Mercy Philbrick's Choice Part 23

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.s by the coffin and take one last look at their friend.

Slowly and silently the congregation pa.s.sed up the right aisle, looked on the face, and pa.s.sed 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, 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 s.e.xton 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 n.o.body 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, compa.s.sion, 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 G.o.d could give thee breath!