A Mercy: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 6 is told in limited third-person narrative from Rebekka’s perspective. The chapter opens with Rebekka in her sickbed, wondering whether Florens will make it to the Blacksmith safely. Her feverish thoughts jump to Florens as a child, silent until Lina replaced her old shoes from her life in Maryland with the pair that Lina made for her.

Rebekka thinks about her physical discomfort, which only goes away when she is unconscious. Lina attends to her, conducting native healing rituals. Rebekka, meanwhile, hallucinates people standing over her bed. Many of these faces, like her daughter’s, are imaginary. Lina’s, however, is real, and Rebekka suddenly recognizes her as her friend.

Rebekka rambles to Lina, her mind returning to her transatlantic voyage. Rebekka remembers that, upon finally landing in North America, she was surprised by how much she liked Jacob when she finally met him. Rebekka’s father, who was ready to be rid of her and the economic burden she imposed on him, sent Rebekka to marry Jacob after he heard from a crewman that a man abroad was looking for a wife.

Rebekka’s mother, meanwhile, objected to what she saw as the “sale” (Rebekka’s father received “reimbursement” for Rebekka’s care) of her daughter because Rebekka’s new fiancé was not religious. Rebekka’s parents were fervently religious but totally unloving towards her and their other children. This gave Rebekka a fraught relationship with religion, as Rebekka feels little genuine religious faith, but plenty of guilt for her shallow belief.

Before Rebekka left, her mother warned her of the dangers of native people, who she described as “savages.” As a result, when Rebekka first met Lina, she bolted her door at night and kept far away from her. However, as Lina has already described, they eventually became close friends through shared chores. When Rebekka watched Lina handle her first child tenderly, Rebekka felt ashamed of how she prejudged her.

Rebekka, in bed, revisits memories of the first hanging she attended. She remembers being two years old, and thinks that she would have been frightened if the crowd had not been so gleeful. Later, Rebekka attended the drawing and quartering of a Fifth Monarchist (a group of religious nonconformists persecuted in the 17th century), which her family enjoyed, but which gave her lifelong nightmares.

The city that Rebekka grew up in was dangerous, so the dangers of the new world did not turn Rebekka off. Compared to her childhood in England, North America was not especially violent. Rebekka feels that news of battles between colonists and natives seems distant from her life.

Rebekka enjoys the sweet, clean smell of the air in America, so unlike the rancid city air in England. She also likes the plentiful wood to burn in the winter, thinking sadly of her siblings freezing in England. Rebekka finds the American countryside is preferable to the busy, dirty London streets.

Rebekka only casually attends the local meetinghouse for services. Unlike what her parents told her, the Anabaptists in the region are not Satanists, but kind people. In England, both the Anabaptists and the Quakers are beaten for their views. Rebekka remembers when the king pardoned Anabaptists on their way to be executed, disappointing her parents.

Rebekka was chosen in school to undergo domestic service training. However, Rebekka left the program after four days because the head of the program was sexually harassing her. When Rebekka’s father found the advertisement looking for a woman willing to travel overseas for marriage, Rebekka hoped it would save her from her dismal prospects in England. Rebekka looked forward to her arranged marriage as a way to escape her mother, her dismissive brothers, and the men who leered at her in England.

When Rebekka first moved in with Jacob, she visited a nearby church. The churchgoers explained their beliefs to Rebekka. Rebekka tried to be respectful, listening patiently to their doctrine. However, when they refused to baptize Patrician, Rebekka turned away from the church.

Rebekka’s mind focuses on her daughter Patrician. She thinks about processing her grief with Lina after Patrician’s death, when she was kicked in the head by a horse. According to the religion in which Rebekka grew up, expressing grief is ungrateful. However, after watching three of her babies die in infancy, it broke Rebekka’s heart to lose Patrician at age five. Rebekka then had to bury her twice, because the ground was still frozen the first time they tried.

At present, Rebekka is ill and still mourning Jacob’s death only a few days before. Her thoughts, though, leave Jacob again and return to Patrician, her hair matted with blood after the accident. Rebekka remembers that when the ground finally softened and she and Jacob buried Patrician, she sat on the ground and stayed there all night. No one, not Lina, Jacob, or the local Pastor, could get Rebekka up.

When dawn came, Lina left jewelry and food as offerings on the grave, part of her native religious practices, and told Rebekka that Patrician and the babies that Rebekka lost are in the stars. Rebekka thought this was “pagan stuff,” but found it more appealing than Christian heaven.

This reminds Rebekka of one summer day when she and Lina sat sewing and doing laundry, discussing God’s role in people’s lives. Rebekka told Lina that she doesn’t believe that God knows they each exist, in spite of having created them. The two women laughed. Rebekka wonders if Patrician’s accident was punishment for that blasphemous conversation.

