction. In her, joy was of the spirit, +spiritual. Keen as were her senses, it was her soul which marshalled them +all. In him, though the soul's forces were not feeble, the senses foreran +them,--compelled them, sometimes conquered them. It would have been +impossible to put Mercy in any circumstances, in any situation, out of +which, or in spite of which, she would not find joy. But in Stephen +circumstance and place might as easily destroy as create happiness. His +enjoyment was as far inferior to Mercy's in genuineness and enduringness +as is the shallow lake to the quenchless spring. The waters of each may +leap and sparkle alike, to the eye, in the sunshine; but when drought has +fallen on the lake, and the place that knew it knows it no more, the +spring is full, free, and glad as ever. + +Mrs. White's pleasure in Mercy's presence was short-lived. Long before +the simple dinner was over, she had relapsed into her old forbidding +manner, and into a silence which was more chilly than any words could have +been. The reason was manifest. She read in every glance of Stephen's eyes, +in every tone of his voice, the depth and the warmth of his feeling +towards Mercy. The jealous distrust which she had felt at first, and which +had slept for a brief time under the spell of Mercy's kindliness towards +herself, sprang into fiercer life than ever. Stephen and Mercy, in utter +unconsciousness of the change which was gradually taking place, talked and +laughed together in an evident gay delight, which made matters worse every +moment. A short and surly reply from Mrs. White to an innocent question of +Mrs. Carr's fell suddenly on Mercy's ear. Keenly alive to the smallest +slight to her mother, she turned quickly towards Mrs. White, and, to her +consternation, met the same steady, pitiless, aggressive look which she +had seen on her face in their first interview. Mercy's first emotion was +one of great indignation: her second was a quick flash of comprehension of +the whole thing. A great wave of rosy color swept over her face; and, +without knowing what she was doing, she looked appealingly at Stephen. +Already there was between them so subtle a bond that each understood the +other without words. Stephen knew all that Mercy thought in that instant, +and an answering flush mounted to his forehead. Mrs. White saw both these +flushes, and compressed her lips still more closely in a grimmer silence +than before. Poor, unsuspecting Mrs. Carr kept on and on with her +meaningless and childish remarks and inquiries; and Mercy and Stephen were +both very grateful for them. The dinner came to an untimely end; and +almost immediately Mercy, with a nervous and embarrassed air, totally +foreign to her, said to her mother,-- + +"We must go home now. I have letters to write." + +Mrs. Carr was disappointed. She had anticipated a long afternoon of chatty +gossip with her neighbor; but she saw that Mercy had some strong reason +for hurrying home, and she acquiesced unhesitatingly. + +Mrs. White did not urge them to remain. To all Mrs. White's faults it must +be confessed that she added the virtue of absolute sincerity. + +"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Carr," and "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Philbrick," fell +from her lips in the same measured syllables and the same cold, unhuman +voice which had so startled Mercy once before. + +"What a perfectly horrid old woman!" exclaimed Mercy, as soon as they had +crossed the threshold of their own door. "I'll never go near her again as +long as I live!" + +"Why, Mercy Carr!" exclaimed her mother, "what do you mean? I don't think +so. She got very tired before dinner was over. I could see that, poor +thing! She's drefful weak, an' it stan's to reason she'd be kind o' +snappish sometimes." + +Mercy opened her lips to reply, but changed her mind and said nothing. + +"It's just as well for mother to keep on good terms with her, if she can," +she thought. "Maybe it'll help divert a little of Mrs. White's temper from +him, poor fellow!" + +Stephen had followed them to the door, saying little; but at the last +moment, when Mercy said "good-by," he had suddenly held out his hand, and, +clasping hers tightly, had looked at her sadly, with a world of regret and +appeal and affection and almost despair in the look. + +"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go +wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he +shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more +and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his +talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he +doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she _is_ his mother. If ever I +know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her +tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never +saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look +are enough to freeze your blood." + +While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his +mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were +having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy +than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,-- + +"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing +with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way." + +The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew +deeper still. He made no reply. Mrs. White continued,-- + +"I wish you could see your face. It is almost purple now." + +"It is enough to make the blood mount to any man's face, mother, to be +accused so," replied Stephen, with a spirit unusual for him. + +"I don't accuse you of any thing," she retorted. "I am only speaking of +what I observe. You needn't think you can deceive me about the least +thing, ever. Your face is a perfect tell-tale of your thoughts, always." + +Poor Stephen groaned inwardly. Too well he knew his inability to control +his unfortunate face. + +"Mother!" he exclaimed with almost vehemence of tone, "mother! do not +carry this thing too far. I do not in the least understand what you are +driving at about Mrs. Philbrick, nor why you show these capricious changes +of feeling towards her. I think you have treated her so to-day that she +will never darken your doors again. I never should, if I were in her +place." + +"Very well, I hope she never will, if her presence is to produce such an +effect on you. It is enough to turn her head to see that she has such +power over a man like you. She is a very vain woman, anyway,--vain of her +power over people, I think." + +Stephen could bear no more. With a half-smothered ejaculation of "O +mother!" he left the room. + +And thus the old year went out and the new year came in for Mercy +Philbrick and Stephen White,--the old year in which they had been nothing, +and the new year in which they were to be every thing to each other. + + + + +Chapter VII. + + + +The next morning, while Stephen was dressing, he slowly reviewed the +events of the previous day, and took several resolutions. If Mrs. White +could have had the faintest conception of what was passing in her son's +mind, while he sat opposite to her at breakfast, so unusually cheerful and +talkative, she would have been very unhappy. But she, too, had had a +season of reflection this morning, and was much absorbed in her own plans. +She heartily regretted having shown so much ill-feeling in regard to +Mercy; and she had resolved to atone for it in some way, if she could. +Above all, she had resolved, if possible, to banish from Stephen's mind +the idea that she was jealous of Mercy or hostile towards her. She had +common sense enough to see that to allow him to recognize this feeling on +her part was to drive him at once into a course of manoeuvring and +concealment. She flattered herself that it was with a wholly natural and +easy air that she began her plan of operations by remarking,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick seems to be very fond of her mother, does she not, +Stephen?" + +"Yes, very," answered Stephen, indifferently. + +"Mrs. Carr is quite an old woman. She must have been old when Mrs. +Philbrick was born. I don't think Mrs. Philbrick can be more than twenty, +do you?" + +"I am sure I don't know. I never thought anything about her age," replied +Stephen, still more indifferently. "I'm no judge of women's ages." + +"Well, I'm sure she isn't more than twenty, if she is that," said Mrs. +White; "and she really is a very pretty woman, Steve. I'll grant you +that." + +"Grant me that, mother?" laughed Stephen, lightly. "I never said she was +pretty, did I? The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly +plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice. I don't think, +however, she would usually be thought pretty." + +Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so +that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, +"I'm real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn't treat her well yesterday. I +didn't mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a +woman's head turned by a man's taking a little notice of her; and I know +very well, Stephy, that women like you. It wouldn't take much to make Mrs. +Philbrick fancy you were in love with her." + +Stephen also was gratified by his mother's apparent softening of mood, and +instinctively met her more than half way, replying,-- + +"I didn't mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed +so plainly that you didn't want them to stay. Perhaps she didn't notice +it, only thought you were tired. It isn't any great matter, any way. We'd +better keep on good terms with them, if they're to live under the same +roof with us, that's all." + +"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. White. "Much better to be on neighborly terms. The +old mother is a childish old thing, though. She'd bore me to death, if she +came in often." + +"Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough," said Stephen; "but she's so +simple, and so much like a child you can't help pitying her." + +They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; +but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to shield +from discovery. When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he +fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict. One +of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this +morning on a street he knew she must pass on her way to market. He did not +define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to +see her face. He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words +he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her +face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this +plan, "Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother +never know any thing about it." + +When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour +or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often +though before on similar occasions, "Well, she won't overtake Stephen +this time. I dare say she planned to." Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was +walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and +shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before. +She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not +observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen's +voice saying, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick." It was the second time that +he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject. +This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color +which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,--undisguised and +honest gladness. + +"Why, Mr. White," she exclaimed, "I never thought of seeing you. I thought +you were always in your office at this time." + +"I waited to see you this morning," replied Stephen, in a tone as simply +honest as her own. "I wanted to speak to you." + +Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak. Stephen smiled. + +"Oh, not for any particular thing," he said: "only for the pleasure of +it." + +Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other's faces with a joy +which neither attempted to disguise. Stephen took Mercy's basket from her +arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so +full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were +walking by each other's side. The few words they did speak were of the +purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so +universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,--a +sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language. When +they parted at the door of Stephen's office, he said,-- + +"I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do +you not?" + +"Yes, always," replied Mercy. + +"Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you," said +Stephen. + +"I like it very much, Mr. White," answered Mercy, eagerly. "I used to walk +a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly." + +A jealous pang shot through Stephen's heart. He had been blind. This was +the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs. +Philbrick and her mother. He remembered now that he had thought at the +time some of the expressions in his friend's letter argued an unusual +interest in the young widow. Of course no man could know Mercy without +loving her. Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene +and smiling face with which he bade Mercy "Good-by," and ran up his +office-stairs three steps at a time. + +All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and +cheer. It was not a conscious anticipation of the morrow: she did not say +to herself "To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour." Love +knows the secret of true joy better than that. Love throws open wider +doors,--lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life +is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a +round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are +perpetually descending to the dreamer below. + +The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than +usual. Her first thought was one of blank disappointment. "Why, I thought +he meant to walk down with me," she said to herself. Her second thought +was a perplexed instinct of the truth: "I wonder if he can be afraid to +have his mother see him with me?" At this thought, Mercy's face burned, +and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time +her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter +had become quite clear in her mind. + +"I shall see him at the corner where he was yesterday," she said. + +But no Stephen was there. Spite of herself, Mercy lingered and looked +back. She was grieved and she was vexed. + +"Why did he say he wanted to walk with me, and then the very first morning +not come?" she said, as she walked slowly into the village. + +It was a cloudy day, and the clouds seemed to harmonize with Mercy's mood. +She did her errands in a half-listless way; and more than one of the +tradespeople, who had come to know her voice and smile, wondered what had +gone wrong with the cheery young lady. All the way home she looked vainly +for Stephen at every cross-street. She fancied she heard his step behind +her; she fancied she saw his tall figure in the distance. After she +reached home and the expectation was over for that day, she took herself +angrily to task for her folly. She reminded herself that Stephen had said +"sometimes," not "always;" and that nothing could have been more unlikely +than that he should have joined her the very next day. Nevertheless, she +was full of uneasy wonder how soon he would come again; and, when the next +morning dawned clear and bright, her first thought as she sprang up was,-- + +"This is such a lovely day for a walk! He will surely come to-day." + +Again she was disappointed. Stephen left the house at a very early hour, +and walked briskly away without looking back. Mercy forced herself to go +through her usual routine of morning work. She was systematic almost to a +fault in the arrangement of her time, and any interference with her hours +was usually a severe trial of her patience. But to-day it was only by a +great effort of her will that she refrained from setting out earlier than +usual for the village. She walked rapidly until she approached the street +where Stephen had joined her before. Then she slackened her pace, and +fixed her eyes on the street. No person was to be seen in it. She walked +slower and slower: she could not believe that he was not there. Then she +began to fear that she had come a little too early. She turned to retrace +her steps; but a sudden sense of shame withheld her, and she turned back +again almost immediately, and continued her course towards the village, +walking very slowly, and now and then halting and looking back. Still no +Stephen. Street after street she passed: no Stephen. A sort of indignant +grief swelled up in Mercy's bosom; she was indignant with herself, with +him, with circumstances, with everybody; she was unreasoning and +unreasonable; she longed so to see Stephen's face that she could not think +clearly of any thing else. And yet she was ashamed of this longing. All +these struggling emotions together were too much for her; tears came into +her eyes; then vexation at the tears made them come all the faster; and, +for the first time in her life, Mercy Philbrick pulled her veil over her +face to hide that she was crying. Almost in the very moment that she had +done this, she heard a quick step behind her, and Stephen's voice +calling,-- + +"Oh, Mrs. Philbrick! Mrs. Philbrick! do not walk so fast. I am trying to +overtake you." + +Feeling as guilty as a child detected in some forbidden spot, Mercy stood +still, vainly hoping her black veil was thick enough to hide her red eyes; +vainly trying to regain her composure enough to speak in her natural +voice, and smile her usual smile. Vainly, indeed! What crape could blind a +lover's eyes, or what forced tone deceive a lover's ears? + +At his first sight of her face, Stephen started; at the first sound of her +voice, he stood still, and exclaimed,-- + +"Mrs. Philbrick, you have been crying!" There was no gainsaying it, even +if Mercy had not been too honest to make the attempt. She looked up +mischievously at him, and tried to say lightly,-- + +"What then, Mr. White? Didn't you know all women cried?" + +The voice was too tremulous. Stephen could not bear it. Forgetting that +they were on a public street, forgetting every thing but that Mercy was +crying, he exclaimed,-- + +"Mercy, what is it? Do let me help you! Can't I?" + +She did not even observe that he called her "Mercy." It seemed only +natural. Without realizing the full meaning of her words, she said,-- + +"Oh, you have helped me now," and threw up her veil, showing a face where +smiles were already triumphant. Instinct told Stephen in the same second +what she had meant, and yet had not meant to say. He dropped her hand, and +said in a low voice,-- + +"Mercy, did you really have tears in your eyes because I did not come? +Bless you, darling! I don't dare to speak to you here. Oh, pray come down +this little by-street with me." + +It was a narrow little lane behind the Brick Row into which Stephen and +Mercy turned. Although it was so near the centre of the town, it had never +been properly graded, but had been left like a wild bit of uneven field. +One side of it was walled by the Brick Row; on the other side were only a +few poverty-stricken houses, in which colored people lived. The snow lay +piled in drifts here all winter, and in spring it was an almost impassable +slough of mud. There was now no trodden path, only the track made by +sleighs in the middle of the lane. Into this strode Stephen, in his +excitement walking so fast that Mercy could hardly keep up with him. They +were too much absorbed in their own sensations and in each other to +realize the oddity of their appearance, floundering in the deep snow, +looking eagerly in each other's faces, and talking in a breathless and +disjointed way. + +"Mercy," said Stephen, "I have been walking up and down waiting for you +ever since I came out; but a man whom I could not get away from stopped +me, and I had to stand still helpless and see you walk by the street, and +I was afraid I could not overtake you." + +"Oh, was that it?" said Mercy, looking up timidly in his face. "I felt +sure you would be there this morning, because"-- + +"Because what?" said Stephen, gently. + +"Because you said you would come sometimes, and I knew very well that that +need not have meant this particular morning nor any particular morning; +and that was what vexed me so, that I should have been silly and set my +heart on it. That was what made me cry, Mr. White, I was so vexed with +myself," stoutly asserted Mercy, beginning to feel braver and more like +herself. + +Stephen looked her full in the face without speaking for a moment. Then,-- + +"May I call you Mercy?" he said. + +"Yes," she replied. + +"May I say to you exactly what I am thinking?" + +"Yes," she replied again, a little more hesitatingly. + +"Then, Mercy, this is what I want to say to you," said Stephen, earnestly. +"There is no reason why you and I should try to deceive each other or +ourselves. I care very, very much for you, and you care very much for me. +We have come very close to each other, and neither of our lives can ever +be the same again. What is in store for us in all this we cannot now see; +but it is certain we are very much to each other." + +He spoke more and more slowly and earnestly; his eyes fixed on the distant +horizon instead of on Mercy's face. A deep sadness gradually gathered on +his countenance, and his last words were spoken more in the tone of one +who felt a new exaltation of suffering than of one who felt the new +ecstasy of a lover. Looking down into Mercy's face, with a tenderness +which made her very heart thrill, he said,-- + +"Tell me, Mercy, is it not so? Are we not very much to each other?" + +The strange reticence of his tone, even more reticent than his words, had +affected Mercy inexplicably: it was as if a chill wind had suddenly blown +at noonday, and made her shiver in spite of full sunlight. Her tone was +almost as reticent and sad as his, as she said, without raising her +eyes,-- + +"I think it is true." + +"Please look up at me, Mercy," said Stephen. "I want to feel sure that you +are not sorry I care so much for you." + +"How could I be sorry?" exclaimed Mercy, lifting her eyes suddenly, and +looking into Stephen's face with all the fulness of affection of her +glowing nature. "I shall never be sorry." + +"Bless you for saying that, dear!" said Stephen, solemnly,--"bless you. +You should never be sorry a moment in your life, if I could help it; and +now, dear, I must leave you," he said, looking uneasily about. "I ought +not to have brought you into this lane. If people were to see us walking +here, they would think it strange." And, as they reached the entrance of +the lane, his manner suddenly became most ceremonious; and, extending his +hand to assist her over a drift of snow, he said in tones unnecessarily +loud and formal, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick. I am glad to have helped +you through these drifts. Good-morning," and was gone. + +Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of +bewilderment. His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow. +She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled +from it with incredulous pain. "Why should he be afraid to have people see +us together? What does it mean? What reason can he possibly have?" Scores +of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely. Her +conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being +engaged to another woman,--some old and mistaken promise by which he was +hampered. Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than +this which could explain his conduct. Restlessly her imagination fastened +on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to +decide what would be right under such circumstances. + +The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, +remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity. All the joy +which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her +died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties: and it was a +grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with +an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door. + +He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, +exclaimed,-- + +"Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?" + +"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very +gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it. + +Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was +habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so +irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features. Without +speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly +into the fire. Some minutes passed in silence. Mercy felt the tears coming +again into her eyes. What was this intangible but inexorable thing which +stood between this man's soul and hers? She could not doubt that he loved +her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of +which she had never before had even a conception. It seemed to her that +the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond +between them which nothing could hinder or harm. Why should they sit thus +silent by each other's side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full +of joy and gladness? Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on +Stephen's lips? Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert. She saw +clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was +in the dark. She could not even grope her way in this mystery. At last +Stephen spoke. + +"Mercy," he said, "perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for +you. You said yesterday you never would be." + +"Oh, no, indeed! I am not," said Mercy. "I am very glad you care so much +for me." + +"Perhaps you have discovered that you do not care so much for me as you +yesterday thought you did." + +"Oh, no, no!" replied poor Mercy, in a low tone. + +Again Stephen was silent for a long time. Then he said,-- + +"Ever since I can remember, I have longed for a perfect and absorbing +friendship. The peculiar relations of my life have prevented my even +hoping for it. My father's and my mother's friends never could be my +friends. I have lived the loneliest life a mortal man ever lived. Until I +saw you, Mercy, I had never even looked on the face of a woman whom it +seemed possible to me that any man could love. Perhaps, when I tell you +that, you can imagine what it was to me to look on the face of a woman +whom it seems to me no man could help loving. I suppose many men have +loved you, Mercy, and many more men will. I do not think any man has ever +felt for you, or ever will feel for you, as I feel. My love for you +includes every love the heart can know,--the love of father, brother, +friend, lover. Young as I am, you seem to me like my child, to be taken +care of; and you seem like my sister, to be trusted and loved; and like my +friend, to be leaned upon. You see what my life is. You see the burden +which I must carry, and which none can share. Do you think that the +friendship I can give you can be worth what it would ask? I feel withheld +and ashamed as I speak to you. I know how little I can do, how little I +can offer. To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, +Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love +you, if it is only till to-morrow!" + +Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, +flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could +give the faintest indications which way safety might lie. If she had +listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her +native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair. But every +instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was +disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded +by her profound sympathy for his suffering. + +She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very +thoughts of his heart. + +"Do you understand me, Mercy?" he said. + +"I think I do," she replied in a whisper. + +"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued. "I have not +a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it +would be wrong for me to put into words. I stand where I stand; and no +mortal can help me, except you. You can help me infinitely. Already the +joy of seeing you, hearing you, knowing that you are near, makes all my +life seem changed. It is not very much for you to give me, Mercy, after +all, out of the illimitable riches of your beauty, your brightness, your +spirit, your strength,--just a few words, just a few smiles, just a little +love,--for the few days, or it may be years, that fate sets us by each +other's side? And you, too, need a friend, Mercy. Your duty to another has +brought you where you are singularly alone, for the time being, just as my +duty to another has placed me where I must be singularly alone. Is it not +a strange chance which has thus brought us together?" + +"I do not believe any thing is chance," murmured Mercy. "I must have been +sent here for something." + +"I believe you were, dear," said Stephen, "sent here for my salvation. I +was thinking last night that, no matter if my life should end without my +ever knowing what other men call happiness, if I must live lonely and +alone to the end, I should still have the memory of you,--of your face, +of your hand, and the voice in which you said you cared for me. O Mercy, +Mercy! you have not the least conception of what you are to me!" And +Stephen stretched out both his arms to her, with unspeakable love in the +gesture. + +So swiftly that he had not the least warning of her intention, Mercy +threw herself into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. Shame +filled her soul, and burned in her cheeks, when Stephen, lifting her as he +would a child, and kissing her forehead gently, placed her again in her +chair, and said,-- + +"My darling, I cannot let you do that. I will never ask from you any thing +that you can by any possibility come to regret at some future time. I +ought perhaps to be unselfish enough not to ask from you any thing at all. +I did not mean to; but I could not help it, and it is too late now." + +"Yes, it is too late now," said Mercy,--"too late now." And she buried her +face in her hands. + +"Mercy," exclaimed Stephen, in a voice of anguish, "you will break my +heart: you will make me wish myself dead, if you show such suffering as +this. I thought that you, too, could find joy, and perhaps help, in my +love, as I could in yours. If it is to give you pain and not happiness, it +were better for you never to see me again. I will never voluntarily look +on your face after to-night, if you wish it,--if you would be happier so." + +"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy. Then, overwhelmed with the sudden realization +of the pain she was giving to a man whom she so loved that at that moment +she would have died to shield him from pain, she lifted her face, shook +back the hair from her forehead, and, looking bravely into his eyes, +repeated,-- + +"No, no! I am very selfish to feel like this. I do understand you. I +understand it all; and I will help you, and comfort you all I can. And I +do love you very dearly," she added in a lower voice, with a tone of such +incomparable sweetness that it took almost superhuman control on Stephen's +part to refrain from clasping her to his heart. But he did not betray the +impulse, even by a gesture. Looking at her with an expression of great +thankfulness, he said,-- + +"I believe that peace will come to us, Mercy. I believe I can do something +to make you happy. To know that I love you as I do will be a great deal to +you, I think." He paused. + +"Yes," answered Mercy, "a great deal." He went on,-- + +"And to know that you are perpetually helping and cheering me will be +still more to you, I think. We shall know some joys, Mercy, which joyous +lovers never know. Happy people do not need each other as sad people do. O +Mercy, do try and remember all the time that you are the one bright thing +in my life,--in my whole life." + +"I will, Stephen, I will," said Mercy, resolutely, her whole face glowing +with the new purposes forming in her heart. It was marvellous how clear +the relation between herself and Stephen began to seem to her. It was +rather by her magnetic consciousness of all that he was thinking and +feeling than by the literal acceptance of any thing or all things which he +said. She seemed to herself to be already one with him in all his trials, +burdens, perplexities; in his renunciation; in his self-sacrifice; in his +loyalty of reticence; in his humility of uncomplainingness. + +When she bade him "good-night," her face was not only serene: it was +serene with a certain exaltation added, as the face of one who had entered +into a great steadfastness of joy. Stephen wondered greatly at this +transition from the excitement and grief she had at first shown. He had +yet to learn what wellsprings of strength lie in the poetic temperament. + +As he stood lingering on the threshold, finding it almost impossible to +turn away while the sweet face held him by the honest gaze of the loving +eyes, he said, + +"There will be many times, dear, when things will have to be very hard, +when I shall not be able to do as you would like to have me, when you may +even be pained by my conduct. Shall you trust me through it all?" + +"I shall trust you till the day of my death," said Mercy, impetuously. +"One can't take trust back. It isn't a gift: it is a necessity." + +Stephen smiled,--a smile of sorrow rather than gladness. + +"But if you thought me other than you had believed?" he said. + +"I could never think you other than you are," replied Mercy, proudly. "It +is not that I 'believe' you. I know you. I shall trust you to the day of +my death." + +Perhaps nothing could illustrate better the difference between Mercy +Philbrick's nature and Stephen White's, between her love for him and his +for her, than the fact that, after this conversation, she lay awake far +into the early hours of the morning, living over every word that he had +spoken, looking resolutely and even joyously into the strange future which +was opening before her, and scanning with loving intentness every chance +that it could possibly hold for her ministrations to him. He, on the other +hand, laid his head on his pillow with a sense of dreamy happiness, and +sank at once into sleep, murmuring,-- + +"The darling! how she does love me! She shall never regret it,--never. We +can have a great deal of happiness together as it is; and if the time ever +should come," ... + +Here his thoughts halted, and refused to be clothed in explicit phrase. +Never once had Stephen White permitted himself to think in words, even in +his most secret meditations, "When my mother dies, I shall be free." His +fine fastidiousness would shrink from it, as from the particular kind of +brutality and bad taste involved in a murder. If the whole truth could +have been known of Stephen's feeling about all crimes and sins, it would +have been found to be far more a matter of taste than of principle, of +instinct than of conviction. + +Surely never in this world did love link together two souls more +diametrically opposite than Mercy Philbrick's and Stephen White's. It +needed no long study or especial insight into character to know which of +the two would receive the more and suffer the less, in the abnormal and +unfortunate relation on which they had entered. But no presentiment warned +Mercy of what lay before her. She was like a traveller going into a +country whose language he has never heard, and whose currency he does not +understand. However eloquent he may be in his own land, he is dumb and +helpless here; and of the fortune with which he was rich at home he is +robbed at every turn by false exchanges which impose on his ignorance. +Poor Mercy! Vaguely she felt that life was cruel to Stephen and to her; +but she accepted its cruelty to her as an inevitable part of her oneness +with him. Whatever he had to bear she must bear too, especially if he were +helped by her sharing the burden. And her heart glowed with happiness, +recalling the expression with which he had said,-- + +"Remember, Mercy, you are the one bright thing in my life." + +She understood, or thought she understood, precisely the position in which +he was placed. + +"Very possibly he has even promised his mother," she said to herself, +"even promised her he would never be married. It would be just like her to +exact such a promise from him, and never think any thing of it. And, even +if he has not, it is all the same. He knows very well no human being could +live in the house with her, to say nothing of his being so terribly poor. +Poor, dear Stephen! to think of our little rent being more than half his +income! Oh, if there were only some way in which I could contrive to give +him money without his knowing it." + +If any one had said to Mercy at this time: "It was not honorable in this +man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his +love, and to allow you to show him yours for him. He is putting you in a +false position, and may be blighting your whole life," Mercy would have +repelled the accusation most indignantly. She would have said: "He has +never asked me for any such love as that. He told me most honestly in the +very beginning just how it was. He always said he would never fetter me by +a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into +his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put +me away from him almost with a reproof. No, indeed! he is the very soul of +honor. It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my +strength. Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being +his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her? It is just as sacred and +just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more +unselfish. If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father, +for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of +being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards +him?" + +It looked very plain to Mercy in these first days. It looked right, and it +seemed very full of joy. Her life seemed now rounded and complete. It had +a ruling motive, without which no life is satisfying; and that motive was +the highest motive known to the heart,--the desire to make another human +being perfectly happy. All hindrances and difficulties, all drawbacks and +sacrifices, seemed less than nothing to her. When she saw Stephen, she was +happy because she saw him; and when she did not see him, she was happy +because she had seen him, and would soon see him again. Past, present, +and future all melt into one great harmonious whole under the spell of +love in a nature like Mercy's. They are like so many rooms in one great +house; and in one or the other the loved being is always to be found, +always at home, can never depart! Could one be lonely for a moment in such +a house? + +Mercy's perpetual and abiding joy at times terrified Stephen. It was a +thing so foreign to his own nature that it seemed to him hardly natural. +Calm acquiescence he could understand,--serene endurance: he himself never +chafed at the barriers, little or great, which kept him from Mercy. But +there were many days when his sense of deprivation made him sad, subdued, +and quiet. When, in these moods, he came into Mercy's presence, and found +her radiant, buoyant, mirthful even, he wondered; and sometimes he +questioned. He strove to find out the secret of her joy. There seemed to +him no legitimate reason for it. + +"Why, to see that I make you glad, Stephen," she would say. "Is not that +enough? Or even, when I cannot make you glad, just to love you is enough." + +"Mercy, how did you ever come to love me?" he said once, stung by a sense +of his own unworthiness. "How do you know you love me, after all?" + +"How do I know I love you!" she exclaimed. "Can any one ever tell that, I +wonder? I know it by this: that every thing in the whole world, even down +to the smallest grass-blade, seems to me different because you are alive." +She said these words with a passionate vehemence, and tears in her eyes. +Then, changing in a second to a mischievous, laughing mood, she said,-- + +"Yes: you make all that odds to me. But let us not talk about loving each +other, Stephen. That's the way children do with their flower-seeds,--keep +pulling them up, to see how they grow." + +That night, Mercy gave Stephen this sonnet,--the first words she had +written out of the great wellspring of her love:-- + + "HOW WAS IT?" + + Why ask, dear one? I think I cannot tell, + More than I know how clouds so sudden lift + From mountains, or how snowflakes float and drift, + Or springs leave hills. One secret and one spell + All true things have. No sunlight ever fell + With sound to bid flowers open. Still and swift + Come sweetest things on earth. + So comes true gift + Of Love, and so we know that it is well. + Sure tokens also, like the cloud, the snow, + And silent flowing of the mountain-springs, + The new gift of true loving always brings. + In clearer light, in purer paths, we go: + New currents of deep joy in common things + We find. These are the tokens, dear, we know! + + + + +Chapter VIII. + + + +As the months went on, Mercy began to make friends. One person after +another observed her bright face, asked who she was, and came to seek her +out. "Who is that girl with fair hair and blue eyes, who, whenever you +meet her in the street, always looks as if she had just heard some good +news?" was asked one day. It was a noteworthy thing that this description +was so instantly recognized by the person inquired of, that he had no +hesitancy in replying,-- + +"Oh, that is a young widow from Cape Cod, a Mrs. Philbrick. She came last +winter with her mother, who is an invalid. They live in the old Jacobs +house with the Whites." + +Among the friends whom Mercy thus met was a man who was destined to +exercise almost as powerful an influence as Stephen White over her life. +This was Parson Dorrance. + +Parson Dorrance had in his youth been settled as a Congregationalist +minister. But his love of literature and of science was even stronger than +his love of preaching the gospel; and, after a very few years, he accepted +a position as professor in a small college, in a town only four miles +distant from the village in which Mercy had come to live. This was +twenty-five years ago. Parson Dorrance was now fifty-five years old. For a +quarter of a century, his name had been the pride, and his hand had been +the stay, of the college. It had had presidents of renown and professors +of brilliant attainments; but Parson Dorrance held a position more +enviable than all. Few lives of such simple and steadfast heroism have +ever been lived. Few lives have ever so stamped the mark of their +influence on a community. In the second year of his ministry, Mr. Dorrance +had married a very beautiful and brilliant woman. Probably no two young +people ever began married life with a fairer future before them than +these. Mrs. Dorrance was as exceptionally clever and cultured a person as +her husband; and she added to these rare endowments a personal beauty +which is said by all who knew her in her girlhood to have been marvellous. +But, as is so often the case among New England women of culture, the body +had paid the cost of the mind's estate; and, after the birth of her first +child, she sank at once into a hopeless invalidism,--an invalidism all the +more difficult to bear, and to be borne with, that it took the shape of +distressing nervous maladies which no medical skill could alleviate. The +brilliant mind became almost a wreck, and yet retained a preternatural +restlessness and activity. Many regarded her condition as insanity, and +believed that Mr. Dorrance erred in not giving her up to the care of those +making mental disorders a specialty. But his love and patience were +untiring. When her mental depression and suffering reached such a stage +that she could not safely see a human face but his, he shut himself up +with her in her darkened room till the crisis had passed. There were times +when she could not close her eyes in sleep unless he sat by her side, +holding her hand in his, and gently stroking it. He spent weeks of nights +by her bedside in this way. At any hour of the day, a summons might come +from her; and, whatever might be his engagement, it was instantly laid +aside,--laid aside, too, with cheerfulness and alacrity. At times, all his +college duties would be suspended on her account; and his own specialties +of scientific research, in which he was beginning to win recognition even +from the great masters of science in Europe, were very early laid aside +for ever. It must have been a great pang to him,--this relinquishment of +fame, and of what is dearer to the true scientific man than all fame, the +joys of discovery; but no man ever heard from his lips an allusion to the +sacrifice. The great telescope, with which he had so many nights swept the +heavens, still stood in his garden observatory; but it was little used +except for recreation, and for the pleasure and instruction of his boy. +Yet no one would have dreamed, from the hearty joy with which he used it +for these purposes, that it had ever been to him the token and the +instrument of the great hope of his heart. The resolute cheer of this +man's life pervaded the whole atmosphere of his house. Spite of the +perpetual shadow of the invalid's darkened room, spite of the inevitable +circumscribing of narrow means, Parson Dorrance's cottage was the +pleasantest house in the place, was the house to which all the +townspeople took strangers with pride, and was the house which strangers +never forgot. There was always a new book, or a new print, or a new +flower, or a new thought which the untiring mind had just been shaping; +and there were always and ever the welcome and the sympathy of a man who +loved men because he loved God, and who loved God with an affection as +personal in its nature as the affection with which he loved a man. + +Year after year, classes of young men went away from this college, having +for four years looked on the light of this goodness. Said I not well that +few lives have ever been lived which have left such a stamp on a +community? No man could be so gross that he would utterly fail to feel its +purity, no man so stupid that he could not see its grandeur of +self-sacrifice; and to souls of a fibre fine enough to be touched to the +quick by its exaltation, it was-a kindling fire for ever. + +In the twenty-seventh year of her married life, and near the end of the +twenty-fifth year of her confinement to her room, Mrs. Dorrance died. For +a few months after her death, her husband seemed like a man suddenly +struck blind in the midst of familiar objects. He seemed to be groping his +way, to have lost all plan of daily life, so tremendous was the change +involved in the withdrawal of this perpetual burden. Just as he was +beginning to recover the natural tone of his mind, and to resume his old +habits of work, his son sickened and died. The young man had never been +strong: he had inherited his mother's delicacy of constitution, and her +nervous excitability as well; but he had rare qualities of mind, and gave +great promise as a scholar. The news of his death was a blow to every +heart that loved his father. "This will kill the Parson," was said by +sorrowing voices far and near. On the contrary, it seemed to be the very +thing which cleared the atmosphere of his whole life, and renewed his +vigor and energy. He rose up from the terrible grief more majestic than +ever, as some grand old tree, whose young shoots and branches have been +torn away by fierce storms, seems to lift its head higher than before, and +to tower in its stripped loneliness above all its fellows. All the loving +fatherhood of his nature was spent now on the young people of his town; +and, by young people, I mean all between the ages of four and twenty. +There was hardly a baby that did not know Parson Dorrance, and stretch out +its arms to him; there was hardly a young man or a young woman who did not +go to him with troubles or perplexities. You met him, one day, drawing a +huge sledful of children on the snow; another day, walking in the centre +of a group of young men and maidens, teaching them as he walked. They all +loved him as a comrade, and reverenced him as a teacher. They wanted him +at their picnics; and, whenever he preached, they flocked to hear him. It +was a significant thing that his title of Professor was never heard. From +first to last, he was always called "Parson Dorrance;" and there were few +Sundays on which he did not preach at home or abroad. It was one of the +forms of his active benevolence. If a poor minister broke down and needed +rest, Parson Dorrance preached for him, for one month or for three, as the +case required. If a little church were without a pastor and could not find +one, or were in debt and could not afford to hire one, it sent to ask +Parson Dorrance to supply the pulpit; and he always went. Finally, not +content with these ordinary and established channels for preaching the +gospel, he sought out for himself a new one. About eight miles from the +village there was a negro settlement known as "The Cedars." It was a wild +place. Great outcropping ledges of granite, with big boulders toppling +over, and piled upon each other, and all knotted together by the gnarled +roots of ancient cedar-trees, made the place seem like ruins of old +fortresses. There were caves of great depth, some of them with two +entrances, in which, in the time of the fugitive slave law, many a poor +hunted creature had had safe refuge. Besides the cedar-trees, there were +sugar-maples and white birches; and the beautiful rock ferns grew all over +the ledges in high waving tufts, almost as luxuriantly as if they were in +the tropics; so that the spot, wild and fierce as it was, had great +beauty. Many of the fugitive slaves had built themselves huts here: some +lived in the caves. A few poor and vicious whites had joined them, +intermarried with them, and from these had gradually grown up a band of as +mongrel, miserable vagabonds as is often seen. They were the terror of the +neighborhood. Except for their supreme laziness, they would have been as +dangerous as brigands; for they were utter outlaws. No man cared for them; +and they cared for no man. Parson Dorrance's heart yearned over these +poor Ishmaelites; and he determined to see if they were irreclaimable. The +first thing that his townsmen knew of his plan was his purchase of several +acres of land near "The Cedars." He bought it very cheap, because land in +that vicinity was held to be worthless for purposes of cultivation. Unless +the crops were guarded night and day, they were surreptitiously harvested +by foragers from "The Cedars." Then it was found out that Parson Dorrance +was in the habit of driving over often to look at his new property. +Gradually, the children became used to his presence, and would steal out +and talk to him. Then he carried over a small microscope, and let them +look through it at insects; and before long there might have been seen, on +a Sunday afternoon, a group of twenty or thirty of the outcasts gathered +round the Parson, while he talked to them as he had talked to the +children. Then he told them that, if they would help, he would build a +little house on his ground, and put some pictures and maps in it for them, +and come over every Sunday and talk to them; and they set to work with a +will. Very many were the shrugs and smiles over "Parson Dorrance's Chapel +at 'The Cedars.'" But the chapel was built; and the Parson preached in it +to sometimes seventy-five of the outlaws. The next astonishment of the +Parson's friends was on finding him laying out part of his new land in a +nursery of valuable young fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Then they +said,-- + +"Really, the Parson is mad! Does he think he has converted all those +negroes, so that they won't steal fruit?" And, when they met the Parson, +they laughed at him. "Come, come, Parson," they said, "this is carrying +the thing a little too far, to trust a fruit orchard over there by 'The +Cedars.'" + +Parson Dorrance's eyes twinkled. + +"I know the boys better than you do," he replied. "They will not steal a +single pear." + +"I'd like to wager you something on that," said the friend. + +"Well, I couldn't exactly take such a wager," answered the Parson, +"because you see I know the boys won't steal the fruit." + +Somewhat vexed at the obstinacy of the Parson's faith, his friend +exclaimed, "I'd like to know how you can know that beforehand?" + +Parson Dorrance loved a joke. + +"Neighbor," said he, "I wish I could in honor have let you wager me on +that. I've given the orchard to the boys. The fruit's all their own." + +This was the man whom Mercy Philbrick met early in her first summer at +Penfield. She had heard him preach twice, and had been so greatly +impressed by his words and by his face that she longed very much to know +him. She had talked with Stephen about him, but had found that Stephen did +not sympathize at all in her enthusiasm. "The people over at Danby are all +crazy about him, I think," said Stephen. "He is a very good man no doubt, +and does no end of things for the college boys, that none of the other +professors do. But I think he is quixotic and sentimental; and all this +stuff about those niggers at the Cedars is moonshine. They'd pick his very +pocket, I daresay, any day; and he'd never suspect them. I know that lot +too well. The Lord himself couldn't convert them." + +"Oh, Stephen! I think you are wrong," replied Mercy. "Parson Dorrance is +not sentimental, I am sure. His sermons were clear and logical and +terse,--not a waste word in them; and his mouth and chin are as strong as +an old Roman's." + +Stephen looked earnestly at Mercy. "Mercy," said he, "I wonder if you +would love me better if I were a preacher, and could preach clear, +logical, and terse sermons?" + +Mercy was impatient. Already the self-centring of Stephen's mind, his +instant reverting from most trains of thought to their possible bearing on +her love for him, had begun to irritate her. It was so foreign to her own +unconscious, free-souled acceptance and trust. + +"Stephen," she exclaimed, "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Besides +seeming to imply a sort of distrust of my love for you, they are +illogical; and you know there is nothing I hate like bad logic." + +Stephen made no reply. The slightest approach to a disagreement between +Mercy and himself gave him great pain and a sense of terror; and he took +refuge instantly behind his usual shield of silence. This also was foreign +to Mercy's habit and impulse. When any thing went wrong, it was Mercy's +way to speak out honestly; to have the matter set in all its lights, until +it could reach its true one. She hated mystery; she hated reticence; she +hated every thing which fell short of full and frank understanding of each +other. + +"Oh, Stephen!" she used to say often, "it is bad enough for us to be +forced into keeping things back from the world. Don't let us keep any +thing back from each other." + +Poor Mercy! the days were beginning to be hard for her. Her face often +wore a look of perplexed thought which was very new to it. Still she never +wavered for a moment in her devotion to Stephen. If she had stood +acknowledged before all the world as his wife, she could not have been any +more single-hearted and unquestioning in her loyalty. + +It was at a picnic in which the young people of both Danby and Penfield +had joined that Mercy met Parson Dorrance. No such gathering was ever +thought complete without the Parson's presence. Again and again one might +hear it said in the preliminary discussion: "But we must find out first +what day Parson Dorrance can go. It won't be any fun without him!" + +Until Mercy came, Stephen White had rarely been asked to the pleasurings +of the young people in Penfield. There was a general impression that he +did not care for things of that sort. His manner was wrongly interpreted, +however: it was really only the constraint born of the feeling that he was +out of his place, or that nobody wanted him. He watched in silent wonder +the cordial way in which, it seemed to him, that Mercy talked with +everybody, and made everybody feel happy. + +"Oh, Mercy, how can you!" he would exclaim: "I feel so dumb, even while I +am talking the fastest!" + +"Why, so do I, Stephen," said Mercy. "I am often racking my brains to +think what I shall say next. Half the people I meet are profoundly +uninteresting to me; and half of the other half paralyze me at first +sight, and I feel like such a hypocrite all the time; but, oh, what a +pleasure it is to talk with the other quarter!" + +"Yes," sighed Stephen, "you look so happy and absorbed sometimes that it +makes me feel as if you had forgotten me altogether." + +"Silly boy!" laughed Mercy. "Do you want me to prove to you by a long face +that I am remembering you?