Mercy Philbrick's Choice

by Helen Hunt Jackson

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.