Rebekka, feverishly thinks again of her journey across the Atlantic, hallucinating the women she met on the boat. There were seven other women in the cramped steerage section. Rebekka remembers the range of baggage, clothing, speech, and attitude among the women, a mix of disgraced middle class daughters, prostitutes, and thieves. Only Rebekka was crossing the ocean for marriage. The others were having their passages paid by relatives or people they would go on to work for as indentured servants.

Over the course of their voyage, Rebekka learned more about her co-travelers, discovering their talents and their backgrounds. Rebekka became closest with Dorothea, and when she told her she was about to be married for the first time, Dorothea laughed and told Judith there was a virgin in their midst. They traded bawdy jokes until Anne, offended, told them to stop. A crewman above them closed the hatch, plunging the women into darkness. Then they lit the lamp and huddled around it.

Patty asked where Abigail was, and Dorothea called Abigail, who was in the captain’s cabin, a “lucky whore.” She imagined the good things (berries, wine, etc.) Abigail was probably eating at his table. The women quibbled over Dorothea’s comments. Rebekka then offered to share the cheese and biscuits she brought with her for the trip.

The women pretended to have tea together in the low lamplight, imitating what they imagined was aristocratic behavior. Judith spread out her shawl for a tablecloth, and Lydia heated water. There was no tea, so they drank hot water with rum and ate Rebekka’s cheese and biscuits. Rebekka remembers how, although the women around her were women “of and for men,” while they had tea together they were “neither.” At last the lamp died, and everyone was quiet and still. Time felt, in that moment, eternal to Rebekka.

After they landed, the women did not pretend that they would meet up again, parting unsentimentally. This turns out to be accurate, and except in her fever dreams at present, Rebekka never saw them again.

Rebekka then remembers seeing Jacob for the first time and thinking he was “bigger” than she had imagined. Jacob, who Rebekka called “Mr. Vaark” until she became comfortable with him, helped her with her boxes, took off his hat, touched her face, and smiled. Rebekka felt that Jacob’s whole life had been leading up to meeting her, since when he saw her he seemed so satisfied.

Rebekka refuses Jacob’s offer to help her into the wagon. Rebekka intended to accept no pampering, thinking that they needed to be partners in work. Jacob took Rebekka to a coffeehouse with a sign reading “Marriages performed within” on the door. The cleric there married them. Afterward, they got back in the wagon to head to Jacob’s farm.

When Rebekka and Jacob slept together for the first time, Jacob seemed shy to Rebekka. Rebekka thought that sex was nothing like how Dorothea or Lydia described it to her. Jacob and Rebekka came to learn each other’s preferences, habits, etc. Jacob did not care especially about religion, and was indifferent to Rebekka’s own spiritual choices. Rebekka chose not to join the local church. Rebekka and Jacob developed a supportive relationship, needing only each other. However, although they planned on having children, Rebekka had trouble nursing. All of their children born after Patrician died in infancy.

Jacob, convinced the farm would never be profitable, began to spend more time trading. Although Rebekka found Jacob’s stories of his travels exciting, they also made her worry about the threatening world beyond her farm. Jacob sometimes would bring Rebekka a new servant to help her with chores or gifts.

Eventually Jacob started to tell Rebekka fewer stories and bring her more elaborate gifts. Rebekka did not ask him questions and instead smiled at the presents. Finally, though, Rebekka asked him where the money for the gifts had been coming from. Jacob told her he had “new arrangements.” Rebekka now thinks that these beautiful, useless gifts should have made her unsurprised by Jacob’s eventual decision to build his new, huge house. Rebekka was unhappy about the house, thinking it was useless and boastful.

One day as she shaved him, Rebekka told Jacob she did not think they needed the enormous new house. Jacob responded by telling Rebekka that need was “not the reason” for building it. The purpose was legacy, Jacob said. He insisted on building it.

The building of the house brought lots of men, equipment, and horses to the farm, including the horse that kicked Patrician in the head. Rebekka did not notice Jacob coming down with smallpox in the frenzy, only realizing he was sick when he collapsed. No one came to the farm after that for fear of catching the sickness and the laborers left.

Per Jacob’s final request, Rebekka and the servants carried Jacob into his new house to die. It was raining, and they struggled with the gate, laying him in the mud so they could undo the hinges. Finally they got into the house and set Jacob down. Jacob died and Rebekka closed his eyes. Rebekka, Lina, Sorrow, and Florens sat down on the floor and cried.

Rebekka’s sickness feels like a bad joke to her, and she thinks of how Dorothea used to say “Congratulations, Satan,” when the ship rocked violently. Rebekka hallucinates seeing the women from the ship in her bedroom and listens to their imaginary chitchat. Just like the women Rebekka knew in real life, the hallucinated women are self-centered, but they offer Rebekka comforting distraction.

Rebekka thinks of the Bible story of Job, who was once prosperous before God subjected him to a series of punishments to test his faith. Rebekka thinks that all along Job only wanted God’s attention anyway. Rebekka wonders, though, whether a female Job would feel the same. After all, Rebekka thinks, “invisibility was intolerable to men,” and a female Job would have already known the humility and fidelity that Job had to learn.