--Darling," she added, "at those very times when +you see me seem so absorbed and happy in company, I am most likely +thinking about the last time you looked into my face, or the next time you +will." + +And for once Stephen was satisfied. + +The picnic at which Mercy met Parson Dorrance had taken place on a +mountain some six miles south-west of Penfield. This mountain was the +western extremity of the range of which I have before spoken; and at its +base ran the river which made the meadow-lands of Penfield and Danby so +beautiful. Nowhere in America is there a lovelier picture than these +meadow-lands, seen from the top of this mountain which overhangs them. The +mountain is only about twenty-five hundred feet high: therefore, one loses +no smallest shade of color in the view; even the difference between the +green of broom-corn and clover records itself to the eye looking down from +the mountain-top. As far as one can see to northward the valley stretches +in bands and belts and spaces of varied tints of green. The river winds +through it in doubling curves, and looks from the height like a line of +silver laid in loops on an enamelled surface. To the east and the west +rise the river terraces, higher and higher, becoming, at last, lofty and +abrupt hills at the horizon. + +When Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy, she was alone on a spur of +rock which jutted out from the mountain-side and overhung the valley. She +had wandered away from the gay and laughing company, and was sitting +alone, absorbed and almost saddened by the unutterable beauty of the +landscape below. Stephen had missed her, but had not yet dared to go in +search of her. He imposed on himself a very rigid law in public, and never +permitted himself to do or say or even look any thing which could suggest +to others the intimacy of their relations. Mercy sometimes felt this so +keenly that she reproached him. "I can't see why you should think it +necessary to avoid me so," she would say. "You treat me exactly as if I +were only a common acquaintance." + +"That is exactly what I wish to have every one believe you to be, Mercy," +Stephen would reply with emphasis. "That is the only safe course. Once let +people begin to associate our names together, and there is no limit to the +things they would say. We cannot be too careful. That is one thing you +must let me be the judge of, dear. You cannot understand it as I do. So +long as I am without the right or the power to protect you, my first duty +is to shield you from any or all gossip linking our names together." + +Mercy felt the justice of this; and yet to her there seemed also a sort +of injustice involved in it. She felt stung often, and wounded, in spite +of all reasoning with herself that she had no cause to do so, that Stephen +was but doing right. So inevitable and inextricable are pains and dilemmas +when once we enter on the paths of concealment. + +Parson Dorrance was introduced to Mercy by Mrs. Hunter, a young married +woman, who was fast becoming her most intimate friend. Mrs. Hunter's +father had been settled as the minister of a church in Penfield, in the +same year that Parson Dorrance had taken his professorship in Danby, and +the two men had been close friends from that day till the day of Mr. +Adams's death. Little Lizzy Adams had been Parson Dorrance's pet when she +lay in her cradle. He had baptized her; and, when she came to woman's +estate, he had performed the ceremony which gave her in marriage to Luke +Hunter, the most promising young lawyer in the county. + +She had always called Parson Dorrance her uncle, and her house in Penfield +was his second home. It had been Mrs. Hunter's wish for a long time that +he should see and know her new friend, Mercy. But Mercy was very shy of +seeing the man for whom she felt such reverence, and had steadily refused +to meet him. It was therefore with a certain air of triumphant +satisfaction that Mrs. Hunter led Parson Dorrance to the rock where Mercy +was sitting, and exclaimed,-- + +"There, Uncle Dorrance! here she is!" + +Parson Dorrance did not wait for any farther introduction; but; holding +out both his hands to Mercy, he said in a deep, mellow voice, and with a +tone which had a benediction in it,-- + +"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Philbrick. My child Lizzy here has been +telling me about you for a long time. You know I'm the same as a father to +her; so you can't escape me, if you are going to be her friend." + +Mercy looked up half-shamefacedly and half-archly, and replied,-- + +"It was not that I wanted to escape you; but I wanted you to escape me." +She perceived that the Parson had been told of her refusals to meet him. +Then they all sat down again on the jutting rock; and Mercy, leaning +forward with her hands clasped on her knees, fixed her eyes on Parson +Dorrance's face, and drank in every word that he said. He had a rare +faculty of speaking with the greatest simplicity, both of language and +manner. It was impossible not to feel at ease in his presence. It was +impossible not to tell him all that he asked. Before you knew it, you were +speaking to him of your own feelings, tastes, the incidents of your life, +your plans and purposes, as if he were a species of father confessor. He +questioned you so gently, yet with such an air of right; he listened so +observantly and sympathetically. He did not treat Mercy Philbrick as a +stranger; for Mrs. Hunter had told him already all she knew of her +friend's life, and had showed him several of Mercy's poems, which had +surprised him much by their beauty, and still more by their condensation +of thought. They seemed to him almost more masculine than feminine; and +he had unconsciously anticipated that in seeing Mercy he would see a woman +of masculine type. He was greatly astonished. He could not associate this +slight, fair girl, with a child's honesty and appeal in her eyes, with the +forceful words he had read from her pen. He pursued his conversation with +her eagerly, seeking to discover the secret of her style, to trace back +the poetry from its flower to its root. It was an astonishment to Mercy to +find herself talking about her own verses with this stranger whom she so +reverenced. But she felt at once as if she had sat at his feet all her +life, and had no right to withhold any thing from her master. + +"I suppose, Mrs. Philbrick, you have read the earlier English poets a +great deal, have you not?" he said. "I infer so from the style of some of +your poems." + +"Oh, no!" exclaimed Mercy, in honest vehemence. "I have read hardly any +thing, Mr. Dorrance. I know Herbert a little; but most of the old English +poets I have never even seen. I have never lived where there were any +books till now." + +"You love Wordsworth, I hope," he said inquiringly. + +Mercy turned very red, and answered in a tone of desperation, "I've tried +to. Mr. Allen said I must. But I can't. I don't care any thing about him." +And she looked at the Parson with the air of a culprit who has confessed a +terrible misdemeanor. + +"Ah," he replied, "you have not then reached the point in the journey at +which one sees him. It is only a question of time: one comes of a sudden +into the presence of Wordsworth, as a traveller finds some day, upon a +well-known road, a grand cathedral, into which he turns aside and +worships, and wonders how it happens that he never before saw it. You will +tell me some day that this has happened to you. It is only a question of +time." + +Just as Parson Dorrance pronounced the last words, they were echoed by a +laughing party who had come in search of him. "Yes, yes, only a question +of time," they said; "and it is our time now, Parson. You must come with +us. No monopoly of the Parson allowed, Mrs. Hunter," and they carried him +off, joining hands around him and singing the old college song, "Gaudeamus +igitur." + +Stephen, who had joined eagerly in the proposal to go in search of the +Parson, remained behind, and made a sign to Mercy to stay with him. +Sitting down by her side, he said gloomily,-- + +"What were you talking about when we came up? Your face looked as if you +were listening to music." + +"About Wordsworth," said Mercy. "Parson Dorrance said such a beautiful +thing about him. It was like music, like far off music," and she repeated +it to Stephen. "I wonder if I shall ever reach that cathedral," she added. + +"Well, I've never reached it," said Stephen, "and I'm a good deal older +than you. I think two thirds of Wordsworth's poetry is imbecile, +absolutely imbecile." + +Mercy was too much under the spell of Parson Dorrance's recent words to +sympathize in this; but she had already learned to avoid dissent from +Stephen's opinions, and she made no reply. They were sitting on the edge +of a great fissure in the mountain. Some terrible convulsion must have +shaken the huge mass to its centre, to have made such a rift. At the +bottom ran a stream, looking from this height like little more than a +silver thread. Shrubs and low flowering things were waving all the way +down the sides of the abyss, as if nature had done her best to fill up the +ugly wound. Many feet below them, on a projecting rock, waved one little +white blossom, so fragile it seemed as if each swaying motion in the +breeze must sever it from the stem. + +"Oh, see the dainty, brave little thing!" exclaimed Mercy. "It looks as if +it were almost alone in space." + +"I will get it for you," said Stephen; and, before Mercy could speak to +restrain him, he was far down the precipice. With a low ejaculation of +terror, Mercy closed her eyes. She would not look on Stephen in such +peril. She did not move nor open her eyes, until he stood by her side, +exclaiming, "Why, Mercy! my darling, do not look so! There was no danger," +and he laid the little plant in her hand. She looked at it in silence for +a moment, and then said,-- + +"Oh, Stephen! to risk your life for such a thing as that! The sight of it +will always make me shudder." + +"Then I will throw it away," said Stephen, endeavoring to take it from her +hand; but she held it only the tighter, and whispered,-- + +"No! oh, what a moment! what a moment! I shall keep this flower as long as +I live!" And she did,--kept it wrapped in a paper, on which were written +the following lines:-- + + A MOMENT. + + Lightly as an insect floating + In the sunny summer air, + Waved one tiny snow-white blossom, + From a hidden crevice growing, + Dainty, fragile-leaved, and fair, + Where great rocks piled up like mountains, + Well-nigh to the shining heavens, + Rose precipitous and bare, + With a pent-up river rushing, + Foaming as at boiling heat + Wildly, madly, at their feet. + + Hardly with a ripple stirring + The sweet silence by its tone, + Fell a woman's whisper lightly,-- + "Oh, the dainty, dauntless blossom! + What deep secret of its own + Keeps it joyous and light-hearted, + O'er this dreadful chasm swinging, + Unsupported and alone, + With no help or cheer from kindred? + Oh, the dainty, dauntless thing, + Bravest creature of the spring!" + + Then the woman saw her lover, + For one instant saw his face, + Down the precipice slow sinking, + Looking up at her, and sending + Through the shimmering, sunny space + Look of love and subtle triumph, + As he plucked the tiny blossom + In its airy, dizzy place,-- + Plucked it, smiling, as if danger + Were not danger to the hand + Of true lover in love's land. + + In her hands her face she buried, + At her heart the blood grew chill; + In that one brief moment crowded + The whole anguish of a lifetime, + Made her every pulse stand still. + Like one dead she sat and waited, + Listening to the stirless silence, + Ages in a second, till, + Lightly leaping, came her lover, + And, still smiling, laid the sweet + Snow-white blossom at her feet. + + "O my love! my love!" she shuddered, + "Bloomed that flower by Death's own spell? + Was thy life so little moment, + Life and love for that one blossom + Wert thou ready thus to sell? + O my precious love! for ever + I shall keep this faded token + Of the hour which came to tell, + In such voice I scarce dared listen, + How thy life to me had grown + So much dearer than my own!" + +On their way home from the picnic late in the afternoon, they came at the +base of the mountain to a beautiful spot where two little streams met. The +two streams were in sight for a long distance: one shining in a green +meadow; the other leaping and foaming down a gorge in the mountain-side. A +little inn, which was famous for its beer, stood on the meadow space, +bounded by these two streams; and the picnic party halted before its door. +While the white foamy glasses were clinked and tossed, Mercy ran down the +narrow strip of land at the end of which the streams met. A little +thicket of willows grew there. Standing on the very edge of the shore, +Mercy broke off a willow wand, and dipped it to right in the meadow +stream, to the left in the stream from the gorge. Then she brought it back +wet and dripping. + +"It has drank of two waters," she cried, holding it up. "Oh, you ought to +see how wonderful it is to watch their coming together at that point! For +a little while you can trace the mountain water by itself in the other: +then it is all lost, and they pour on together." This picture, also, she +set in a frame of verse one day, and gave it to Stephen. + + On a green point of sunny land, + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high, + I stood alone as dreamers stand, + And watched two streams that hurried by. + + One ran to east, and one to south; + They leaped and sparkled in the sun; + They foamed like racers at the mouth, + And laughed as if the race were won. + + Just on the point of sunny land + A low bush stood, like umpire fair, + Waving green banners in its hand, + As if the victory to declare. + + Ah, victory won, but not by race! + Ah, victory by a sweeter name! + To blend for ever in embrace, + Unconscious, swift, the two streams came. + + One instant, separate, side by side + The shining currents seemed to pour; + Then swept in one tumultuous tide, + Swifter and stronger than before. + + O stream to south! O stream to east! + Which bears the other, who shall see? + Which one is most, which one is least, + In this surrendering victory? + + To that green point of sunny land, + Hemmed in by mountains stern and high, + I called my love, and, hand in hand, + We watched the streams that hurried by. + + + + +Chapter IX. + + + +It was a turning-point in Mercy's life when she met Parson Dorrance. Here +at last was a man who had strength enough to influence her, culture enough +to teach her, and the firm moral rectitude which her nature so inexorably +demanded. During the first few weeks of their acquaintance, Mercy was +conscious of an insatiable desire to be in his presence: it was an +intellectual and a moral thirst. Nothing could be farther removed from the +absorbing consciousness which passionate love feels of its object, than +was this sentiment she felt toward Parson Dorrance. If he had been a being +from another planet, it could not have been more so. In fact, it was very +much as if another planet had been added to her world,--a planet which +threw brilliant light into every dark corner of this one. She questioned +him eagerly. Her old doubts and perplexities, which Mr. Allen's narrower +mind had been unable to comprehend or to help, were now set at rest and +cleared up by a spiritual vision far keener than her own. Her mind was fed +and trained by an intellect so much stronger than her own that it +compelled her assent and her allegiance. She came to him almost as a +maiden, in the ancient days of Greece, would have gone to the oracle of +the holiest shrine. Parson Dorrance in his turn was as much impressed by +Mercy; but he was never able to see in her simply the pupil, the +questioner. To him she was also a warm and glowing personality, a young +and beautiful woman. Parson Dorrance's hair was white as snow; but his +eyes were as keen and dark as in his youth, his step as firm, and his +pulse as quick. Long before he dreamed of such a thing, he might have +known, if he had taken counsel of his heart, that Mercy was becoming to +him the one woman in the world. There was always this peculiarity in +Mercy's influence upon all who came to love her. She was so unique and +incalculable a person that she made all other women seem by comparison +with her monotonous and wearying. Intimacy with her had a subtle flavor to +it, by which other flavors were dulled. The very impersonality of her +enthusiasms and interests, her capacity for looking on a person for the +time being merely as a representative or mouth-piece, so to speak, of +thoughts, of ideas, of narrations, was one of her strongest charms. By +reason of this, the world was often unjust to her in its comments on her +manner, on her relations with men. The world more than once accused her +uncharitably of flirting. But the men with whom she had friendships knew +better; and now and then a woman had the insight to be just to her, to see +that she was quite capable of regarding a human being as objectively as +she would a flower or a mountain or a star. The blending of this trait in +her with the strong capacity she had for loving individuals was singular; +not more so, perhaps, than the blending of the poetic temperament with the +active, energetic, and practical side of her nature. + +It was not long before her name began to be mentioned in connection with +Parson Dorrance's, by the busy tongues which are always in motion in small +villages. It was not long, moreover, before a thought and a hope, in which +both these names were allied, crept into the heart of Lizzy Hunter. + +"Oh," she thought, "if only Uncle Dorrance would marry Mercy, how happy I +should be, she would be, every one would be." + +No suspicion of the relation in which Mercy stood to Stephen White had +ever crossed Mrs. Hunter's mind. She had never known Stephen until +recently; and his manner towards her had been from the outset so chilled +and constrained by his unconscious jealousy of every new friend Mercy +made, that she had set him down in her own mind as a dull and surly man, +and rarely thought of him. And, as one of poor Mercy's many devices for +keeping up with her conscience a semblance of honesty in the matter of +Stephen was the entire omission of all reference to him in her +conversation, nothing occurred to remind her friends of him. Parson +Dorrance, indeed, had said to her one day,-- + +"You never speak of Mr. White, Mercy. Is he an agreeable and kind +landlord?" + +Mercy started, looked bewilderedly in the Parson's face, and repeated his +words mechanically,-- + +"Landlord?" Then recollecting herself, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes! we do pay +rent to him; but it was paid for the whole year in advance, and I had +forgotten all about it." + +Parson Dorrance had had occasion to distrust Stephen's father, and he +distrusted the son. "Advance? advance?" he exclaimed. "Why did you do +that, child? That was all wrong." + +"Oh, no!" said Mercy, eagerly. "I had the money, and it made no difference +to me; and Mr. Allen told me that Mr. White was in a great strait for +money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible +burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White, +until she had effectually led the conversation away from Stephen. + +When Lizzy Hunter first began to recognize the possibility of her Uncle +Dorrance's loving her dear friend Mercy, she found it very hard to +refrain, in her talks with Mercy, from all allusions to such a +possibility. But she knew instinctively that any such suggestion would +terrify Mercy, and make her withdraw herself altogether. So she contented +herself with talking to her in what she thought were safe generalizations +on the subject of marriage. Lizzy Hunter was one of the clinging, +caressing, caressable women, who nestle into men's affections as kittens +nestle into warm corners, and from very much the same motives,--love of +warmth and shelter, and of being fondled. To all these instincts in Lizzy, +however, were added a really beautiful motherliness and great loyalty of +affection. If the world held more such women, there would be more happy +children and contented husbands. + +"Mercy," said she one afternoon, earnestly, "Mercy, it makes me perfectly +wretched to have you say so confidently that you will never be married. +You don't know what you are talking about: you don't realize in the least +what it is for a woman to live alone and homeless to the end of her days." + +"I never need be homeless, dear," said Mercy. "I shall always have a home, +even after mother is no longer with me; and I am afraid that is very near, +she has failed so much this past summer. But, even if I were all alone, I +should still keep my home." + +"A house isn't a home, Mercy!" exclaimed Lizzy. Of course you can always +be comfortable, so far as a roof and food go towards comfort." + +"And that's a great way, my Lizzy," interrupted Mercy, laughing,--"a great +way. No husband could possibly take the place of them, could he?" + +"Now, Mercy, don't talk so. You know very well what I mean," replied +Lizzy. "It is so forlorn for a woman not to have anybody need her, not to +have anybody to love her more than he loves all the rest of the world, and +not to have anybody to love herself. Oh, Mercy, I don't see how any woman +lives without it!" + +The tears came into Mercy's eyes. There were depths of lovingness in her +soul of which a woman like Lizzy could not even dream. But she spoke in a +resolute tone, and she spoke very honestly, too, when she said,-- + +"Well, I don't see how any woman can help living very well without it, if +it doesn't come to her. I don't see how any human being--man or woman, +single or married--can help being glad to be alive under any conditions. +It is such a glorious thing to have a soul and a body, and to get the most +out of them. Just from the purely selfish point of view, it seems to me a +delight to live; and when you look at it from a higher point, and think +how much each human being can do for those around him, why, then it is +sublime. Look at Parson Dorrance, Lizzy! Just think of the sum of the +happiness that man has created in this world! He isn't lonely. He couldn't +think of such a thing." + +"Yes, he is, too,--I know he is," said Lizzy, impetuously. "The very way +he takes up my children and hugs them and kisses them shows that he longs +for a home and children of his own." + +"I think not," replied Mercy. "It is all part of the perpetual overflow of +his benevolence. He can't pass by a living creature, if it is only a dog, +without a desire to give it a moment's happiness. Of happiness for himself +he never thinks, because he is on a plane above happiness,--a plane of +perpetual joy." Mercy hesitated, paused, and then went on, "I don't mean +to be irreverent, but I could never think of his needing personal +ministrations to his own happiness, any more than I could think of God's +needing them. I think he is on a plane as absolutely above such needs as +God is. Not so high above, but as absolutely." + +"How are you so sure God is above it?" said Lizzy, timidly. "I can't +conceive of God's being happy if nobody loved him." + +Mercy was startled by these words from Lizzy, who rarely questioned and +never philosophized. She opened her lips to reply with a hasty reiteration +of her first sentiment, but the words died even before they were spoken, +arrested by her sudden consciousness of the possibility of a grand truth +underlying Lizzy's instinct. If that were so, did it not lie out far +beyond every fact in life, include and control them all, as the great +truth of gravitation outlies and embraces the physical universe? Did God +so need as well as so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son +for it? Is this what it meant to be "one with God"? Then, if the great, +illimitable heart of God thus yearns for the love of his creatures, the +greater the heart of a human being, the more must he yearn for a fulness +of love, a completion of the cycle of bonds and joys for which he was +made. From these simple words of a loving woman's heart had flashed a +great light into Mercy's comprehension of God. She was silent for some +moments; then she said solemnly,-- + +"That was a great thought you had then, Lizzy. I never saw it in that +light before. I shall never forget it. Perhaps you are right about the +Parson, too. I wonder if there is any thing he does long for? If there is, +I would die to give it to him,--I know that." + +It was very near Lizzy's lips to say, "If you would live to give it to +him, it would be more to the purpose, perhaps;" but she wisely forbore and +they parted in silence, Mercy absorbed in thinking of this new view of +God's relation to man, and Lizzy hoping that Mercy was thinking of Parson +Dorrance's need of a greater happiness than he possessed. + +As Mercy's circle of friends widened, and her interests enlarged and +deepened, her relation to Stephen became at once easier and harder: +easier, because she no longer spent so many hours alone in perplexed +meditation as to the possible wrong in it; harder, because he was +frequently unreasonable, jealous of the pleasure that he saw she found in +others, jealous of the pleasure she gave to others,--jealous, in short, of +every thing in which he was not her centre. Mercy was very patient with +him. She loved him unutterably. She never forgot for an instant the quiet +heroism with which he bore his hard life. As the months had gone on, she +had gradually established a certain kindly familiarity with his mother; +going in often to see her, taking her little gifts of flowers or fruit, +and telling her of all little incidents which might amuse her. She seemed +to herself in this way to be doing a little towards sharing Stephen's +burden; and she also felt a certain bond to the woman who, being Stephen's +mother, ought to have been hers by adoption. The more she saw of Mrs. +White's tyrannical, exacting nature, the more she yearned over Stephen. +Her first feeling of impatience with him, of resentment at the seeming +want of manliness in such subjection, had long ago worn away. She saw that +there were but two courses for him,--either to leave the house, or to buy +a semblance of peace at any cost. + +"Flesh and blood can't stand up agin Mis' White," said Marty one day, in +an irrepressible confidence to Mercy. "An' the queerest thing