Mercy Philbrick's Choice Part 12

"What a life he must lead of it!" thought Mercy. "Dear me! I should go wild or else get very wicked. I believe I'd get very wicked. I wonder he shuts himself up so with her. It is all nonsense: it only makes her more and more selfish. How mean, how base of her, to be so jealous of his talking with me! If she were his wife, it would be another thing. But he doesn't belong to her body and soul, if she _is_ his mother. If ever I know him well enough, I'll tell him so. It isn't manly in him to let her tyrannize over him and everybody else that comes into the house. I never saw any human being that made one so afraid, somehow. Her tone and look are enough to freeze your blood."

While Mercy was buried in these indignant thoughts, Stephen and his mother, only a few feet away, separated from her only by a wall, were having a fierce and angry talk. No sooner had the door closed upon Mercy than Mrs. White had said to Stephen,--

"Have you the slightest idea how much excitement you showed in conversing with Mrs. Philbrick? I have never seen you look or speak in this way."

The flush had not yet died away on Stephen's face. At this attack, it grew deeper still. He made no reply. Mrs. White continued,--

"I wish you could see your face. It is almost purple now."

"It is enough to make the blood mount to any man's face, mother, to be accused so," replied Stephen, with a spirit unusual for him.

"I don't accuse you of any thing," she retorted. "I am only speaking of what I observe. You needn't think you can deceive me about the least thing, ever. Your face is a perfect tell-tale of your thoughts, always."

Poor Stephen groaned inwardly. Too well he knew his inability to control his unfortunate face.

"Mother!" he exclaimed with almost vehemence of tone, "mother! do not carry this thing too far. I do not in the least understand what you are driving at about Mrs. Philbrick, nor why you show these capricious changes of feeling towards her. I think you have treated her so to-day that she will never darken your doors again. I never should, if I were in her place."

"Very well, I hope she never will, if her presence is to produce such an effect on you. It is enough to turn her head to see that she has such power over a man like you. She is a very vain woman, anyway,--vain of her power over people, I think."

Stephen could bear no more. With a half-smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of "O mother!" he left the room.

And thus the old year went out and the new year came in for Mercy Philbrick and Stephen White,--the old year in which they had been nothing, and the new year in which they were to be every thing to each other.

Chapter VII.

The next morning, while Stephen was dressing, he slowly reviewed the events of the previous day, and took several resolutions. If Mrs. White could have had the faintest conception of what was pa.s.sing in her son's mind, while he sat opposite to her at breakfast, so unusually cheerful and talkative, she would have been very unhappy. But she, too, had had a season of reflection this morning, and was much absorbed in her own plans.

She heartily regretted having shown so much ill-feeling in regard to Mercy; and she had resolved to atone for it in some way, if she could.

Above all, she had resolved, if possible, to banish from Stephen's mind the idea that she was jealous of Mercy or hostile towards her. She had common sense enough to see that to allow him to recognize this feeling on her part was to drive him at once into a course of manoeuvring and concealment. She flattered herself that it was with a wholly natural and easy air that she began her plan of operations by remarking,--

"Mrs. Philbrick seems to be very fond of her mother, does she not, Stephen?"

"Yes, very," answered Stephen, indifferently.

"Mrs. Carr is quite an old woman. She must have been old when Mrs.

Philbrick was born. I don't think Mrs. Philbrick can be more than twenty, do you?"

"I am sure I don't know. I never thought anything about her age," replied Stephen, still more indifferently. "I'm no judge of women's ages."

"Well, I'm sure she isn't more than twenty, if she is that," said Mrs.

White; "and she really is a very pretty woman, Steve. I'll grant you that."

"Grant me that, mother?" laughed Stephen, lightly. "I never said she was pretty, did I? The first time I saw her, I thought she was uncommonly plain; but afterwards I saw that I had done her injustice. I don't think, however, she would usually be thought pretty."

Mrs. White was much gratified by his careless tone and manner; so much so that she went farther than she had intended, and said in an off-hand way, "I'm real sorry, Steve, you thought I didn't treat her well yesterday. I didn't mean to be rude, but you know it always does vex me to see a woman's head turned by a man's taking a little notice of her; and I know very well, Stephy, that women like you. It wouldn't take much to make Mrs.

Philbrick fancy you were in love with her."

