Mercy Philbrick's Choice

by Helen Hunt Jackson

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."