is, that +she'll never let go on you. There ain't nothin' to hender my goin' away +any day, an' there hain't been for twenty year; but she sez I'm to stay +till she dies, an' I don't make no doubt I shall. It's Mister Stephen I +stay for, though, after all, more 'n 't is her. I don't believe the Lord +ever made such a man." + +Mercy's cheeks would burn after such a talk as this; and she would lavish +upon Stephen every device of love and cheer which she could invent, to +atone to him by hours, if possible, for the misery of days. + +But the hours were few and far between. Stephen's days were filled with +work, and his evenings were his mother's. Only after she slept did he have +freedom. Just as soon as it was safe for him to leave the house, he flew +to Mercy; but, oh, how meagre and pitiful did the few moments seem! + +"Hardly long enough to realize that I am with you, my darling," he often +said. + +"But then it is every day, Stephen,--think of that," Mercy would reply, +bent always on making all things easier instead of harder for him. Even +the concealment, which was at times well-nigh insupportable to her, she +never complained of now. She had accepted it. "And, after accepting it, I +have no right to reproach him with it: it would be base," she thought. + +Nevertheless, it was slowly wearing away the very foundations of her +peace. The morning walks had long been given up. Mercy had been resolute +about this. When she found Stephen insisting upon going in by-ways and +lanes, lest some one should see them who might mention it to his mother, +when he told her that she must not speak of it to her own mother, she said +firmly,-- + +"This must end, Stephen. How hard it is to me to give it up you know very +well. It is like the sunrise to my day, always, these moments with you. +But I will not multiply concealments. It makes me guilty and ashamed all +the time. Don't urge me to any such thing; for I am not sure that too much +of it would not kill my love for you. Let us be patient. Chance will do a +good deal for us; but I will not plan to meet clandestinely. Whenever you +can come to our house, that is different. It distresses me to have you do +that and never tell of it; but that is yours and not mine, if any thing +can be yours and not mine," she added sadly. Stephen had not heard the +last words. + +"Kill your love for me, Mercy!" he exclaimed. "Are you really afraid of +that?" + +"No, not kill my love for you," replied Mercy, "I think nothing could do +that, but kill all my joy in my love for you; and that would be as +terrible to you as if the love were killed. You would not know the +difference, and I should not be able to make you see it." + +It was a strange thing that with all Stephen's jealousy of Mercy's +enlarged and enlarging life, of her ever-widening circle of friends, he +had no especial jealousy of Parson Dorrance. The Parson was Mercy's only +frequent visitor; and Stephen knew very well that he had become her +teacher and her guide, that she referred every question to his decision, +and was guided implicitly by his taste and wish in her writing and in her +studies. But, when Stephen was a boy in college, Parson Dorranee had +seemed to him an old man; and he now seemed venerable. Stephen could not +have been freer from a lover's jealousy of him, if he had been Mercy's own +father. Perhaps, if his instinct had been truer, it might have quickened +Mercy's. She was equally unaware of the real nature of the Parson's regard +for her. He did for her the same things he did for Lizzy, whom he called +his child. He came to see her no oftener, spoke to her no more +affectionately: she believed that she and Lizzy were sisters together in +his fatherly heart. + +When she was undeceived, the shock was very great: it was twofold,--a +shock to her sense of loyalty to Stephen, a shock to her tender love for +Parson Dorrance. It was true, as she had said to Lizzy, that she would +have died to give him a pleasure; and yet she was forced to inflict on him +the hardest of all pains. Every circumstance attending it made it harder; +made it seem to Mercy always in after life, as she looked back upon it, +needlessly hard,--cruelly, malignantly hard. + +It was in the early autumn. The bright colors which had thrilled Mercy +with such surprise and pleasure on her first arrival in Penfield were +glowing again on the trees, it seemed to her brighter than before. Purple +asters and golden-rod waved on the roadsides and in the fields; and blue +gentians, for which Penfield was famous, were blooming everywhere. Parson +Dorrance came one day to take Lizzy and Mercy over to his "Parish," as he +called "The Cedars." They had often been with him there; and Mercy had +been for a long time secretly hoping that he would ask her to help him in +teaching the negroes. The day was one of those radiant and crystalline +days peculiar to the New England autumn. On such days, joy becomes +inevitable even to inert and lifeless natures: to enthusiastic and +spontaneous ones, the exhilaration of the air and the sun is as +intoxicating as wine. Mercy was in one of her most mirthful moods. She +frolicked with the negro children, and decked their little woolly heads +with wreaths of golden-rod, till they looked as fantastic as dancing +monkeys. She gathered great sheaves of ferns and blue gentians and asters, +until the Parson implored her to "leave a few just for the poor sun to +shine on." The paths winding among "The Cedars" were in some places +thick-set with white eupatoriums, which were now in full, feathery flower, +some of them so old that, as you brushed past them, a cloud of the fine +thread-like petals flew in all directions. Mercy gathered branch after +branch of these, but threw them away impatiently, as the flowers fell off, +leaving the stems bare. + +"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "Nature wants some seeds, I suppose; but I want +flowers. What becomes of the poor flower, any way? it lives such a short +while; all its beauty and grace sacrificed to the making of a seed for +next year." + +"That's the way with every thing in life, dear child," said Parson +Dorrance. "The thing that shall be is the thing for which all the powers +of nature are at work. We, you and Lizzy and I, will drop off our stems +presently,--I, a good deal the first, for you and Lizzy have the blessing +of youth, but I am old." + +"You are not old! You are the youngest person I know," exclaimed Mercy, +impetuously. "You will never be old, Mr. Dorrance, not if you should live +to be as old as--as old as the Wandering Jew!" + +Mercy's eyes were fixed intently on the Parson's face; but she did not +note the deep flush which rose to his very hair, as she said these words. +She was thinking only of the glorious soul, and seeing only its shining +through the outer tabernacle. Lizzy Hunter, however, saw the flush, and +knew what it meant, and her heart gave a leap of joy. "Now he can see that +Mercy never thinks of him as an old man, and never would," she thought to +herself; and while her hands were idly playing with her flowers and +mosses, and her face looked as innocent and care-free as a baby's, her +brain was weaving plots of the most complicated devices for hastening on +the future which began to look to her so assured for these two. + +They were sitting on a mossy mound in the shadow of great cedar-trees. The +fields around "The Cedars" were filled with low mounds, like velvet +cushions: some of them were merely a mat of moss over great rocks; some of +them were soft yielding masses of moss, low cornel, blueberry-bushes, +wintergreen, blackberry-vines, and sweet ferns; dainty, fragrant, crowded +ovals, lovelier than any florist could ever make; white and green in the +spring, when the cornels were in flower; scarlet and green and blue in the +autumn, when the cornels and the blueberries were in fruit. + +Mercy was sitting on a mound which was thick-grown with the shining +wintergreen. She picked a stem which had a cluster of red berries on it, +and below the berries one tiny pink blossom. As she held it up, the +blossom fell, leaving a tiny satin disk behind it on its stem. She took +the bell and tried to fit it again on its place; then she turned it over +and over, held it up to the light and looked through it. "It makes me +sad," she said: "I wish I knew if the flower knows any thing about the +fruit. If it were working to that end all the while, and so were content +to pass on and make room, it would seem all right. But I don't want to +pass on and make room! I do so like to be here!" + +Parson Dorrance looked from one woman's face to the other, both young, +both lovely: Lizzy's so full of placid content, unquestioning affection, +and acceptance; Mercy's so full of mysterious earnestness, far-seeing +vision, and interpretation. + +"What a lot lies before that gifted creature," he said to himself, "if +life should go wrong with her! If only I might dare to take her fate into +my hands! I do not believe any one else can do for her what I could, if I +were only younger." And the Parson sighed. + +That night he stayed in Penfield at Lizzy's house. The next morning, on +his way to Danby, he stopped to see Mercy for a moment. When he entered +her door, he had no knowledge of what lay before him; he had not yet said +to himself, had not yet dared to say to himself, that he would ask Mercy +to be his wife. He knew that the thought of it was more and more present +with him, grew sweeter and sweeter; yet he had never ceased resisting it, +saying that it was impossible. That is, he had never ceased saying so in +words; but his heart had ceased resisting long ago. Only that traitor +which we call judgment had been keeping up a false show of resolute +opinion, just to lure the beguiled heart farther and farther on in a +mistaken security. + +But love is like the plants. It has its appointed days for flowers and for +the falling of the flowers. The vague, sweetness of the early hours and +days together, the bright happiness of the first close intimacy and +interchange,--these reach their destined moment, to pass on and make room +for the harvest. Blessed are the lives in which all these sweet early +petals float off gently and in season for the perfect setting of the holy +fruit! + +On this morning, when Parson Dorrance entered Mercy's room, it was already +decorated as if for a festival. Every blooming thing she had brought from +"The Cedars" the day before had taken its own place in the room, and +looked as at home as it had looked in the fields. One of Mercy's great +gifts was the gift of creating in rooms a certain look which it is hard to +define. The phrase "vitalized individuality," perhaps, would come as near +describing it as is possible; for it was not merely that the rooms looked +unlike other rooms. Every article in them seemed to stand in the place +where it must needs stand by virtue of its use and its quality. Every +thing had a certain sort of dramatic fitness, without in the least +trenching on the theatrical. Her effects were always produced with simple +things, in simple ways; but they resulted in an impression of abundance +and luxury. As Parson Dorrance glanced around at all the wild-wood beauty, +and the wild-wood fragrance stole upon his senses, a great mastering wave +of love for the woman whose hand had planned it all swept over him. He +recalled Mercy's face the day before, when she had said,-- + +"You are the youngest person I know;" and, as she crossed the threshold of +the door at that instant, he went swiftly towards her with outstretched +hands, and a look on his face which, if she had seen, she could not have +failed to interpret aright. + +But she was used to the outstretched hands; she always put both her own in +them, as simply as a child; and she was bringing to her teacher now a +little poem, of which her thoughts were full. She did not look fully in +his face, therefore; for it was still a hard thing for her to show him her +verses. + +Holding out the paper, she said shyly,-- + +"It had to get itself said or sung, you know,--that thought that haunted +me so yesterday at 'The Cedars.' I daresay it is very bad poetry, though." + +Parson Dorrance unfolded the paper, and read the following poem:-- + + WHERE? + + My snowy eupatorium has dropped + Its silver threads of petals in the night; + No sound told me its blossoming had stopped; + Its seed-films flutter, silent, ghostly white: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask, "Where?" + + Beneath the glossy leaves of wintergreen + Dead lily-bells lie low, and in their place + A rounded disk of pearly pink is seen, + Which tells not of the lily's fragrant grace: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask "Where?" + + This morning's sunrise does not show to me + Seed-film or fruit of my sweet yesterday; + Like falling flowers, to realms I cannot see + Its moments floated silently away: + No answer stirs the shining air, + As I ask, "Where?" + +As he read the last verse, his face altered. Mercy was watching him. + +"I thought you wouldn't like the last verse," she said eagerly. "But, +indeed, it doesn't mean doubt. I know very well no day dies; but we can't +see the especial good of each single day by itself. That is all I meant." + +Parson Dorrance came closer to Mercy: they were both standing. He laid one +hand on her' head, and said,-- + +"Child, it was a 'sweet yesterday' wasn't it?" + +"Oh, yes," said Mercy, still absorbed in the thought of the poem. "The +day was as sweet as the flowers. But all days are heavenly sweet out of +doors with you and Lizzy," she continued, lifting one hand, and laying it +caressingly on the hand which was stroking her hair. + +"O Mercy! Mercy! couldn't I make all days sweet for you? Come to me, +darling, and let me try!" came from Parson Dorrance's lips in hurried and +husky tones. + +Mercy looked at him for one second in undisguised terror and bewilderment. +Then she uttered a sharp cry, as of one who had suddenly got a wound, and, +burying her face in her hands, sank into a chair and began to cry +convulsively. + +Parson Dorrance walked up and down the room. He dared not speak. He was +not quite sure what Mercy's weeping meant; so hard is it, for a single +moment, to wrench a great hope out of a man's heart. But, as she continued +sobbing, he understood. Unselfish to the core, his first thought was, even +now, "Alas! now she will never let me do any thing more for her. Oh, how +shall I win her back to trust me as a father again?" + +"Mercy!" he said. Mercy did not answer nor look up. + +"Mercy!" he repeated in a firmer tone. "Mercy, my child, look up at me!" + +Docile from her long habit and from her great love, Mercy looked up, with +the tears streaming. As soon as she saw Parson Dorrance's face, she burst +again into more violent crying, and sobbed out incoherently,-- + +"Oh! I never knew it. It wouldn't be right." + +"Hush, dear! Hush!" said the Parson, in a voice of tender authority. "I +have done wrong; and you must forgive me, and forget it. You are not in +the least to blame. It is I who ought to have known that you could never +think of me as any thing but a father." + +"Oh! it is not that," sobbed Mercy, vehemently,--"it is not that at all! +But it wouldn't be right." + +Parson Dorrance would not have been human if Mercy's vehement "It is not +that,--it is not that!" had not fallen on his ear gratefully, and made +hope stir in his heart again. But her evident grief was too great for the +hope to last a moment. + +"You may not know why it seems so wrong to you, dear child," he continued; +"but that is the real reason. There could be no other." He paused. Mercy +shuddered, and opened her lips to speak again; but the words refused to be +uttered. This was the supreme moment of pain. If she could but have +said,-- + +"I loved some one else long before I saw you. I was not my own. If it had +not been for that, I should have loved you, I know I should!" Even in her +tumult of suffering, she was distinctly conscious of all this. The words +"I could have loved him, I know I could! I can't bear to have him think it +is because he is so old," went clamoring in her heart, pleading to be +said; but she dared not say them. + +Tenderly and patiently Parson Dorrance endeavored to soothe her, to +convince her that his words sprung from a hasty impulse which he would be +able wholly to put aside and forget. The one thing that he longed now to +do, the only reparation that he felt was left for him to make to her, was +to enable her, if possible, to look on him as she had done before. But +Mercy herself made this more difficult. Suddenly wiping her tears, she +looked very steadily into his face, and said slowly,--"It is not of the +least use, Mr. Dorrance, for you to say this sort of thing to me. You +can't deceive me. I know exactly how you love me, and how you always will +love me. And, oh, I wish I were dead! It can never be any thing but pain +to you to see me,--never," and she wept more bitterly than before. + +"You do not know me, Mercy," replied the Parson, speaking as slowly as she +had done. "All my life has been one long sacrifice of my own chief +preferences. It is not hard for me to do it." + +Mercy clasped her hands tighter, and groaned,-- + +"Oh, I know it! I know it! and I said you were on a plane above all +thought of personal happiness." + +The Parson looked bewildered, but went on,-- + +"You do love me, my child, very dearly, do you not?" + +"Oh, you know I do!" cried Mercy. "You know I do!" + +"Yes, I know you do, or I should not have said that. You know I am all +alone in the world, do you not?" + +"Yes," moaned Mercy. + +"Very well. Now remember that you and Lizzy are my two children, and that +the greatest happiness I can have, the greatest help in my loneliness, is +the love of my two daughters. You will not refuse me this help, will you? +You will let me be just as I was before, will you not?" + +Mercy did not answer. + +"Will you try, Mercy?" he said in a tone almost of the old affectionate +authority; and Mercy again moaned rather than said,-- + +"Yes." + +Then Parson Dorrance kissed her hair where his hand had lain a few moments +before, and said,-- + +"Now I must go. Good-by, my child." + +But Mercy did not look up; and he closed the door gently, leaving her +sitting there bowed and heart-stricken, in the little room so gay with the +bright flowers she had gathered on her "sweet yesterday." + + + + +Chapter X. + + + +The winter set in before its time, and with almost unprecedented severity. +Early in the last week in November, the whole country was white with snow, +the streams were frozen solid, and the cold was intense. Week after week +the mercury ranged from zero to ten, fifteen, and even twenty below, and +fierce winds howled night and day. It was a terrible winter for old +people. They dropped on all sides, like leaves swept off of trees in +autumn gales. It was startling to read the death records in the +newspapers, so large a proportion of them were of men and women past +sixty. Mrs. Carr had been steadily growing feebler all summer; but the +change had seemed to Mercy to be more mental than physical, and she had +been in a measure blinded to her mother's real condition. With the +increase of childishness and loss of memory had come an increased +gentleness and love of quiet, which partially disguised the loss of +strength. She would sit in her chair from morning till night, looking out +of the window or watching the movements of those around her, with an +expression of perfect placidity on her face. When she was spoken to, she +smiled, but did not often speak. The smile was meaningless and yet +infinitely pathetic: it was an infant's smile on an aged face; the +infant's heart and infant's brain had come back. All the weariness, all +the perplexity, all the sorrow, had gone from life, had slipped away from +memory. This state had come on so gradually that even Mercy hardly +realized the extent of it. The silent smile or the gentle, simple +ejaculations with which her mother habitually replied meant more to her +than they did to others. She did not comprehend how little they really +proved a full consciousness on her mother's part; and she was unutterably +shocked, when, on going to her bedside one morning, she found her unable +to move, and evidently without clear recognition of any one's face. The +end had begun; the paralysis which had so slowly been putting the mind to +rest had prostrated the body also. It was now only a question of length of +siege, of how much vital force the system had hoarded up. Lying helpless +in bed, the poor old woman was as placid and gentle as before. She never +murmured nor even stirred impatiently. She seemed unconscious of any +weariness. The only emotion she showed was when Mercy left the room; then +she would cry silently till Mercy returned. Her eyes followed Mercy +constantly, as a little babe's follow its mother; and she would not take a +mouthful of food from any other hand. + +It was the very hardest form of illness for Mercy to bear. A violent and +distressing disease, taxing her strength, her ingenuity to their utmost +every moment, would have been comparatively nothing to her. To sit day +after day, night after night, gazing into the senseless yet appealing eyes +of this motionless being, who had literally no needs except a helpless +animal's needs of food and drink; who clung to her with the irrational +clinging of an infant, yet would never know even her name again,--it was +worse than the chaining of life to death. As the days wore on, a species +of terror took possession of Mercy. It seemed to her that this silent +watchful, motionless creature never had been her mother,--never had been a +human being like other human beings. As the old face grew more and more +haggard, and the old hands more and more skinny and claw-like, and the +traces of intellect and thought more and more faded away from the +features, the horror deepened, until Mercy feared that her own brain must +be giving way. She revolted from the very thought of herself for having +such a feeling towards her mother. Every instinct of loyalty in her deeply +loyal nature rose up indignantly against her. She would reiterate to +herself the word, "Mother! mother! mother!" as she sat gazing with a +species of horror-stricken fascination into the meaningless face. But she +could not shake off the feeling. Her nerves were fast giving way under the +strain, and no one could help her. If she left the room or the house, the +consciousness that the helpless creature was lying silently weeping for +lack of the sight of her pursued her like a presence. She saw the piteous +old face on the pillow, and the slow tears trickling down the cheeks, just +as distinctly as if she were sitting by the bed. On the whole, the torture +of staying was less than the torture of being away; and for weeks +together she did not leave the house. Sometimes a dull sense of relief +came to her in the thought that by this strange confinement she was +escaping many things which would have been hard. She rarely saw Stephen +except for a few moments late in the evening. He had ventured into Mrs. +Carr's room once or twice; but his presence seemed to disturb her, the +only presence that had done so. She looked distressed, made agonizing +efforts to speak, and with the hand she could lift made a gesture to repel +him when he drew near the bed. In Mercy's overwrought state, this seemed +to her like an omen. She shuddered, and drew Stephen away. + +"O Stephen," she said, "she knows now that I have deceived her about you. +Don't come near her again." + +"You never deceived her, darling. Do not distress yourself so," whispered +Stephen. They were standing on the threshold of the room. A slight +rustling in the bed made them turn: Mrs. Carr had half-lifted her head +from the pillow, her lower jaw had fallen to its utmost extent in her +effort to articulate, and she was pointing the forefinger of her left hand +at the door. It was a frightful sight. Even Stephen turned pale, and +sprang hastily away. + +"You see," said Mercy, in a ghastly whisper, "sometimes she certainly does +know things; but she never looks like that except at you. You must never +come in again." + +"No," said Stephen, almost as horror-stricken as Mercy. "It is very +strange though, for she always used to seem so fond of me." + +"She was very childish and patient," said Mercy. "And I think she thought +that you were slowly getting to care about me; but now, wherever her soul +is,--I think it has left her body,--she knows that we deceived her." + +Stephen made no answer, but turned to go. The expression of resolved +endurance on his face pierced Mercy to the quick, as it always did. She +sprang after him, and clasped both her hands on his arm. "O Stephen, +darling,--precious, brave, strong darling! do forgive me. I ought to be +killed for even saying one word to give you pain. How I can, I don't see, +when I long so to make you happy always." + +"You do give me great, unutterable happiness, Mercy," he replied. "I never +think of the pain: I only think of the joy," and he laid her hand on his +lips. "All the pain that you could possibly give me in a lifetime could +not outweigh the joy of one such moment as this, when you say that you +love me." + +These days were unspeakably hard for Stephen. He had grown during the past +year to so live on the sight and in the blessedness of Mercy that to be +shut away from them was simply a sort of dying. There was no going back +for him to the calm routine of the old life before she came. He was +restless and wretched: he walked up and down in front of the house every +night, watching the shadow of her figure on the curtains of her mother's +room. He made all manner of excuses, true and false, reasonable and +unreasonable, to speak to her for a moment at the door in the morning. He +carried the few verses in his pocket-book she had given him; and, although +he knew them nearly by heart, he spent long hours in his office turning +the little papers over and over. Some of them were so joyous that they +stirred in him almost a bitter incredulity as he read them in these days +of loss and pain. One was a sonnet which she had written during a two +days' absence of his,--his only absence from his mother's house for six +years. Mercy had been astonished at her sense of loneliness in these two +days. "O Stephen," she had said, when he came back, "I am honestly ashamed +of having missed you so much. Just the knowing that you wouldn't be here +to come in, in the evenings, made the days seem a thousand years long, and +this is what came of it." + +And she gave him this sonnet:-- + + TO AN ABSENT LOVER. + + That so much change should come when them dost go, + Is mystery that I cannot ravel quite. + The very house seems dark as when the light + Of lamps goes out. Each wonted thing doth grow + So altered, that I wander to and fro, + Bewildered by the most familiar sight, + And feel like one who rouses in the night + From dream of ecstasy, and cannot know + At first if he be sleeping or awake, + My foolish heart so foolish for thy sake + Hath grown, dear one! + Teach me to be more wise. + I blush for all my foolishness doth lack; + I fear to seem a coward in thine eyes. + Teach me, dear one,--but first thou must come back! + +Another was a little poem, which she laughingly called his and not hers. +One morning, when they had bade each other "good-by," and she had kissed +him,--a rare thing for Mercy to do, he had exclaimed, "That kiss will go +floating before me all day in the air, Mercy. I shall see every thing in a +light as rosy as your lips." + +At night she gave him this little poem, saying,-- + +"This is your poem, not mine, darling. I should never have thought of any +thing so absurd myself." + + "COULEUR DE ROSE." + + All things to-day "Couleur de rose," + I see,--oh, why? + I know, and my dear love she knows, + Why, oh, why! + On both my eyes her lips she set, + All red and warm and dewy wet, + As she passed