Stephen also was gratified by his mother's apparent softening of mood, and instinctively met her more than half way, replying,--

"I didn't mean to say that you were rude to her, mother; only you showed so plainly that you didn't want them to stay. Perhaps she didn't notice it, only thought you were tired. It isn't any great matter, any way. We'd better keep on good terms with them, if they're to live under the same roof with us, that's all."

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. White. "Much better to be on neighborly terms. The old mother is a childish old thing, though. She'd bore me to death, if she came in often."

"Yes, indeed, she is a bore, sure enough," said Stephen; "but she's so simple, and so much like a child you can't help pitying her."

They fenced very well, these two, with their respective secrets to keep; but the man fenced best, his secret being the most momentous to s.h.i.+eld from discovery. When he shut the door, having bade his mother good by, he fairly breathed hard with the sense of having come out of a conflict. One of the resolutions he had taken was that he would wait for Mercy this morning on a street he knew she must pa.s.s on her way to market. He did not define to himself any motive for this act, except the simple longing to see her face. He had not said to himself what he would do, or what words he would speak, or even that he would speak at all; but one look at her face he must have, and he had though to himself distinctly in making this plan, "Here is one way in which I can see her every day, and my mother never know any thing about it."

When Mrs. White saw Mercy set off for her usual morning walk, a half hour or more after Stephen had left the house, she thought, as she had often though before on similar occasions, "Well, she won't overtake Stephen this time. I dare say she planned to." Light-hearted Mercy, meantime, was walking on with her own swift, elastic tread, and thinking warmly and shyly of the look with which Stephen had bade her good-by the day before.

She was walking, as was her habit, with her eyes cast down, and did not observe that any one approached her, until she suddenly heard Stephen's voice saying, "Good-morning, Mrs. Philbrick." It was the second time that he had surprised her in a reverie of which he himself was the subject.

This time the surprise was a joyful one; and the quick flush of rosy color which spread over her cheeks was a flush of gladness,--undisguised and honest gladness.

"Why, Mr. White," she exclaimed, "I never thought of seeing you. I thought you were always in your office at this time."

"I waited to see you this morning," replied Stephen, in a tone as simply honest as her own. "I wanted to speak to you."

Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak. Stephen smiled.

"Oh, not for any particular thing," he said: "only for the pleasure of it."

Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other's faces with a joy which neither attempted to disguise. Stephen took Mercy's basket from her arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were walking by each other's side. The few words they did speak were of the purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,--a sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language. When they parted at the door of Stephen's office, he said,--

"I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do you not?"

"Yes, always," replied Mercy.

"Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you," said Stephen.

"I like it very much, Mr. White," answered Mercy, eagerly. "I used to walk a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly."

A jealous pang shot through Stephen's heart. He had been blind. This was the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs.

Philbrick and her mother. He remembered now that he had thought at the time some of the expressions in his friend's letter argued an unusual interest in the young widow. Of course no man could know Mercy without loving her. Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene and smiling face with which he bade Mercy "Good-by," and ran up his office-stairs three steps at a time.

All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and cheer. It was not a conscious antic.i.p.ation of the morrow: she did not say to herself "To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour." Love knows the secret of true joy better than that. Love throws open wider doors,--lifts a great veil from a measureless vista: all the rest of life is transformed into one s.h.i.+ning distance; every present moment is but a round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are perpetually descending to the dreamer below.

The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than usual. Her first thought was one of blank disappointment. "Why, I thought he meant to walk down with me," she said to herself. Her second thought was a perplexed instinct of the truth: "I wonder if he can be afraid to have his mother see him with me?" At this thought, Mercy's face burned, and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter had become quite clear in her mind.

"I shall see him at the corner where he was yesterday," she said.

But no Stephen was there. Spite of herself, Mercy lingered and looked back. She was grieved and she was vexed.

"Why did he say he wanted to walk with me, and then the very first morning not come?" she said, as she walked slowly into the village.

It was a cloudy day, and the clouds seemed to harmonize with Mercy's mood.

She did her errands in a half-listless way; and more than one of the tradespeople, who had come to know her voice and smile, wondered what had gone wrong with the cheery young lady. All the way home she looked vainly for Stephen at every cross-street. She fancied she heard his step behind her; she fancied she saw his tall figure in the distance. After she reached home and the expectation was over for that day, she took herself angrily to task for her folly. She reminded herself that Stephen had said "sometimes," not "always;" and that nothing could have been more unlikely than that he should have joined her the very next day. Nevertheless, she was full of uneasy wonder how soon he would come again; and, when the next morning dawned clear and bright, her first thought as she sprang up was,--