Mercy Philbrick's Choice Part 16

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 ma.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce."

"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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n 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 s.h.i.+ning heavens, Rose precipitous and bare, With a pent-up river rus.h.i.+ng, 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 s.h.i.+mmering, sunny s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 s.p.a.ce, bounded by these two streams; and the picnic party halted before its door.

While the white foamy gla.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 rect.i.tude 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sent 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d's needing them. I think he is on a plane as absolutely above such needs as G.o.d is. Not so high above, but as absolutely."