by. + The kiss did not my eyelids close, + But like a rosy vapor goes, + Where'er I sit, where'er I lie, + Before my every glance, and shows + All things to-day "Couleur de rose." + + Would it last thus? Alas, who knows? + Men ask and sigh: + They say it fades, "Couleur de rose." + Why, oh, why? + Without swift joy and sweet surprise, + Surely those lips upon my eyes + Could never lie, + Though both our heads were white as snows, + And though the bitterest storm that blows, + Of trouble and adversity, + Had bent us low: all life still shows + To eyes that love "Couleur de rose." + +This sonnet, also, she persisted in calling Stephen's, and not her own, +because he had asked her the question which had suggested it:-- + + LOVERS' THOUGHTS. + + "How feels the earth when, breaking from the night, + The sweet and sudden Dawn impatient spills + Her rosy colors all along the hills? + How feels the sea, as it turns sudden white, + And shines like molten silver in the light + Which pours from eastward when the full moon fills + Her time to rise?" + + "I know not, love, what thrills + The earth, the sea, may feel. How should I know? + Except I guess by this,--the joy I feel + When sudden on my silence or my gloom + Thy presence bursts and lights the very room? + Then on my face doth not glad color steal + Like shining waves, or hill-tops' sunrise glow?" + +One of the others was the poem of which I spoke once before, the poem +which had been suggested to her by her desolate sense of homelessness on +the first night of her arrival in Penfield. This poem had been widely +copied after its first appearance in one of the magazines; and it had been +more than once said of it, "Surely no one but a genuine outcast could have +written such a poem as this." It was hard for Mercy's friends to +associate the words with her. When she was asked how it happened that she +wrote them, she exclaimed, "I did not write that poem, I lived it one +night,--the night when I came to Penfield, and drove through these streets +in the rain with mother. No vagabond in the world ever felt more forlorn +than I did then." + + THE OUTCAST. + + O sharp, cold wind, thou art my friend! + And thou, fierce rain, I need not dread + Thy wonted touch upon my head! + On, loving brothers! Wreak and spend + Your force on all these dwellings. Rend + These doors so pitilessly locked, + To keep the friendless out! Strike dead + The fires whose glow hath only mocked + By muffled rays the night where I, + The lonely outcast, freezing lie! + + Ha! If upon those doors to-night + I knocked, how well I know the stare, + The questioning, the mingled air + Of scorn and pity at the sight, + The wonder if it would be right + To give me alms of meat and bread! + And if I, reckless, standing there, + For once the truth imploring said, + That not for bread or meat I longed, + That such an alms my real need wronged, + + That I would fain come in, and sit + Beside their fire, and hear the voice + Of children; yea, and if my choice + Were free, and I dared mention it, + And some sweet child should think me fit + To hold a child upon my knee + One moment, would my soul rejoice, + More than to banquet royally, + And I the pulses of its wrist + Would kiss, as men the cross have kissed. + + Ha! Well the haughty stare I know + With which they'd say, "The man is mad!" + "What an impostor's face he had!" + "How insolent these beggars grow!" + Go to, ye happy people! Go! + My yearning is as fierce as hate. + Must my heart break, that yours be glad? + Will your turn come at last, though late? + I will not knock, I will pass by; + My comrades wait,--the wind, the rain. + Comrades, we'll run a race to-night! + The stakes may not seem much to gain: + The goal is not marked plain in sight; + But, comrades, understand,--if I + Drop dead, 't will be a victory! + +These poems and many others Stephen carried with him wherever he went. To +read them over was next to seeing Mercy. The poet was hardly less dear to +him than the woman. He felt at times so removed from her by the great gulf +which her genius all unconsciously seemed to create between herself and +him that he doubted his own memories of her love, and needed to be +reassured by gazing into her eyes, touching her hand, and listening to her +voice. It seemed to him that, if this separation lasted much longer, he +should lose all faith in the fact of their relation. Very impatient +thoughts of poor old Mrs. Carr filled Stephen's thoughts in these days. +Heretofore she had been no barrier to his happiness; her still and +childlike presence was no restraint upon him; he had come to disregard it +as he would the presence of an infant in a cradle. Therefore, he had, or +thought he had, the kindest of feelings towards her; but now that her +helpless paralyzed hands had the power to shut him away from Mercy, he +hated her, as he had always hated every thing which stood between him and +delight. Yet, had it been his duty to minister to her, he would have done +it as gently, as faithfully, as Mercy herself. He would have spoken to her +in the mildest and tenderest of tones, while in his heart he wished her +dead. So far can a fine fastidiousness, allied to a sentiment of +compassion, go towards making a man a consummate hypocrite. + +Parson Dorrance came often to see Mercy, but always with Lizzy Hunter. By +the subtle instinct of love, he knew that to see him thus, and see him +often, would soonest win back for him his old place in Mercy's life. The +one great desire he had left now was to regain that,--to see her again +look up in his face with the frank, free, loving look which she always had +had until that sad morning. + +A strange incident happened to Mercy in these first weeks of her mother's +illness. She was called to the door one morning by the message that a +stranger wished to speak to her. She found standing there an elderly +woman, with a sweet but care-worn face, who said eagerly, as soon as she +appeared,-- + +"Are you Mrs. Philbrick?" + +"Yes," said Mercy. "Did you wish to see me?" + +The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and +then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,-- + +"Won't you come and help me make my husband come home. He is so sick, and +I believe he will die in that wretched old garret." + +Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that +she must be insane; but the woman continued,-- + +"I'm Mrs. Wheeler. You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about +you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day. You're the only +human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if +anybody could do any thing with him, you could." + +It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man +Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving +no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a +human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one +place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and +factories, and uninhabited rooms and houses in all the towns in the +vicinity. There was hardly any article of merchandise which he had not at +one time or another had a depot for, or a manufactory of. He had +especially a hobby for attempting to make articles which were not made in +this country. It was only necessary for some one to go to him, and say, +"Mr. Wheeler, do you know how much this country pays every year for +importing such or such an article?" to throw him into a rage. + +"Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, sir. Just as well make it here. I'll +make it myself." And up would start a new manufacture, just as soon as he +could get men to work at it. + +At one time it was ink, at another time brushes, then chintz, and then +pocket-books; in fact, nobody pretended to remember all the schemes which +the old man had failed in. He would stop them as instantaneously as he +began them, dismiss the workmen, shut up the shops or the mills, turn the +key on them just as they stood, very possibly filled full of material in +the rough. He did not care. The hobby was over: he had proved that the +thing could be made in America, and he was content. It was usually in some +one of these disused buildings that he set up his hermitage in these +absences from home. He would sally out once a day and buy bread, just a +pittance, hardly enough to keep him alive, and then bury himself again in +darkness and solitude. If the absence did not last more than three or four +days, his wife and sons gave themselves no concern about him. He usually +returned a saner and healthier man than he went away. When the absences +were longer, they went in search of him, and could usually prevail on him +to return home with them. But this last absence had been much longer than +usual before they found him. He was as cunning and artful as a fugitive +from justice in concealing his haunt. At last he was discovered in the old +garret store-room over the Brick Row. The marvel was that he had not died +of cold there. He was not far from it, however; for he was so ill that at +times he was delirious. He lay curled up in the old stack of comforters in +the corner, with only a jug of water and some crumbs of bread by his side, +when they found him. He had been so ill when he last crawled up the stairs +that he had forgotten to take the key out of the keyhole, but left it on +the outside, and by that they found him. At the bare suggestion of his +going home, he became so furious that it seemed unsafe to urge it. His +wife and eldest son had stayed there with him now for two days; but he had +grown steadily worse, and it was plain that he must die unless he could be +properly cared for. + +"At last I thought of you," said the poor woman. "He's always said so much +about you; and once, when I was riding with him, he pointed you out to me +on the street, and said he, 'That's the very nicest girl in America.' And +he told me about his giving you the clock; and I never knew him give any +thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very +good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd +always pay bills,--that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to +'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to +let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find +her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I +don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of queer way Mr. Wheeler's +always had; and everybody's got something queer about 'em, first or last; +and this way of Mr. Wheeler's of going off don't hurt anybody but himself. +I got used to 't long ago. Now, won't you come, and try and see if you +can't persuade him? It won't do any harm to try." + +"Why, yes, indeed, Mrs. Wheeler, I'll come; but I don't believe I can do +any thing," said Mercy, much touched by the appeal to her. "I have +wondered very much what had become of Mr. Wheeler. I had not seen him for +a long time." + +When they went into the garret, the old man was half-lying, half-sitting, +propped on his left elbow. In his right hand he held his cane, with which +he continually tapped the floor, as he poured out a volley of angry +reproaches to his son "'Siah," a young man of eighteen or twenty years +old, who sat on a roll of leather at a safe distance from his father's +lair. As the door opened, and he saw Mercy entering with his wife, the old +man's face underwent the most extraordinary change. Surprise, shame, +perplexity, bravado,--all struggled together there. + +"God bless my soul! God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, trying to draw the +comforters more closely about him. + +Mercy went up to him, and, sitting down by his side, began to talk to him +in a perfectly natural tone, as if she were making an ordinary call on an +invalid in his own home. She said nothing to suggest that he had done any +thing unnatural in hiding himself, and spoke of his severe cold as being +merely what every one else had been suffering from for some time. Then she +told him how ill her mother was, and succeeded in really arousing his +interest in that. Finally, she said,-- + +"But I must go now. I can't be away from my mother long. I will come and +see you again to-morrow. Shall I find you here or at your home?" + +"Well, I was thinking I 'd better move home to-day," said he. + +His wife and son involuntarily exchanged glances. This was more than they +had dared to hope. + +"Yes, I would, if I were you," replied Mercy, still in a perfectly natural +tone. "It would be so much better for you to be in a room with a fire in +it for a few days. There isn't any way of warming this room, is there?" +said she, looking all about, as if to see if it might not be possible +still to put up a stove there. "'Siah" turned his head away to hide a +smile, so amused was he by the tact of the remark. "No, I see there is no +stovepipe-hole here," she went on, "so you'd much better move home. I'm +going by the stable. Let me send Seth right up with the carriage, won't +you?" + +"No, no! Bless my soul! Thinks I'm made of money, don't she! No, no! I can +walk." And the old half-crazy glare came into his eyes. + +Mercy went nearer to him, and laid her hand gently on his. + +"Mr. Wheeler," said she, "you did something very kind for me once: now +won't you do something once more,--just once? I want you to go home in the +carriage. It is a terribly cold day, and the streets are very icy. I +nearly fell several times myself coming over here. You will certainly +take a terrible cold, if you walk this morning. Please say I may get the +carriage." + +"Bless my soul! Bless my soul, child! Go get it then, if you care so much; +but tell him I'll only pay a quarter,--only a quarter, remember. They'd +take every cent I've got. They are all wolves, wolves, wolves!" + +"Yes, I'll tell him only a quarter. I'll have him here in a few minutes!" +exclaimed Mercy, and ran out of the room hastily before the old man could +change his mind. + +As good luck would have it, Seth and his "kerridge" were in sight when +Mercy reached the foot of the staircase. So in less than five minutes she +returned to the garret, exclaiming,-- + +"Here is Seth now, Mr. Wheeler. It is so fortunate I met him. Now I can +see you off." The old man was so weak that his son had to carry him down +the stairs; and his face, seen in the broad daylight, was ghastly. As they +placed him in the carriage, he called out to his wife and son, sharply,-- + +"Don't you get in! You can walk, you can walk. Mind, he's to have but a +quarter, tell him." And, as Seth whipped up his horses and drove off, the +words, "wolves, wolves, wolves," were heard coming in muffled tones +through the door. + +"He'd never have gone, if you hadn't come back,--never," said Mrs. +Wheeler, as she turned to Mercy. "I never can thank you enough. It'll save +his life, getting him out of that garret." + +Mercy did not say, but she thought that it was too late. A mortal +sickness had fastened upon the old man; and so it proved. When she went to +his home the next day, he was in a high fever and delirious; and he lived +only a few days. He had intervals of partial consciousness, and in those +he seemed to be much touched by the patient care which his two sons were +giving to him. He had always been a hard father; had compelled his sons +very early to earn their own living, and had refused to give them money, +which he could so easily have spared, to establish themselves in business. +Now, that it was too late, he repented. + +"Good boys, good boys, good boys after all," he would mutter to himself, +as they bent over him, and nursed him tenderly in his helplessness. "Might +have left them more money, might have left them more. Mistake, mistake!" +Once he roused, and with great vehemence asked to have his lawyer sent for +immediately. But, when the lawyer came, the delirium had returned again: +it was too late; and the old man died without repairing the injustice he +had done. The last intelligible words he spoke were, "Mistake! mistake!" + +And he had indeed made a mistake. When his will was opened, it was found +that the whole bulk of his large estate had been left to trustees, to be +held as a fund for assisting poor young men to a certain amount of capital +to go into business with,--the very thing which he had never done for his +own children. The trust was burdened with such preposterous conditions, +however, that it never could have amounted to any thing, even if the +courts had not come to the rescue, and mercifully broken the will, +dividing the property where it rightfully belonged, between the wife and +children. + +Early in February Mrs. Carr died. It was more like a going to sleep than +like a death. She lay for two days in a dozing state, smiling whenever +Mercy spoke to her, and making great efforts to swallow food whenever +Mercy offered it to her. At last she closed her eyes, turned her head on +one side, as if for a sounder sleep, and never moved again. + +However we may think we are longing for the release from suffering to come +to one we love, when it does come, it is a blow, is a shock. Hundreds of +times Mercy had said to herself in the course of the winter, "Oh, if God +would only take my mother to heaven! Her death would be easier to bear +than this." But now she would have called her back, if she could. The +silent house, the empty room, still more terrible the long empty hours in +which nobody needed her help, all wrung Mercy's heart. It was her first +experience of being alone. She had often pictured to herself, or rather +she thought she had, what it would be; but no human imagination can ever +sound the depths of that word: only the heart can feel it. It is a marvel +that hearts do not break under it oftener than they do. The silence which +is like that darkness which could be felt; the sudden awakening in the +night with a wonder what it means that the loved one is not there; the +pitiless morning light which fills the empty house, room after room; and +harder than all else to forget, to rise above--the perpetual sense of no +future: even the little near futures of the next hour, the next day, all +cut off, all closed, to the human being left utterly alone. The mockery of +the instincts of hunger and need of rest seems cruel. What a useless +routine, for one left alone, to be fed, to sleep, and to rise up to eat +and sleep again! + +Mercy bore all this in a sort of dumb bewilderment for a few days. All +Stephen's love and sympathy did not help her. He was unutterably tender +and sympathizing now that poor old Mrs. Carr was fairly out of his way. It +surprised even himself to see what a sort of respectful affection he felt +for her in her grave. Any misgiving that this new quiet and undisturbed +possession of Mercy might not continue did not cross his mind; and when +Mercy said to him suddenly, one evening about ten days after her mother's +death, "Stephen, I must go away, I can't live in this house another week," +it was almost as sudden a shock to him as if he had gone in and found her +dead. + +"Go away! Leave me!" he gasped, rather than said. "Mercy, you can't mean +it!" and the distress in his face smote Mercy bitterly. But she persisted. +"Yes, I do mean it," she said. "You must not ask me to stay. I should lose +my senses or fall ill. You can't think how terrible it is to me to be all +alone in these rooms. Perhaps in new rooms I should not feel it so much. I +have always looked forward to being left alone at some time, and have +thought I would still have my home; but I did not think it could feel like +this. I simply cannot bear it,--at any rate, not till I am stronger. And +besides, Stephen," and Mercy's face flushed red, "there is another thing +you have not thought of: it would never do for me to live here alone in +this house with you, as we have been living. You couldn't come to see me +so much now mother is not here." + +Poor Mrs. Carr! avenged at last, by Stephen's own heart. How gladly would +he have called her to life now! Mercy's words carried instantaneous +conviction to his mind. It was strange he had never thought of this +before; but he had not. He groaned aloud. + +"O Mercy! O Mercy!" he exclaimed, "I never once thought of that, we have +been living so so long. You are right: you cannot stay here. Oh, what +shall I do without you, my darling, my darling?" + +"I do not think you can ever be so lonely as I," said Mercy; "for you have +still your work left you to do. If I had any human being to need me, I +could bear being separated from you." + +"Where will you go, Mercy?" asked Stephen, in a tone of dull, hopeless +misery. + +"I do not know. I have not thought yet. Back to my old home for a visit, I +think, and then to some city to study and work. That is the best life for +me." + +"O Mercy, Mercy, I am going to lose you,--lose you utterly!" exclaimed +Stephen. + +Mercy looked at him with a pained and perplexed expression. "Stephen," she +said earnestly, "I can't understand you. You bear your hard life so +uncomplainingly, so bravely, that it seems as if you could not have a +vestige of selfishness in you; and yet"--Mercy halted; she could not put +her thought in words. Stephen finished it for her. + +"And yet," he said, "I am selfish about you, you think. Selfish! Good God! +do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a +man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread? What else have I that +one could call life except you? Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is +the whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it +selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy +almost angrily. She was writhing under his words. She had always an +unspeakable dread of being unjust to him. Love made her infinitely tender, +and pity made her yearn over him. But neither her own love and pity nor +his passionate words could wholly blind her now; and there was a sadness +in the tones in which she replied,-- + +"No, Stephen, I did not mean to call you selfish; but I can't understand +why you are not as brave and patient about all hard things as you are +about the one hardest thing of all." + +"Mercy, would you marry me now, if I asked you?" said Stephen. He did not +realize the equivocal form of his question. An indignant look swept over +Mercy's face for a moment, but only for a moment. She knew Stephen's love +too well. + +"No, Stephen," she said, "I would not. If you had asked me at first, I +should have done it. I thought then that it would be best," she said, with +hot blushes mounting high on her cheeks; "but I have seen since that it +would not." + +Stephen sighed. "I am glad you see that," he said. Then in a lower tone, +"You know you are free, Mercy,--utterly free. I would never be so base as +to hold you by a word." + +Mercy smiled half-bitterly, as she replied,-- + +"Words never hold people, and you know very well it is only an empty form +of words to say that I am free. I do not want to be free, darling," she +added, in a burst of tenderness toward him. "You could not set me free, if +you tried." + +When Mercy told Parson Dorrance her intention of going away, his face +changed as if some fierce spasm wrung him; but it was over in a second, +and he said,-- + +"You are quite right, my child,--quite right. It will be a great deal +better for you in every way. This is no place for you now. You must have +at least a year or two of travel and entire change." + +In her heart, Mercy contrasted the replies of her two lovers. She could +not banish the feeling that one was the voice of a truer love than the +other. She fought against the feeling as against a treason; but the truth +was strongest. In her heart, she knew that the man she did not love was +manlier than the man she loved. + + + + +Chapter XI + + + +For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself +to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain +movements for a certain length of time, and could by no possibility stop. +He did not suffer as he had expected. Sometimes it seemed to him that he +did not suffer at all; and he was terrified at this very absence of +suffering. Then again he had hours and days of a dull despair, which was +worse than any more active form of suffering. Now he understood, he +thought, how in the olden time men had often withdrawn themselves from the +world after some great grief, and had lived long, stagnant lives in +deserts and caves. He had thought it would kill him to lose Mercy out of +his life. Now he felt sure that he should live to be a hundred years old; +should live by very help of the apathy into which he had sunk. Externally, +he seemed very little changed,--a trifle quieter, perhaps, and gentler. +His mother sometimes said to herself,-- + +"Steve is really getting old very fast for so young a man;" but she was +content with the change. It seemed to bring them nearer together, and made +her feel more at ease as to the possibility of his falling in love. Her +old suspicions and jealousies of Mercy had died out root and branch, +within three months after her departure. Stephen's unhesitating assurance +to her that he did not expect to write to Mercy had settled the question +in her mind once for all. If she had known that at the very moment when he +uttered these words he had one long letter from Mercy and another to her +lying in his pocket, the shock might well-nigh have killed her; for never +once in Mrs. White's most jealous and ill-natured hours had the thought +crossed her mind that her son would tell her a deliberate lie. He told it, +however, unflinchingly, in as gentle and even a tone and with as unruffled +a brow as he would have bade her good-morning. He had thought the whole +matter over, and deliberately resolved to do it. He did it to save her +from pain; and he had no more compunction about it than he would have had +about closing a blind, to shut out a sunlight too strong for her eyes. +What a terrible thing is the power which human beings have of deceiving +each other! Woe to any soul which trusts itself to any thing less than an +organic integrity of nature, to which a lie is impossible! + +Mercy's letters disappointed Stephen. They were loving; but they were +concise, sensible, sometimes merry, and always cheerful. Her life was +constantly broadening; friends crowded around her; and her art was +becoming more and more to her every day. Her name was beginning to be +known, and her influence felt. Her verses were simple, and went to +people's hearts. They were also of a fine and subtle flavor, and gave +pleasure to the intellect. Strangers began to write words of +encouragement to her,--sometimes a word of gratitude for help, sometimes a +word of hearty praise. She began to feel that she had her own circle of +listeners, unknown friends, who were always ready to hear her when she +spoke. This consciousness is a most exquisite happiness to a true artist: +it is a better stimulus than all the flattering criticism in the world can +give. + +She was often touched to tears by the tributes she received from these +unknown friends. They had a wide range, coming sometimes from her +fellow-artists in literature, sometimes from lowly and uncultured people. +Once there came to her by mail, on a sheet of coarse paper, two faded +roses, fragrant,--for they were cinnamon roses, whose fragrance never +dies,--but yellow and crumpled, for they had journeyed many days to reach +her. They were tied together by a bit of blue yarn; and on the paper was +written, in ill-spelt words, "I wanted to send you something; and these +were all I had. I am an old woman, and very poor. You've helped me ever so +much." + +Another gift was a moss basket filled with arbutus blossoms. Hid away in +the leaves was a tiny paper, on which were written some graceful verses, +evidently by a not unpractised hand. The signature was in initials unknown +to Mercy; but she hazarded a guess as to the authorship, and sent the +following verses in reply:-- + + TO E.B. + + At night, the stream came to the sea. + "Long leagues," it cried, "this drop I