Mercy Philbrick's Choice Part 13

"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 pa.s.sed: no Stephen. A sort of indignant grief swelled up in Mercy's bosom; she was indignant with herself, with him, with circ.u.mstances, 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 c.r.a.pe 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 impa.s.sable 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstances.

The day was a long, hard one for Mercy. The more she thought, conjectured, remembered, and antic.i.p.ated, 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 pa.s.sed 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 dispa.s.sionately 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?"