bring, + O beauteous, boundless sea! + What is the meagre, paltry thing + In thine abundance unto thee? + No ripple, in thy smallest wave, of me + Will know! No thirst its suffering + Shall better slake for my surrendering + My life! O sea, in vain + My leagues of toil and pain!" + + At night, wayfarers reached the sea. + "Long weary leagues we came," they cried, + "O beauteous, boundless sea! + The swelling waves of thy swift tide + Break on the shores where souls are free: + Through lonely wildernesses, unto thee + One tiny stream has been our guide, + And in the desert we had died, + If its oases sweet + Had not refreshed our feet." + + O tiny stream, lost in the sea, + Close symbol of a lifetime's speech! + O beauteous, boundless sea, + Close fitting symbol of the reach, + Of measureless Eternity! + Be glad, O stream, O sea, blest equally! + And thou whose words have helped to teach + Me this,--my unknown friend,--for each + Kind thought, warm thanks. + Only the stream can know + How at such words the long leagues lighter grow. + +All these new interests and occupations, while they did not in the least +weaken her loyalty to Stephen, filled her thoughts healthfully and +absorbingly, and left her no room for any such passionate longing and +brooding as Stephen poured out to her in his letters. He looked in vain +for any response to these expressions. Sometimes, unable to bear the +omission any longer, he would ask her pathetically why she did not say +that she longed to see him. Her reply was characteristic:-- + +"You ask me, dear, why I do not say that I long to see you. I am not sure +that I ever do long, in the sense in which you use the word. I know that I +cannot see you till next winter, just as I used to know every morning that +I could not see you until night; and the months between now and then seem +to me one solid interval of time to be filled up and made the most of, +just as the interval of the daytime between your going away in the morning +and coming home at night used to seem to me. I do not think, dear Stephen, +there is a moment of any day when I have not an under current of +consciousness of you; but it is not a longing for the sight of you. Are +you sure, darling, that the love which takes perpetual shape in such +longings is the strongest love?" + +Little by little, phrases like this sank into Stephen's mind, and +gradually crystallized into a firm conviction that Mercy was being weaned +from him. It was not so. It was only that separation and its surer tests +were adjusting to a truer level the relation between them. She did not +love him one whit less; but she was taking the position which belonged to +her stronger and finer organization. If she had ever lived by his side as +his wife, the same change would have come; but her never-failing +tenderness would have effectually covered it from his recognition, and hid +it from her own, so long as he looked into her eyes with pleading love, +and she answered with woman's fondness. No realization of inequality could +ever have come. It is, after all, the flesh and blood of the loved one +which we idealize. There is in love's sacraments a "real presence," which +handling cannot make us doubt. It is when we go apart and reflect that our +reason asks questions. Mercy did not in the least know that she was +outgrowing Stephen White. She did not in the least suspect that her +affection and her loyalty were centring around an ideal personality, to +which she gave his name, but which had in reality never existed. She +believed honestly that she was living for and in Stephen all this time; +that she was his, as he was hers, inalienably and for ever. If it had been +suggested to her that it was unnatural that she should be so content in a +daily life which he did not share, so busy and glad in occupations and +plans and aspirations into which he did not enter, she would have been +astonished. She would have said, "How foolish of me to do otherwise! We +have our lives to lead, our work to do. It would be a sin to waste one's +life, to leave one's work undone, because of the mere lack of seeing any +one human being, however dear." Stephen knew love better than this: he +knew that life without the daily sight of Mercy was a blank drudgery; +that, day by day, month by month, he was growing duller and duller, and +more and more lifeless, as if his very blood were being impoverished by +lack of nourishment. Surely it was a hard fate which inflicted on this +man, already so overburdened, the perpetual pain of a love denied, +thwarted, unhappy. Surely it was a brave thing in him to bear the double +load uncomplainingly, to make no effort to throw it off, and never by a +word or a look to visit his own sufferings on the head of the helpless +creature, who seemed to be the cause of them all. If there were any change +in his manner toward his mother during these months, it was that he grew +tenderer and more demonstrative to her. There were even times when he +kissed her, solely from the yearning need he felt to kiss something human, +he so longed for one touch of Mercy's hand. He would sometimes ask her +wistfully, "Do I make you happy, mother?" And she would be won upon and +softened by the words; when in reality they were only the outcry of the +famished heart which needed some reassurance that its sacrifices had not +been all in vain. + +Month after month went on, and no tenants came for the "wing." Stephen +even humiliated himself so far as to offer it to Jane Barker's husband at +a lowered rent; but his offer was surlily rejected, and he repented having +made it. Very bitterly he meditated on the strange isolation into which he +and his mother were forced. His sympathies were not broad and general +enough to comprehend it. He did not know how quickly all people feel an +atmosphere of withdrawal, an air of indifference. If Stephen had been rich +and powerful, the world would have forgiven him these traits, or have +smothered its dislike of them; but in a poor man, and an obscure one, such +"airs" were not to be tolerated. Nobody would live in the "wing." And so +it came to pass that one day Stephen wrote to Mercy the following +letter:-- + +"You will be sorry to hear that I have had to foreclose the mortgage on +this house. It was impossible to get a tenant for the other half of it, +and there was nothing else to be done. The house must be sold, but I doubt +if it brings the full amount of the loan. I should have done this three +months ago, except for your strong feeling against it. I am very sorry for +old Mrs. Jacobs; but it is her misfortune, not my fault. I have my mother +to provide for, and my first duty is to her. Of course, Mrs. Jacobs will +now have to go to the alms-house but I am not at all sure that she will +not be more comfortable there than she has made herself in the cottage. +She has starved herself all these years. Some people say she must have a +hoard of money there somewhere, that she cannot have spent even the little +she has received. + +"I shall move out of the house at once, into the little cottage you liked +so much, farther up on the hill. That is for rent, only fifty dollars a +year. I shall put this house into good repair, run a piazza around it as +you suggested, and paint it; and then I think I shall be sure of finding a +purchaser. It can be made a very pretty house by expending a little money +on it; and I can sell it for enough more to repay me. I am sure nobody +would buy it as it is." + +Mercy replied very briefly to this part of Stephen's letter. She had +discussed the question with him often before, and she knew the strict +justice of his claim; but her heart ached for the poor friendless old +woman, who was thus to lose her last dollar. If it had been possible for +Mercy to have continued to pay the rent of the wing herself, she would +gladly have done so; but, at her suggestion of such a thing, Stephen had +been so angry that she had been almost frightened. + +"I am not so poor yet, Mercy," he had exclaimed, "as to take charity from +you! I think I should go to the alms-house myself first. I don't see why +old Granny Jacobs is so much to you, any way." + +"Only because she is so absolutely friendless, Stephen," Mercy had replied +gently. "I never before knew of anybody who had not a relative or a friend +in the world; and I am afraid they are cruel to the poor people at the +alms-house. They all look so starved and wretched!" + +"Well, it will be no more than she deserves," said Stephen; "for she was +cruel to her husband's brother's wife. I used to hear horrid stories, when +I was a boy, about how she drove them out of the house; and she was cruel +to her son too, and drove him away from home. Of course, I am sorry to be +the instrument of punishing her, and I do have a certain pity for the old +woman; but it is really her own fault. She might be living now in comfort +with her son, perhaps, if she had treated him well." + +"We can't go by such 'ifs' in this world, Steve," said Mercy, earnestly. +"We have to take things as they are. I don't want to be judged way back in +my life. Only God knows all the 'ifs.'" Such conversations as these had +prepared Mercy for the news which Stephen now wrote her; but they had in +no wise changed her feeling in regard to it. She believed in the bottom of +her heart that Stephen might have secured a tenant, if he had tried. He +had once, in speaking of the matter, dropped a sentence which had shocked +her so that she could never forget it. + +"It would be a great deal better for me," he had said, "to have the money +invested in some other way. If the house does fall into my hands, I shall +sell it; and, even if I don't get the full amount of what father loaned, I +shall make it bring us in a good deal more than it does this way." + +This sentence rang in Mercy's ears, as she read in Stephen's letter all +his plans for improving the house; but the thing was done, and it was not +Mercy's habit to waste effort or speech over things which could not be +altered. + +"I am very sorry," she wrote, "that you have been obliged to take the +house. You know how I always felt for poor old Granny Jacobs. Perhaps we +can do something to make her more comfortable in the alms-house. I think +Lizzy could manage that for us." + +And in her own mind Mercy resolved that the old woman should never lack +for food and fire, however unwilling the overseers might be to permit her +to have unusual comforts. + +Stephen's next letter opened with these words: "O Mercy, I have such a +strange thing to tell you. I am so excited I can hardly find words. I have +found a lot of money in your old fireplace. Just think of our having sat +there so quietly night after night, within hands' reach of it, all last +winter! And how lucky that I found it, instead of any of the workmen! +They'd have pocketed it, and never said a word." + +"To be sure they would," thought Mercy, "and poor old Granny Jacobs would +have been"--she was about to think, "cheated out of her rights again," +but with a pang she changed the phrase into "none the better off for it. +Oh, how glad I am for the poor old thing! People always said her husband +must have hid money away somewhere." + +Mercy read on. "I was in such a hurry to get the house done before the +snow came that I took hold myself, and worked every night and morning +before the workmen came; and, after they had gone, I found this last +night, and I declare, Mercy, I haven't shut my eyes all night long. It +seems to me too good to be true. I think there must be as much as three +thousand dollars, all in solid gold. Some of the coins I don't know the +value of; but the greater proportion of them are English sovereigns. Of +course rich people wouldn't think this such a very big sum, but you and I +know how far a little can go for poor people." + +"Yes, indeed," thought Mercy. "Why, it will make the poor old woman +perfectly comfortable all her life: it will give her more than she had +from the house." And Mercy laid the letter in her lap and fell into a +reverie, thinking how strange it was that this good fortune should have +come about by means of an act which had seemed to her cruel on Stephen's +part. + +She took the letter up again. It continued: "O Mercy, my darling, do you +suppose you can realize what this sudden lift is to me? All my life I have +found our poverty so hard to bear, and these latter years I have bitterly +felt the hardship of being unable to go out into the world and make my +fortune as other men do, as I think I might, if I were free. But this sum, +small as it is, will be a nucleus, I feel sure it will, of a competency at +least. I know of several openings where I can place it most +advantageously. O Mercy! dear, dear Mercy! what hopes spring up in my +heart! The time may yet come when we shall build up a lovely home +together. Bless old Jacobs's miserliness! How little he knew what he was +hoarding up his gold for!" + +At this point, Mercy dropped the letter,--dropped it as if it had been a +viper that stung her. She was conscious of but two things: a strange, +creeping cold which seemed to be chilling her to the very marrow of her +bones; and a vague but terrible sense of horror, mentally. The letter fell +to the floor. She did not observe it. A half-hour passed, and she did not +know that it had been a moment. Gradually, her brain began to rouse into +activity again, and strove confusedly with the thoughts which crowded on +it. + +"That would be stealing. He can't mean it. Stephen can't be a thief." +Half-formed, incoherent sentences like these floated in her mind, seemed +to be floating in the air, pronounced by hissing voices. + +She pressed her hands to her temples, and sprang to her feet. The letter +rustled on the floor, as her gown swept over it. She turned and looked at +it, as if it were a living thing she would kill. She stooped to pick it +up, and then recoiled from it. She shrank from the very paper. All the +vehemence of her nature was roused. As in the moment of drowning people +are said to review in one swift flash of consciousness their whole lives, +so now in this moment did Mercy look back over the months of her life with +Stephen. Her sense of the baseness of his action now was like a lightning +illuming every corner of the past: every equivocation, every concealment, +every subterfuge he had practised, stood out before her, bare, stripped of +every shred of apology or excuse. "He lies; he has always lied. Why should +he not steal?" she exclaimed. "It is only another form of the same thing. +He stole me, too; and he made me steal him. He is dishonest to the very +core. How did I ever love such a man? What blinded me to his real nature?" + +Then a great revulsion of feeling, of tenderness toward Stephen, would +sweep over her, and drown all these thoughts. "O my poor, brave, patient +darling! He never meant to do any thing wrong in his life. He does not see +things as I do: no human soul could see clearly, standing where he stands. +There is a moral warp in his nature, for which he is no more responsible +than a tree is responsible for having grown into a crooked shape when it +was broken down by heavy stones while it was a sapling. Oh, how unjust I +am to him! I will never think such thoughts of him again. My darling, my +darling! He did not stop to think in his excitement that the money was +not his. I daresay he has already seen it differently." + +Like waves breaking on a beach, and rolling back again to meet higher +waves and be swallowed up in them, these opposing thoughts and emotions +struggled with each other in Mercy's bosom. Her heart and her judgment +were at variance, and the antagonism was irreconcilable. She could not +believe that her lover was dishonest. She could not but call his act a +theft. The night came and went, and no lull had come to the storm by which +her soul was tossed. She could not sleep. As the morning dawned, she rose +with haggard and weary eyes, and prepared to write to Stephen. In some of +her calmer intervals, she had read the remainder of his letter. It was +chiefly filled with the details of the manner in which the gold had been +hidden. A second fireplace had been built inside the first, leaving a +space of several inches between the two brick walls. On each side two +bricks had been so left that they could be easily taken out and replaced; +and the bags of gold hung upon iron stanchions in the outer wall. What a +strange picture it must have been in the silent night hours,--the old +miser bending above the embers of the dying fire on the hearth, and +reaching down the crevice to his treasures! The bags were of leather, +curiously embossed; they were almost charred by the heat, and the gold was +dull and brown. + +"I wonder which old fellow put it there?" said Stephen, at the end of his +letter. "Captain John would have been more likely to have foreign gold; +but why should he hide it in his brother's fireplace? At any rate, to +whichever of them I am indebted for it, I am most profoundly grateful. If +ever I meet him in any world, I'll thank him." + +Suddenly the thought occurred to Mercy, "Perhaps old Mrs. Jacobs is dead. +Then there would be nobody who had any right to the money. But no: Stephen +would have told me if she had been." + +Still she clung to this straw of a hope; and, when she sat down to write +to Stephen, these words came first to her pen:-- + +"Is Mrs. Jacobs dead, Stephen? You do not say any thing about her; but I +cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself, unless she is dead. If she is alive, the money is hers. Nobody +but her husband or his brother could have put it there. Nobody else has +lived in the house, except very poor people. Forgive me, dear, but perhaps +you had not thought of this when you first wrote: it has very likely +occurred to you since then, and I may be making a very superfluous +suggestion." So hard did she cling to the semblance of a trust that all +would yet prove to be well with her love and her lover. + +Stephen's reply came by the very next mail. It was short: it ran thus:-- + +"DEAR DARLING,--I do not know what to make of your letter. Your sentence, +'I cannot imagine your thinking for a moment of keeping that money for +yourself,' is a most extraordinary one. What do you mean by 'keeping it +for myself'? It is mine: the house was mine and all that was in it. Old +Mrs. Jacobs is alive still, at least she was last week; but she has no +more claim on that money than any other old woman in town. I can't suppose +you would think me a thief, Mercy; but your letter strikes me as a very +strange one. Suppose I were to discover that there is a gold mine in the +orchard,--stranger things than that have happened,--would you say that +that also belonged to Mrs. Jacobs and not to me? The cases are precisely +parallel. You have allowed your impulsive feeling to run away with your +judgment; and, as I so often tell you, whenever you do that, you are +wrong. I never thought, however, it would carry you so far as to make you +suspect me of a dishonorable act." + +Stephen was deeply wounded. Mercy's attempted reticence in her letter had +not blinded him. He felt what had underlain the words, and it was a hard +blow to him. His conscience was as free from any shadow of guilt in the +matter of that money as if it had been his by direct inheritance from his +own father. Feeling this, he had naturally the keenest sense of outrage at +Mercy's implied accusation. + +Before Stephen's second letter came, Mercy had grown calm. The more she +thought the thing over, the more she felt sure that Mrs. Jacobs must be +dead, and that Stephen in his great excitement had forgotten to mention +the fact. Therefore the second letter was even a greater blow to her than +the first: it was a second and a deeper thrust into a wound which had +hardly begun to heal. There was also a tone of confident, almost +arrogant, assumption in the letter, it seemed to Mercy, which irritated +her. She did not perceive that it was the inevitable confidence of a +person so sure he is right that he cannot comprehend any doubt in +another's mind on the subject. There was in Mercy's nature a vein of +intolerance, which was capable of the most terrible severity. She was as +blinded, to Stephen's true position in the matter as he was to hers. The +final moment of divergence had come: its seeds were planted in her nature +and in Stephen's when they were born. Nothing could have hindered their +growth, nothing could have forestalled their ultimate result. It was only +a question of time and of occasion, when the two forces would be arrayed +against each other, and would be found equally strong. + +Mercy took counsel with herself now, and delayed answering this second +letter. She was resolved to be just to Stephen. + +"I will think this thing over and over," she said to herself, "till I am +sure past all doubt that I am right, before I say another word." + +But her long thinking did not help Stephen. Each day her conviction grew +deeper, her perception clearer, her sense of alienation from Stephen +profounder. If a moral antagonism had grown up between them in any other +shape, it would have been less fatal to her love. There were many species +of wrong-doing which would have been less hateful in her sight. It seemed +to her sometimes that there could be no crime in the world which would +appear to her so odious as this. Her imagination dwelt on the picture of +the lonely old woman in the alms-house. She had been several times to see +Mrs. Jacobs, and had been much moved by a certain grim stoicism which gave +almost dignity to her squalor and wretchedness. + +"She always had the bearing of a person who knew she was suffering +wrongly, but was too proud to complain," thought Mercy. "I wonder if she +did not all along believe there was something wrong about the mortgage?" +and Mercy's suspicious thoughts and conjectures ran far back into the +past, fastening on the beginnings of all this trouble. She recollected old +Mr. Wheeler's warnings about Stephen, in the first weeks of her stay in +Penfield. She recollected Parson Dorrance's expression, when he found out +that she had paid her rent in advance. She tortured herself by reviewing +minutely every little manoeuvre she had known of Stephen's practising to +conceal his relation with her. + +Let Mercy once distrust a person in one particular, and she distrusted him +in all. Let one act of his life be wrong, and she believed that his every +act was wrong in motive, or in relation to others, however specious and +fair it might be made to appear. All the old excuses and apologies she had +been in the habit of making for Stephen's insincerities to his mother and +to the world seemed to her now less than nothing; and she wondered how she +ever could have held them as sufficient. In vain her heart pleaded. In +vain tender memories thrilled her, by their vivid recalling of hours, of +moments, of looks and words. It was with a certain sense of remorse that +she dwelt on them, of shame that she was conscious of clinging to them +still. "I shall always love him, I am afraid," she said to herself; "but I +shall never trust him again,--never!" + +And hour by hour Stephen was waiting and looking for his letter. + + + + +Chapter XII. + + + +Stephen took Mercy's letter from the post-office at night. It was one week +past the time at which it would have reached him, if it had been written +immediately on the receipt of his. Only too well he knew what the delay +meant. He turned the letter over and over in his hand, and noted without +surprise it was very light. The superscription was written with unusual +care. Mercy's handwriting was free and bold, but illegible, unless she +made a special effort to write with care; and she never made that effort +in writing to Stephen. How many times he had said to her: "Never mind how +you write to me, dear. I read your sentences by another sense than the +sense of sight." This formally and neatly written, superscription smote +him, as a formal bow and a chilling glance from Mercy would, if he had +passed her on the street. + +He carried the letter home unopened. All through the evening it lay like a +leaden weight in his bosom, as he sat by his mother's side. He dared not +read it until he was sure of being able to be alone for hours. At last he +was free. As he went upstairs to his room, he thought to himself, "This is +the hour at which I used to fly to her, and find such welcome. A year ago +to-night how happy we were!" With a strange disposition to put off the +opening of the letter, he moved about his room, rearranged the books, +lighted an extra lamp, and finally sat down in an arm-chair, and leaning +both his arms on the table looked at the letter lying there so white, so +still. He felt a preternatural consciousness of what was in it; and he +shrank from looking at the words, as a condemned prisoner might shrink +from reading his own death-warrant. The room was bitterly cold. Fires in +bed-rooms were a luxury Stephen had never known. As he sat there, his body +and heart seemed to be growing numb together. At last he said, "I may as +well read it," and took the letter up. As he opened it and read the first +words, "My darling Stephen," his heart gave a great bound. She loved him +still. What a reprieve in that! He had yet to learn that love can be +crueller than any friendship, than any indifference, than any hate: +nothing is so exacting, so inexorable, as love. The letter was full of +love; but it was, nevertheless, hard and pitiless in its tone. Stephen +read it again and again: then he held it in the flame of the lamp, and let +it slowly burn, until only a few scorched fragments remained. These he +folded in a small paper, and put into his pocket-book. Why he did this, he +could not tell, and wondered at himself for doing it. Then he walked the +room for an hour or two, revolving in his mind what he should say to +Mercy. His ideas arranged themselves concisely and clearly. He had been +stung by Mercy's letter into a frame of feeling hardly less inexorable +than her own. He said to himself, "She never truly loved me, or nothing +under heaven could make her believe me capable of a dishonesty;" and, in +midst of all his pain at this thought, he had an indignant resentment, as +if Mercy herself had been in some way actively responsible for all this +misery. + +His letter was shorter than Mercy's. They were sad, strange letters to +have passed between lovers. Mercy's ran as follows:-- + +"MY DARLING STEPHEN,--Your letters have shocked me so deeply that I find +myself at a loss for words in which to reply. I cannot understand your +present position at all. I have waited all these days, hoping that some +new light would come to me, that I could see the whole thing differently; +but I cannot. On the contrary, each hour that I think of it (and I have +thought of nothing else since your second letter came) only makes my +conviction stronger. Darling, that money is Mrs. Jacobs's money, by every +moral right. You may be correct in your statement as to the legal rights +of the case. I take it for granted that you are. At any rate, I know +nothing about that; and I rest no argument upon it at all. But it is clear +as daylight to me that morally you are bound to give her the money. +Suppose you had had permission from her to make those changes in the +house, while you were still her tenant, and had found the money, then you +would have handed it to her unhesitatingly. Why? Because you would have +said, 'This woman's husband built this house. No one except his brother +who could possibly have deposited this money here has lived in the house. +One of those two men was the owner of that gold. In either case, she is +the only heir, and it is hers. I am sure you would have felt this, had we +chanced to discover the money on one of those winter nights you refer to. +Now in what has the moral obligation been changed by the fact that the +house has come into your hands? Not by ordinary sale, either; but simply +by foreclosure of a mortgage, under conditions which were certainly very +hard for Mrs. Jacobs, inasmuch as one-half the interest has always been +paid. This money which you have found would have paid nearly the whole of +the original loan. It was hers, only she did not know where it lay. O +Stephen, my darling, I do implore you not to do this great wrong. You will +certainly come to see, sooner or later, that it was a dishonest act; and +then it will be too late to undo it. If I thought that by talking with you +I could make you see it as I do, I would come to you at once. But I keep +clinging to the hope that you will see it of yourself, that a sudden +realization of it will burst upon you like a great light. Don't speak so +angrily to me of calling you a thief. I never used the word. I never +could. I know the act looks to you right, or you would not commit it. But +it is terrible to me that it should look so to you. I feel, darling, as if +you were color-blind, and I saw you about to pick a most deadly fruit, +whose color ought to warn every one from touching it; but you, not seeing +the color, did not know the danger; and I must save you at all hazards, at +all costs. Oh, what shall I say, what shall I say! How can I make you see +the truth? God help us if I do not; for such an act as this on your part +would put an impassable gulf between our souls for ever. Your loving, + +"MERCY." + +Stephen's letter was in curter phrase. Writing was not to him a natural +form of expression. Even of joyous or loving words he was chary, and much +more so of their opposites. His life-long habit of repression of all signs +of annoyance, all complaints, all traces of suffering, told still more on +his written words than on his daily speech and life. His letter sounded +harder than it need for this reason; seemed to have been written in +antagonism rather than in grief, and so did injustice to his feeling. + +"MY DEAR MERCY,--It is always a mistake for people to try to impose their +own standards of right and wrong on others. It gives me very great pain to +wound you in any way, you know that; and to wound you in such a way as +this gives me the greatest possible pain. But I cannot make your +conscience mine. If this money had not seemed to me to be justly my own, I +should never have thought of taking it. As it does seem to me to be justly +my own, your believing it to be another's ought not to change my action. +If I had only my own future to consider, I might give it up, for the sake +of your peace of mind. But it is not so. I have a helpless invalid +dependent on me; and one of the hardest things in my life to bear has +always been the fear that I might lose my health, and be unable to earn +even the poor living we now have. This sum, small as it is, will remove +that fear, will enable me to insure for my mother a reasonable amount of +comfort as long as she lives; and I cannot give it up. I do not suppose, +either, that it would make any difference in your feeling if I gave it up +solely to please you, and not because I thought it wrong to keep it. How +any act which I honestly believe to be right, and which you know I +honestly believe to be right, can put 'an impassable gulf between our +souls for ever,' I do not understand. But, if' it seems so to you, I can +only submit; and I will try to forget that you ever said to me, 'I shall +trust you till I die!' O Mercy, Mercy, ask yourself if you are just! + +"STEPHEN." + +Mercy grasped eagerly at the intimation in this letter that Stephen might +possibly give the money up because she desired it. + +"Oh, if he will only not keep it, I don't care on what grounds he gives it +up!" she exclaimed. "I can bear his thinking it was his, if only the money +goes where it belongs. He will see afterwards that I was right." And she +sat down instantly, and wrote Stephen a long letter, imploring him to do +as he had suggested. + +"Darling," she said, "this last letter of yours has given me great +comfort." As Stephen read this sentence, he uttered an ejaculation of +surprise. What possible comfort there could have been in the words he +remembered to have written he failed to see; but it was soon made clear to +him. + +"You say," she continued, "that you might possibly give the money up for +sake of my peace of mind, if it were not for the fear that your mother +might suffer. O Stephen, then give it up! give it up! Trust to the +future's being at least as kind as the past. I will not say another word +about the right or wrong of the thing. Think that my feeling is all morbid +and overstrained about it, if you will. I do not care what you think of +me, so that I do not have to think of you as using money which is not your +own. And, darling, do not be anxious about the future: if any thing +happens to you, I will take care of your mother. It is surely my right +next to yours. I only wish you would let me help you in it even now. I am +earning more and more money. I have more than I need. Oh, if you would +only take some of it, darling! Why should you not? I would take it from +you, if you had it and I had not. I could give you in a very few years as +much as this you have found and never miss it. Do let me atone to you in +this way for your giving up what you think is your right in the matter of +this ill-fated money. O Stephen, I could be almost happy again, if you +would do this! You say it would make no difference in my feeling about it, +if you gave the money up only to please me, and not because you thought it +wrong to keep it. No, indeed! that is not so. I would be happier, if you +saw it as I do, of course; but, if you cannot, then the next best thing, +the only thing left for my happiness, is to have you yield to my wish. +Why, Stephen, I have even felt so strongly about it as this: that +sometimes, in thinking it over, I have had a wild impulse to tell you that +if you did not give the money to Mrs. Jacobs I would inform the +authorities that you had it, and so test the question whether you had the +right to keep it or not. Any thing, even your humiliation, has at times +seemed to me better than that you should go on living in the possession of +stolen money. You can see from this how deeply I felt about the thing. I +suppose I really never could have done this. At the last moment, I should +have found it impossible to array myself against you in any such public +way; but, oh, my darling, I should always have felt as if I helped steal +the money, if I kept quiet about it. You see I use a past tense already, I +feel so certain that you will give it up now. Dear, dear Stephen, you will +never be sorry: as soon as it is done, you will be glad. I wish that gold +had been all sunk in the sea, and never seen light again, the sight of it +has cost us so dear. Darling, I can't tell you what a load has rolled off +my heart. Oh, if you could know what it has been to me to have this cloud +over my thoughts of you! I have always been so proud of you, +Stephen,--your patience, your bravery. In my thought, you have stood +always for my ideal of the beautiful alliance of gentleness and strength. +Darling, we owe something to those who love us: we owe it to them not to +disappoint them. If I were to be tempted to do some dishonorable thing, I +should say to myself: 'No, for I must be what Stephen believes me. It is +not only that I will not grieve him: still more, I will not disappoint +him.'" + +Mercy wrote on and on. The reaction from the pent-up grief, the prolonged +strain, was great. In her first joy at any, even the least, alleviation of +the horror she had felt at the thought of Stephen's dishonesty, she +over-estimated the extent of the relief she would feel from his +surrendering the money at her request. She wrote as buoyantly, as +confidently, as if his doing that would do away with the whole wrong from +the beginning. In her overflowing, impetuosity, also, she did not consider +what severe and cutting things were implied as well as said in some of her +sentences. She closed the letter without rereading it, hastened to send it +by the first mail, and then began to count the days which must pass before +Stephen's answer could reach her. + +Alas for Mercy! this was a sad preparation for the result which was to +follow her hastily written words. It seems sometimes as if fate delighted +in lifting us up only to cast us down, in taking us up into a high +mountain to show us bright and goodly lands, only to make our speedy +imprisonment in the dark valley the harder to bear. + +Stephen read this last letter of Mercy's with an ever-increasing sense of +resentment to the very end. For the time being it seemed to actually +obliterate every trace of his love for her. He read the words as +wrathfully as if they had been written by a mere acquaintance. + +"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Stolen money! Inform the authorities!' +Let her do it if she likes and see how she would come out at the end of +that.' And Stephen wrote Mercy very much such a letter as he would have +written to a man under the same circumstances. Luckily, he kept it a day, +and, rereading it in a cooler moment was shocked at its tone, destroyed +it, and wrote another. But the second one was no less hard, only more +courteous, than the first. It ran thus:-- + +"MERCY,--I am sorry that any thing in my last letter should have led you +to suppose that under the existing circumstances you could control my +actions. All I said was that I might, for the sake of your peace of mind, +give up this money, if it were not for my obligations to my mother. It was +a foolish thing to say, since those obligations could not be done away +with. I ought to have known that in your overwrought frame of mind you +would snatch at the suggestion, and make it the basis of a fresh appeal. + +"Now let me say, once for all, that my mind is firmly made up on this +subject, and that it must be dropped between us. The money is mine, and I +shall keep it. If you think it your duty to 'inform the authorities,' as +you say, you must do so; and I would not say one word to hinder you. I +would never, as you do in this case, attempt to make my own conscience the +regulator of another's conduct. If you do regard me as the possessor of +'stolen money,' it is undoubtedly your duty to inform against me. I can +only warn you that all you would gain by it would be a most disagreeable +exposure of your own and my private affairs, and much mortification to +both of us. The money is mine beyond all question. I shall not reply to +any more letters from you on this subject. There is nothing more to be +said; and all prolonging of the discussion is a needless pain, and is +endangering the very foundations of our affection for each other. I want +to say one thing more, however; and I hope it will impress you as it +ought. Never forget that the strongest proof that my conscience was +perfectly clear in regard to that money is that I at once told you of its +discovery. It would have been perfectly easy for me to have accounted to +you in a dozen different ways for my having come into possession of a +little money, or even to have concealed from you the fact that I had done +so; and, if I had felt myself a thief, I should certainly have taken good +care that you did not know it. + +"I must also thank you for your expressions of willingness to take care of +my mother, in case of any thing's happening to me. Until these last +letters of yours, I had often thought, with a sense of relief, that, if I +died, you would never see my mother suffer; but now any such thought is +inseparably associated with bitter memories. And my mother will not, in +any event, need your help; for the money I shall have from the sale of the +house, together with this which I have found, will give her all she will +require. + +"You must forgive me if this letter sounds hard, Mercy. I have not your +faculty of mingling endearing epithets with sharp accusations and +reproaches. I cannot be lover and culprit at once, as you are able to be +lover and accuser, or judge. I love you, I think, as deeply and tenderly +as ever; but you yourself have made all expression of it impossible. +STEPHEN." + +This letter roused in Mercy most conflicting emotions. Wounded feeling at +its coldness, a certain admiration for its tone of immovable resolution, +anger at what seemed to her Stephen's unjustifiable resentment of her +effort to influence his action,--all these blended in one great pain which +was well-nigh unbearable. For the time being, her distress in regard to +the money seemed cast into shadow and removed by all this suffering in her +personal relation with Stephen; but the personal suffering had not so deep +a foundation as the other. Gradually, all sense of her own individual +hurts in Stephen's words, in his acts, in the weakening of the bond which +held them together, died out, and left behind it only a sense of +bereavement and loss; while the first horror of Stephen's wrong-doing, of +the hopeless lack in his moral nature, came back with twofold intensity. +This had its basis in convictions,--in convictions which were as strong as +the foundations of the earth: the other had its basis in emotions, in +sensibilities which might pass away or be dulled. + +Spite of Stephen's having forbidden all reference to the subject, Mercy +wrote letter after letter upon it, pleading sometimes humbly, sometimes +vehemently. It seemed to her that she was fighting for Stephen's very +life, and she could not give way. To all these out-pourings Stephen made +no reply. He answered the letters punctually, but made no reference to the +question of the money, save by a few short words at the end of his letter, +or in a postscript: such as, "It grieves me to see that you still dwell on +that matter of which I said we must speak no more;" or, "Pray, dear Mercy, +do not prolong that painful discussion. I have nothing more to say to you +about it." + +For the rest, his letters were faithful transcripts of the little events +of his uneventful life, warm comments on any of Mercy's writings which he +read, and gentle assurances of his continued affection. The old longings, +broodings, and passionate yearnings, which he used to pour out, ceased. +Stephen was wounded to the very quick; and the wound did not heal. Yet he +felt no withdrawal from Mercy: probably nothing she could do would ever +drive him from her. He would die, if worst came to worst, lying by her +side and looking up in her eyes, like a dog at the feet of its master who +had shot him. + +Mercy was much moved by this tone of patience in his letters: it touched +her, as the look of patient endurance on his face used to touch her. It +also irritated her, it was so foreign to her own nature. + +"How can he help answering these things I say?" she would exclaim. "He has +no right to refuse to talk with me about such a vital matter." If any one +had said to Mercy, "He has as much right to refuse to discuss the question +as you have to force it upon him," she could not have seen the point +fairly. + +But all Stephen's patience, gentleness, and firmness did not abate one jot +or tittle of Mercy's conviction that he was doing a dishonest thing. Oh +the contrary, his quiet appeared to her more and more like a callous +satisfaction; and his occasional cheerfulness, like an exultation over his +ill-gotten gains. Slowly there crept into her feeling towards him a +certain something which was akin to scorn,--the most fatal of deaths to +love. The hateful word "thief" seemed to be perpetually ringing in her +ears. When she read accounts of robberies, of defalcations, of breaches of +trust, she found herself always drawing parallels between the conduct of +these criminals and Stephen's. The secrecy, the unassailable safety of his +crime, seemed to her to make it inexpressibly more odious. + +"I do believe," she thought to herself again and again, "that if he had +been driven by his poverty to knocking men down on the highway, and +robbing them of their pocket-books, I should not have so loathed it!" + +As the weeks went on, Mercy's unhappiness increased rather than +diminished. There seemed an irreconcilible conflict between her love and +every other emotion in her soul. She seemed to herself to be, as it were, +playing the hypocrite to her own heart in thinking thus of a man and +loving him still; for that she still loved Stephen, she did not once +doubt. At this time, she printed a little poem, which set many of her +friends to vondering from what experience of hers it could possibly have +been drawn. Mercy's poems were so largely subjective in tone that it was +hard for her readers to believe that they were not all drawn from her own +individual experience. + + A WOMAN'S BATTLE. + + Dear foe, I know thou'lt win the fight; + I know thou hast the stronger bark, + And thou art sailing in the light, + While I am creeping in the dark. + Thou dost not dream that I am crying, + As I come up with colors flying. + + I clear away my wounded, slain, + With strength like frenzy strong and swift; + I do not feel the tug and strain, + Though dead are heavy, hard to lift. + If I looked on their faces dying, + I could not keep my colors flying. + + Dear foe, it will be short,--our fight,-- + Though lazily thou train'st thy guns: + Fate steers us,--me to deeper night, + And thee to brighter seas and suns; + But thou'lt not dream that I am dying, + As I sail by with colors flying! + +There was great injustice to Stephen in this poem. When he read it, he +groaned, and exclaimed aloud, "O Mercy! O Mercy!" Then, as he read it over +again, he said, "Surely she could not have meant herself in this: it is +only dramatic. She could never call me her foe." Mercy had often said to +him of some of her most intense poems, "Oh, it was purely dramatic. I just +fancied how anybody would feel under such circumstances;" and he clung to +the hope that it was true in this case. But it was not. Already Mercy had +a sense of antagonism, of warfare, with Stephen, or rather with her love +for him. Already her pride was beginning to array itself in reticence, in +withdrawal, in suppression. More than once she had said to herself "I can +live without him! I could bear that pain better than this." More than once +she had asked herself with a kind of terror, "Do I really wish ever to see +Stephen again?" and had been forced to own in her secret thought that she +shrank from meeting him. She began even to consider the possibility of +deferring the visit to Lizzy Hunter, which she had promised to make in the +spring. As the time drew nearer, her unwillingness to go increased, and +she would no doubt have discovered some way of escape; but one day early +in March a telegram came to her, which left her no longer any room for +choice. + +It ran:-- + +"Uncle Dorrance is not expected to live. He wishes to see you. He is at my +house. Come immediately. + +"LIZZY HUNTER." + + + + +Chapter XIII. + + + +Within six hours after the receipt of this telegram, Mercy was on her way +to Penfield. Her journey would take a night and part of a day. As the +morning dawned, and she drew near the old familiar scenes, her heart was +wrung with conflicting memories and hopes and fears. The whole landscape +was dreary: the fields were dark and sodden, with narrow banks of +discolored snow lying under the fences, and thin rims of ice along the +edges of the streams and pools. The sky was gray; the bare trees were +gray: all life looked gray and hopeless to Mercy. She had had an +over-mastering presentiment from the moment when she read the telegram +that she should reach Penfield too late to see Parson Dorrance alive. A +strange certainty that he had died in the night settled upon her mind as +soon as she waked from her troubled sleep; and when she reached Lizzy's +door, and saw standing before it the undertaker's wagon, which she so well +remembered, there was no shock of surprise to her in the sight. At the +first sound of Mercy's voice, Lizzy came swiftly forward, and fell upon +her neck in a passion of crying. + +"O Mercy, Mercy, he"-- + +"Yes, dear, I know it," interrupted Mercy, in a calm tone. "I know he is +dead." + +"Why, who told you, Mercy?" exclaimed Lizzy. "He only died a few hours +ago,--about daybreak," + +"Oh, I thought he died in the night!" said Mercy, in a strange tone, as if +trying to recollect something accurately about which her memory was not +clear. Her look and her tone filled Lizzy with terror, and banished her +grief for the time being. + +"Mercy, Mercy, don't look so!" she exclaimed. "Speak to me! Oh, do cry, +can't you?" And Lizzy's tears flowed afresh. + +"No, Lizzy, I don't think I can cry," said Mercy, in the same strange, low +voice. "I wish I could have spoken to him once, though. Did he leave any +word for me? Perhaps there is something he wanted me to do." + +Mercy's face was white, and her lips trembled; but her look was hardly the +look of one in sorrow: it was a rapt look, as of one walking on dizzy +heights, breathless with some solemn purpose. Lizzy was convulsed with +grief, sobbing like a child, and pouring out one incoherent sentence after +another. Mercy soothed her and comforted her as a mother might have done, +and finally compelled her to be more calm. Mercy's magnetic power over +those whom she loved was almost unlimited. She forestalled their very +wills, and made them desire what she desired. + +"O Mercy, don't make me glad he is dead! You frighten me, darling. I don't +want to stop crying; but you have sealed up all my tears," cried Lizzy, +later in the day, when Mercy had been talking like a seer, who could look +into the streets of heaven, and catch the sound of the songs of angels. + +Mercy smiled sadly. "I don't want to prevent your crying, dear," she said, +"if it does you any good. But I am very sure that Mr. Dorrance sees us at +this moment, and longs to tell us how glad he is, and that we must be glad +for him." And Mercy's eyes shone as they looked steadfastly across the +room, as if the empty space were, to her vision, peopled with spirits. +This mood of exalted communion did not leave her. Her face seemed +transfigured by it. When she stood by the body of her loved teacher and +friend, she clasped her hands, and, bending over the face, exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, how good God was!" Then, turning suddenly to Lizzy, she exclaimed,-- + +"Lizzy, did you know that he loved me, and asked me to be his wife? This +is why I am thanking God for taking him to heaven." + +Lizzy's face paled. Astonishment, incredulity, anger, grief, all blended +in the sudden look she turned upon Mercy. "I thought so! I thought so! But +I never believed you knew it. And you did not love him! Mercy, I will +never forgive you!" + +"He forgave me," said Mercy, gently; "and so you might. But I shall never +forgive myself!" + +"Mercy Philbrick!" exclaimed Lizzy, "how could you help loving that man?" +And, in her excitement, Lizzy stretched out her right hand towards the +rigid, motionless figure under the white pall. "He was the most glorious +man God ever made." + +The two women stood side by side, looking into the face of the dead. It +was a strange place for these words to be spoken. It was as solemn as +eternity. + +"I did not help loving him," said Mercy, in a lower tone, her white face +growing whiter as she spoke. "But"--she paused. No words came to her lips, +for the bitter consciousness which filled her heart. + +Lizzy's voice sank to a husky whisper. + +"But what?" she said. "O Mercy, Mercy! is it Stephen White you love?" And +Lizzy's face, even in that solemn hour, took a look of scorn. "Are you +going to marry Stephen White?" she continued. + +"Never, Lizzy,--never!" said Mercy, in a tone as concentrated as if a +lifetime ended there; and, stooping low, she kissed the rigid hands which +lay folded on the heart of the man she ought to have loved, but had not. +Then, turning away, she took Lizzy's hands in hers, and kissing, her +forehead said earnestly,-- + +"We will never speak again of this, Lizzy, remember." Lizzy was overawed +by her tone, and made no reply. + +Parson Dorrance's funeral was a scene which will never be forgotten by +those who saw it. It was on one of the fiercest days which the fierce New +England March can show. A storm of rain and sleet, with occasional +softened intervals of snow, raged all day. The roads were gullies of +swift-running water and icy sloughs; the cold was severe; and the cutting +wind at times drove the sleet and rain in slanting scourges, before which +scarce man or beast could stand. The funeral was held in the village +church, which was larger than the college chapel. Long before the hour at +which the services were to begin, every pew was filled, and the aisles +were crowded with those who could not find seats. From every parish within +twenty miles the mourners had come. There was not one there who had not +heard words of help or comfort from Parson Dorrance's lips. The students +of the college filled the body of the church; the Faculty and +distinguished strangers sat in the front pews. The pews under one of the +galleries had been reserved for the negroes from "The Cedars." Early in +the morning the poor creatures had begun to flock in. Not a seat was +empty: old women, women with babies, old men, boys and girls, wet, +dripping, ragged, friendless, more than one hundred of them,--there they +were. They had walked all that distance in that terrible storm. Each one +had brought in his hand a green bough or a bunch of rock-ferns, something +of green beauty from the woods their teacher had taught them to love. They +sat huddled together, with an expression of piteous grief on every face, +which was enough to touch the stoniest heart. Now and then sobs would +burst from the women, and some old figure would be seen rocking to and fro +in uncontrollable sorrow. + +The coffin stood on a table in front of the pulpit. It seemed to be +resting on an altar of cedar and ferns. Mercy had brought from her old +haunts in the woods masses of the glossy evergreen fern, and interwoven +them with the boughs of cedar. At the end of the services, it was +announced that all who wished could pass by the coffin and take one last +look at their friend. + +Slowly and silently the congregation passed up the right aisle, looked on +the face, and passed out at the left door. It was a pathetic sight to see +the poor, outcast band wait patiently, humbly, till every one else had +gone: then, like a flock of stricken sheep, they rushed confusedly towards +the pulpit, and gathered round the coffin. Now burst out the grief which +had been pent up: with cries and ejaculations, they went tottering and +stumbling down the aisles. One old man, with hair as white as snow,--one +of the original fugitive slaves who had founded the settlement,--bent over +the coffin at its head, and clung with both hands to its edge, swaying +back and forth above it, crying aloud, till the sexton was obliged to +loosen his grasp and lead him away by force. + +The college faculty still sat in the front pews. There were some of their +number, younger men, scholars and men of the world, who had not been free +from a disposition to make good-natured fun of Parson Dorrance's +philanthropies. They shrugged their shoulders sometimes at the mention of +his parish at "The Cedars;" they regarded him as old-fashioned and +unpractical. They sat conscience-stricken and abashed now; the tears of +these bereaved black people smote their philosophy and their worldliness, +and showed them how shallow they were. Tears answered to tears, and the +college professors and the negro slaves wept together. + +"They have nobody left to love them now," exclaimed one of the youngest +and hitherto most cynical of Parson Dorrance's colleagues, as he stood +watching the grief-stricken creatures. + +While the procession formed to bear the body to the grave, the blacks +stood in a group on the church-steps, watching it. After the last carriage +had fallen into line, they hurried down and followed on in the storm. In +vain some kindly persons tried to dissuade them. It was two miles to the +cemetery, two miles farther away from their homes; but they repelled all +suggestions of the exposure with indignant looks, and pressed on. When the +coffin was lowered into the grave, they pushed timidly forward, and began +to throw in their green boughs and bunches of ferns. Every one else +stepped back respectfully as soon as their intention was discovered, and +in a moment they had formed in solid ranks close about the grave, each one +casting in his green palm of crown and remembrance,--a body-guard such as +no emperor ever had to stand around him in his grave. + +On the day after Mercy's arrival in town, Stephen had called to see her. +She had sent down to him a note with these words:-- + +"I cannot see you, dear Stephen, until after all is over. The funeral will +be to-morrow. Come the next morning, as early as you like." + +The hours had seemed bitterly long to Stephen. He had watched Mercy at the +funeral; and, when he saw her face bowed in her hands, and felt rather +than saw that she was sobbing, he was stung by a new sense of loss and +wrong that he had no right to be by her side and comfort her. He forgot +for the time, in the sight of her grief, all the unhappiness of their +relation for the past few months. He had unconsciously felt all along +that, if he could but once look in her eyes, all would be well. How +could he help feeling so, when he recalled the expression of childlike +trust and devotion which her sweet face always wore when she lifted it to +his? And now, as his eyes dwelt lingeringly and fondly on every line of +her bowed form, he had but one thought, but one consciousness,--his desire +to throw his arms about her, and exclaim, "O Mercy, are you not my own, my +very own?" + +With his heart full of this new fondness and warmth, Stephen went at an +early hour to seek Mercy. As he entered the house, he was sensibly +affected by the expression still lingering of the yesterday's grief. The +decorations of evergreens and flowers were still untouched. Mercy and +Lizzy had made the whole house gay as for a festival; but the very +blossoms seemed to-day to say that it had been a festival of sorrow. A +large sheaf of callas had stood on a small table at the head of the +coffin. The table had not yet been moved from the place where it stood +near the centre of the room; but it stood there now alone, with a strange +expression of being left by accident. Stephen bent over it, looking into +the deep creamy cups, and thinking dreamily that Mercy's nature was as +fair, as white, as royal as these most royal of graceful flowers, when the +door opened and Mercy came towards him. He sprang to meet her with +outstretched arms. Something in her look made the outstretched arms fall +nerveless; made his springing step pause suddenly; made the very words +die away on his lips. "O Mercy!" was all he could say, and he breathed it +rather than said it. + +Mercy smiled a very piteous smile, and said, "Yes, Stephen, I am here." + +"O Mercy, it is not you! You are not here. What has done this to you? Did +you so love that man?" exclaimed Stephen, a sudden pang seizing him of +fiercest jealousy of the dead, whom he had never feared while he was +living. + +Mercy's face contracted, as if a sharp pain had wrenched every nerve. + +"No, I did not love him; that is, not as you mean. You know how very +dearly I did love him, though." + +"Dear darling, you are all worn out. This shock has been too much for you. +You are not well," said Stephen, tenderly, coming nearer to her and taking +her hand. "You must have rest and sleep at once." + +The hand was not Mercy's hand any more than the voice had been Mercy's +voice. Stephen dropped it, and, looking fixedly at Mercy's eyes, +whispered, "Mercy, you do not love me as you used to." + +Mercy's eyes drooped; she locked her hands tightly together, and said, "I +can't, Stephen." No possible form of words could have been so absolute. "I +can't!" "I do not," would have been merciful, would have held a hope, by +the side of this helpless, despairing, "I can't." + +Stephen sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. Mercy +stood still, near the white callas; her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed +on Stephen. At last she spoke, in a voice of unutterable yearning and +tenderness, "I do love you, Stephen." + +At these words, he pressed his hands tighter upon his eyes for one second, +then shook them hastily free, and looking up at Mercy said gently,-- + +"Yes, dear, I know you do; and I know you would have loved me always, if +you could. Do not be unhappy. I told you a long time ago that to have had +you once love me was enough for a lifetime." And Stephen smiled,--a smile +more pathetic than Mercy's had been. He went on, still in the same gentle +voice,--a voice out of which the very life seemed to have died,--"I hoped, +when we met, all would be right. It used to be so much to you, Mercy, to +look into my eyes, I thought you would trust me when you saw me." + +No reproach, no antagonism, no entreaty. With the long-trained patience of +a lifetime, Stephen accepted this great grief, and made no effort to +gainsay it. Mercy tried again and again to speak, but no words came. At +last, with a flood of tears, she exclaimed,-- + +"I cannot help it, Stephen,--I cannot help it." + +"No, darling, you cannot help it; and it is not your fault," replied +Stephen. Touched to the heart by his sweetness and forbearance, Mercy went +nearer him, and took his hand, and in her old way was about to lay it to +her cheek. + +Stephen drew it hastily away, and a shudder ran over his body. "No, Mercy, +do not try to do that. That is not right, when you do not trust me. You +cannot help loving the touch of my hand, Mercy,"--and a certain sad pride +lighted Stephen's face at the thought of the clinging affection which even +now stirred this woman's veins for him,--"any more than you can help +having ceased to trust me. If the trust ever comes back, then"--Stephen +turned his head away, and did not finish the sentence. A great silence +fell upon them both. How inexplicable it seemed to them that there was +nothing to say! At last Stephen rose, and said gravely,-- + +"Good-by, Mercy. Unless there is something I can do to help you, I would +rather not see you again." + +"No," whispered Mercy. "That is best." + +"And if the time ever comes, darling, when you need me, ... or trust me ... +again, will you write to me and say so?" + +"Yes," sobbed Mercy, and Stephen left her. On the threshold of the door, +he turned and fixed his eyes upon her with one long look of sorrow, +compassion, and infinite love. Her heart thrilled under it. She made an +eager step forward. If he had returned, she would have thrown herself into +his arms, and cried out, "O Stephen, I do love you, I do trust you." But +Stephen made an inexorable gesture of his hand, which said more than any +words, "No! no! do not deceive yourself," and was gone. + +And thus they parted for ever, this man and this woman who had been for +two years all in all to each other, who had written on each other's hearts +and lives characters which eternity itself could never efface. + +Hope lived long in Stephen's heart. He built too much on the memories of +his magnetic power over Mercy, and he judged her nature too much by his +own. He would have loved and followed her to the end, in spite of her +having become a very outcast of crime, if she had continued to love him; +and it was simply impossible for him to conceive of her love's being +either less or different. But, when in a volume of poems which Mercy +published one year after their parting, he read the following sonnet, he +knew that all was indeed over:-- + + DIED. + + Not by the death that kills the body. Nay, + By that which even Christ bade us to fear + Hath died my dead. + Ah, me! if on a bier + I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day, + I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay + My cheek to his in anguish which were near + To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear + In death as life. Mere separations weigh + As dust in balances of love. The death + That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain + To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore, + O thou once loved so well, loved now no more! + There is no resurrection for such slain, + No miracle of God could give thee breath! + + * * * * * + +Mercy Philbrick lived thirty years after the events described in these +pages. It was a life rich to overflowing, yet uneventful, as the world +reckons: a life lonely, yet full of companionship; sady yet full of cheer; +hard, and yet perpetually uplifted by an inward joy which made her very +presence like sunshine, and made men often say of her, "Oh, she has never +known sorrow." This was largely the result of her unquenchable gift of +song, of the true poet's temperament, to which life is for ever new, +beautiful, and glad. It was also the result of her ever-increasing +spirituality of nature. This took no shape of creed, worship, or what the +world's common consent calls religion. Most of the words spoken by the +teachers of churches repelled Mercy by their monotonous iteration of the +letter which killeth. But her realization of the solemn significance of +the great fact of being alive deepened every hour; her tenderness, her +sense of brotherhood to every human being, and her sense of the actual +presence and near love of God. Her old intolerance was softened, or rather +it had changed from antagonisms on the surface to living principles at the +core. Truth, truth, truth, was still the war-cry of her soul; and there +was an intensity in every word of her written or spoken pleadings on this +subject which might well have revealed to a careful analyzer of them that +they had sprung out of the depths of the profoundest experiences. Her +influence as a writer was very great. As she grew older, she wrote less +and less for the delight of the ear, more and more for the stirring of the +heart. To do a little towards making people glad, towards making them kind +to one another, towards opening their eyes to the omnipresent +beauty,--these were her ambitions. "Oh, the tender, unutterable beauty of +all created things!" were the opening lines of one of her sweetest songs; +and it might have been said to be one of the watchwords of her life. + +It took many years for her to reach this plane, to attain to the fulness +of this close spiritual communion with things seen and unseen. The double +bereavement and strain of her two years of life in Penfield left her for a +long time bruised and sore. Her relation with Stephen, as she looked back +upon it, hurt her in every fibre of her nature. Sometimes she was filled +with remorse for the grief she had caused him, and sometimes with poignant +distress, of doubt whether she had not after all been unjust to him. +Underlying all this remorse, all this doubt was a steadily growing +consciousness that her love for him was in the very outset a mistake, an +abnormal emotion, born of temporary and insufficient occasion, and +therefore sure to have sooner or later proved too weak for the tests of +life. On the other hand, her thoughts of Parson Dorrance grew constantly +warmer, tenderer, more assured. His character, his love for her, his +beautiful life, rose steadily higher and higher, and brighter and brighter +on her horizon, as the lofty snow-clad peaks of a mountain land reveal +themselves in all their grandeur to our vision only when we have journeyed +away from their base. Slowly the whole allegiance of her heart transferred +itself to the dead man's memory; slowly her grief for his loss deepened, +and yet with the deepened grief came a certain new and holy joy. It surely +could not be impossible for him to know in heaven that she was his on +earth? As confidently as if she had been wedded to him here, she looked +forward to the reunion with him there, and found in her secret +consciousness of this eternal bond a hidden rapture, such as has been the +stay of many a widowed heart through long lifetimes of loneliness. This +secret bond was like an impalpable yet impenetrable veil between her soul +and the souls of all men who came into relation with her. Men loved her +and sought her,--loved her warmly and sought her with long years of +devotion. The world often judged her uncharitably by reason of these +friendships, which were only friendships, and yet pointed to a warmer +regard than the world consents that friends may feel. But there was never +a man, of all the men who loved Mercy, who did not feel himself, spite of +all her frank and loving intimacy, withheld, debarred, separated from her +at a certain point, as if there stood drawn up there a cordon of viewless +spirits. + +The one grief above which she could not wholly rise, which at times smote +her and bowed her down, was her sense of her loss in being childless. The +heart of mother was larger in her even than the heart of wife. Her longing +for children of her own was so great that it was often more than she could +bear to watch little children at their play. She stood sometimes at her +window at dusk, and watched the poor laboring men and women going home, +leading or carrying their children; and it seemed as if her heart would +break. Everywhere, her eye noted the swarming groups of children, poor, +uncared for, so often unwelcome; and she said sadly to herself, "So many! +so many! and not one for me." Yet she never felt any desire to adopt +children. She distrusted her own patience and justice too much; and she +feared too deeply the development of hereditary traits which she could not +conquer; "I might find that I had taken a liar," she thought; "and I +should hate him." + +As she reached middle age, this unsatisfied desire ceased to be so great a +grief. She became more and more like a motherly friend to the young people +surrounding her. Her house was a home to them all, and she reproduced in +her own life very nearly the relation which Parson Dorrance had held to +the young people of Danby. Her friend Lizzy Hunter was now the mother of +four girls, all in their first young womanhood. They all strove eagerly +for the privilege of living with "Aunt Mercy," and went in turn to spend +whole seasons with her. + +On Stephen White's thirty-sixth birthday, his mother died. The ten years +which had passed since Mercy left him had grown harder and harder, day by +day; but he bore the last as silently and patiently as he bore the first, +and Mrs. White's last words to the gray-haired man who bent over her bed +were,-- + +"You have been a good boy, Steve,--a good boy. You'll have some rest now." + +Since the day he bade good-by to Mercy in the room from which Parson +Dorrance had just been buried, Stephen had never written to her, never +heard from her, except as all the world heard from her, in her published +writings. These he read eagerly, and kept them carefully in scrap-books. +He took great delight in collecting all the copies of her verses. +Sometimes a little verse of hers would go the rounds of the newspapers +for months, and each reappearance of it was a new pleasure to Stephen. He +knew most of them by heart; and he felt that he knew Mercy still, as well +as he knew her when she looked up in his face. On the night of his +mother's death he wrote to her these words:-- + +"MERCY,--It is ten years since we parted. I love you as I loved you then. +I shall never love any other woman. I am free now. My mother has died this +night. May I come and see you? I ask nothing of you, except to be your +friend. Can I not be that? + +"STEPHEN." + +If a ghost of one dead for ten years had entered her presence, Mercy had +hardly been more startled. Stephen had ceased to be a personality to her. +Striving very earnestly with herself to be kind, and to do for this +stranger whom she knew not what would be the very best and most healing +thing for his soul, Mercy wrote to him as follows:-- + +"DEAR STEPHEN,--Your note was a very great surprise to me. I am most +heartily thankful that you are at last free to live your life like other +men. I think that the future ought to hold some very great and good gifts +in store for you, to reward you for your patience. I have never known any +human being so patient as you. + +"You must forgive me for saying that I do not believe it is possible for us +to be friends. I could be yours, and would be glad to be so. But you could +not be mine while you continue so to set me apart from all other women, +as you say you do, in your affection. I am truly grieved that you do this, +and I hope that in your new free life you will very soon find other +relations which will make you forget your old one with me. I did you a +great harm, but we were both ignorant of our mistake. I pray that it may +yet be repaired, and that you may soon be at rest in a happy home with a +wife and children. Then I should be glad to see you: until then, it is not +best. + +"Yours most honestly, + +"MERCY." + +Until he read this letter, Stephen had not known that secretly in the +bottom of his heart he riad all these years cherished a hope that there +might yet be a future in store for him and Mercy. Now, by the new sense of +desolation which he felt, he knew that there must have been a little more +life than he thought left; in him to die. + +As soon as his mother was buried, he closed the house and went abroad. +There he roamed about listlessly from country to country, for many years, +acquiring a certain desultory culture, and buying, so far as his income +would permit, every thing he saw which he thought Mercy would like. Then +he went home, bought the old Jacobs house back again, and fitted it up in +every respect as Mercy had once suggested. This done, he sat down to +wait--for he knew not what. He had a vague feeling that he would die soon, +and leave the house and his small fortune to Mercy; and she would come and +spend her summers there, and so he would recall to her their old life +together. He led the life of a hermit,--rarely went out, and still more +rarely saw any one at home. He looked like a man of sixty rather than like +one of fifty. He was fast becoming an invalid, more, however, from the +lack of purpose and joy than from any disease. Life had been very hard to +Stephen. + +Nothing seemed more probable, contrasting his listless figure, gray hair, +and jaded face with Mercy's full, fresh countenance and bounding +elasticity, than that his dream of going first, and leaving to her the +gift of all he had, would be realized; but he was destined to outlive her +by many a long year. + +Mercy's death was a strange one. She had gone with two of Lizzy Hunter's +daughters to spend a few weeks in one of the small White Mountain +villages, which was a favorite haunt of hers. The day after their arrival, +a two days' excursion to some of the mountains was proposed; and Mercy, +though not feeling well enough to join it herself, insisted that the girls +should go. They were reluctant to leave her; but, with her usual +vehemence, she resisted all their protestations, and compelled them to +join the party. She was thus left alone in a house crowded with people, +all of whom were strangers to her. Some of them recollected afterward to +have noticed her sitting on the piazza at sunset, looking at the mountains +with an expression of great delight; but no one spoke with her, and no one +missed her the next morning, when she did not come to breakfast. Late in +the forenoon, the landlady came running in great terror and excitement to +one of the guests, exclaiming: "That lady that came yesterday is dying. +The chambermaids could not get into her room, nor get any answer, so we +broke open the door. The doctor says she'll never come to again!" + +Helpless, the village doctor, and the servants, and the landlady, and as +many of the guests as could crowd into the little room, stood around +Mercy's bed. It seemed a sad way to die, surrounded by strangers, who did +not even know her name; but Mercy was unconscious. It made no difference +to her. Her heavy breathing told only too well the nature of the trouble. + +"This cannot be the first attack she has had," said the doctor; and it was +found afterward that Mercy had told Lizzy Hunter of her having twice had +threatenings of a paralytic seizure. "If only I die at once," she had said +to Lizzy, "I would rather go that way than in most others. I dread the +dying part of death. I don't want to know when I am going." + +And she did not. All day her breathing grew slower and more labored, and +at night it stopped. In a few hours, there settled upon her features an +expression of such perfect peace that each one who came to look at her +stole away reverent and subdued. + +The two old crones who had come to "lay out" the body crept about on +tiptoe, their usual garrulity quenched by the sad and beautiful spectacle. +It was a singular thing that no one knew the name of the stranger who had +died thus suddenly and alone. In the confusion of their arrival, Mercy +had omitted to register their names. In the smaller White Mountain houses, +this formality is not rigidly enforced. And so it came to pass that this +woman, so well known, so widely beloved, lay a night and a day dead, +within a few hours' journey of her home as unknown as if she had been cast +up from a shipwrecked vessel on a strange shore. + +The two old crones sat with the body all night and all the next day. They +sewed on the quaint garments in which it is still the custom of rural New +England to robe the dead. They put a cap of stiff white muslin over +Mercy's brown hair, which even now, in her fiftieth year, showed only here +and there a silver thread. They laid fine plaits of the same stiff white +muslin over her breast, and crossed her hands above them. + +"She must ha' been a handsome woman in her time, Mis' Bunker. I 'spect +she was married, don't you?" said Ann Sweetser, Mrs. Bunker's spinster +cousin, who always helped her on these occasions. + +"Well, this ere ring looks like it," replied Mrs. Bunker, taking up a bit +of the muslin and rubbing the broad gold band on the third finger of +Mercy's left hand. "But yer can't allers tell by that nowadays. There's +folks wears 'em that ain't married. This is a real harndsome ring, 's +heavy 's ever I see." + +How Mercy's heart must have been touched, and also her fine and pathetic +sense of humor, if her freed spirit hovered still in that little +low-roofed room! This cast-off garment of hers, so carefully honored, so +curiously considered and speculated upon by these simple-minded people! +There was something rarely dramatic in all the surroundings of these last +hours. Among the guests in the house was one, a woman, herself a poet, who +toward the end of the second day came into the chamber, bringing long +trailing vines of the sweet Linnea, which was then in full bloom. Her +poet's heart was moved to the depths by the thought of this unknown, dead +woman lying there, tended by strangers' hands. She gazed with an +inexplicable feeling of affection upon Mercy's placid brow. She lifted the +lifeless hands and laid them down again in a less constrained position. +She, too, noted the broad gold ring, and said,-- + +"She has been loved then. I wonder if he is alive!" The door was closed, +and no one was in the room. With a strange impulse she could not account +for to herself, she said, "I will kiss her for him," and bent and kissed +the cold forehead. Then she laid the fragrant vines around the face and +across the bosom, and went away, feeling an inexplicable sense of nearness +to the woman she had kissed. When the next morning she knew that it was +Mercy Philbrick, the poet, in whose lifeless presence she had stood, she +exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh, I might have known that there was +some subtile bond which made me kiss her! I have always loved her verses +so." + +On the day after Lizzy Hunter returned from Mercy's funeral, Stephen White +called at her house and asked to speak to her. She had almost forgotten +his existence, though she knew that he was living in the Jacobs house. +Their paths never crossed, and Lizzy had long ago forgotten her passing +suspicion of Mercy's regard for him. The haggard and bowed man who met her +now was so unlike the Stephen White she recollected, that Lizzy +involuntarily exclaimed. Stephen took no notice of her exclamation. + +"No, thank you, I will not sit down," he said, as with almost solicitude +in her face she offered him a chair. "I merely wish to give you something +of"--he hesitated--"Mrs. Philbrick's." + +He drew from his breast a small package of papers, yellow, creased, old. +He unfolded one of these and handed it to Lizzy, saying,-- + +"This is a sonnet of hers which has never been printed. She gave it to me +when,"--he hesitated again,--"when she was living in my house. She said at +that time that she would like to have it put on her tombstone. I did not +know any other friend of hers to go to but you. Will you see that it is +done?" + +Lizzy took the paper and began to read the sonnet. Stephen stood leaning +heavily on the back of a chair; his breath was short, and his face much +flushed. + +"Oh, pray sit down, Mr. White! You are ill," exclaimed Lizzy. + +"No, I am not ill. I would rather stand," replied Stephen. His eyes were +fixed on the spot where thirty years before Mercy had stood when she said, +"I can't, Stephen." + +Lizzy read the sonnet with tears rolling down her cheeks. + +"Oh, it is beautiful,--beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Why did she never have +it printed?" + +Stephen colored and hesitated. One single thrill of pride followed by a +bitter wave of pain, and he replied,-- + +"Because I asked her not to print it." + +Lizzy's heart was too full of tender grief now to have any room for wonder +or resentment at this, or even to realize in that first moment that there +was any thing strange in the reply. + +"Indeed, it shall be put on the stone," she said. "I am so thankful you +brought it. I have been thinking that there were no words fit to put above +her grave. No one but she herself could have written any that would be," +and she was folding up the paper. + +Stephen stretched out his hand. "Pardon me," he said, "I cannot part with +that. I have brought a copy to leave with you," and he gave Lizzy another +paper. + +Mechanically she restored to him the first one, and gazed earnestly into +his face. Its worn and harrowed features, its look of graven patience, +smote her like a cry. She was about to speak to him eagerly and with +sympathy, but he was gone. His errand was finished,--the last thing he +could do for Mercy. She watched his feeble steps as he walked away, and +her pity revealed to her the history of his past. + +"How he loved her! how he loved her!" she said, and watched his figure +lingeringly, till it was out of sight. + +This is the sonnet which was cut on the stone above Mercy's grave:-- + + EMIGRAVIT. + + With sails full set, the ship her anchor weighs; + Strange names shine out beneath her figure-head: + What glad farewells with eager eyes are said! + What cheer for him who goes, and him who stays! + Fair skies, rich lands, new homes, and untried days + Some go to seek: the rest but wait instead + Until the next stanch ship her flag shall raise. + Who knows what myriad colonies there are + Of fairest fields, and rich, undreamed-of gains, + Thick-planted in the distant shining plains + Which we call sky because they lie so far? + Oh, write of me, not,--"Died in bitter pains," + But, "Emigrated to another star!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Mercy Philbrick's Choice, by Helen Hunt Jackson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE *** + +***** This file should be named 10519.txt or 10519.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/1/10519/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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