Finally the women Rebekka imagines fade. Lina is sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed. Rebekka thinks that even before Jacob’s death, she missed him often. With Jacob gone, neither Patrician nor Lina nor the Baptists were enough to keep her occupied. Rebekka dislikes the Baptists especially. She thinks that their definition of God is even narrower than her parents’. In their faith, no one except those who join their church are saved, and no black people, Catholics, or Jews can be saved.

Rebekka holds a particular grudge against the Baptists because they refused to baptize her children. Moreover, they have plenty of living, healthy children, while all of Rebekka’s children have died. Rebekka feels jealous and guilty about her own failure when she sees the Baptists’ children.

Besides, Rebekka thinks, the Baptists did not help her loneliness when Jacob was gone. The loneliness struck without warning. Then, finally, Jacob would arrive to dispel her sadness. Rebekka happily remembers listening to him tell the stories of his travels while holding a baby on her lap, forgetting her loneliness in those moments.

Rebekka’s thoughts then turn to a memory of a conversation with Lina. The two women were sitting by a stream doing laundry. Lina was holding Rebekka’s baby. Rebekka asked Lina if she had ever slept with a man. Lina replied that she did once, and that it was “not good.” When Rebekka asked more about it, Lina implied that the encounter was violent. Lina handed the baby to Rebekka then dressed and walked with Patrician back to the house, carrying the laundry basket.

Rebekka, now alone with her baby, thought again how lucky she was to be with Jacob. Jacob did not beat Rebekka, although wife beating was common and legal with certain restrictions. That protection, however, did not extend to lovers outside of marriage. Rebekka wondered if Lina’s lover was a native, a rich man, or a soldier or sailor. Rebekka suspected he was a rich man since she had never known a kind one.

Rebekka reflects that only her mother has ever hit her. Now, Rebekka is unsure of whether her mother is still alive. Rebekka once received word that her family had moved, but that is the only info she has gotten about them over the years. Rebekka wonders how her mother might look now, and if old age would make her kinder.

Rebekka begs for her mirror, and Lina finally gives it to her. Rebekka looks at her ruined face and apologizes out loud to it. Lina begs Rebekka to let her take the mirror away, but Rebekka clings to it.

Rebekka thinks of how happy her life was before Jacob’s death. Rebekka remembers the role that the Blacksmith played in their lives, functioning like an “anchor.” She remembers how Lina was afraid of him, Sorrow grateful to him, and Florens in love with him. Rebekka sent Florens to go find the Blacksmith because he was the only one Rebekka could rely on. Rebekka trusts Florens because she is smart, and because she has affection for her, although it took a while to develop.

Though Jacob had thought that giving Rebekka a girl close to Patrician’s age would comfort her, Rebekka had found it insulting. She paid little attention to Florens when she arrived. Anyway, Lina adopted Florens so thoroughly that Rebekka did not have to do much to care for her. Ultimately, Florens’s eagerness to please endeared her to Rebekka. Rebekka attributes this people-pleasing inclination to the fact that, according to Jacob, Florens’s mother was eager to give her up.

Rebekka also sees this as the psychological reason for Florens’s fast attachment to the Blacksmith. Jacob did not worry about Florens’s attraction to him since the Blacksmith would not be around for a long time, and since his work was invaluable. Jacob was right, since the Blacksmith cured Sorrow of her illness. Rebekka prays that the Blacksmith can do the same for her, and that Florens can persuade him to come.

Rebekka tells herself it will all be all right, just like how her loneliness was always okay in the end. Rebekka rationalized many of her marital anxieties, including Jacob’s increasing greed. Regardless, Jacob was present in Rebekka’s life, sleeping next to her at night, until his sudden death.

Rebekka wonders if the Anabaptists were right and her self-sufficiency and happiness with Jacob were blasphemy. Rebekka thinks again of her shipmates, who trusted in themselves. The Baptists, meanwhile, trusted in God, leading safe and meek lives. Rebekka juxtaposes the shipmates and the Baptists, thinking how they would each think the other were deeply flawed.

Still, Rebekka thinks that they have the “promise and threat of men” in common. Rebekka thinks that some women, like Lina, have withdrawn completely from men. Others, like Sorrow, have become victims of them. Rebecca’s shipmates “fought” men, while the Baptists “obeyed them.” Rebekka identifies herself as a woman who reverted to a child-like state without her man. A widow, Rebekka notes, has no legal status in 17th century America. Rebekka thinks this makes sense with the story of Adam and Eve, the original widow.

The Anabaptists feel completely comfortable with this black-and-white version of the Adam and Eve story, with Eve goading and betraying Adam. According to Rebekka, they also have binary understandings of good and bad, and clear-cut understandings of good and bad people. For example, according to the Anabaptists, natives and Africans do not have access to heaven.

The Anabaptist vision of heaven is not only divine but thrilling, an adventurous paradise with music and feasts and dreams come true. According to the Anabaptists, if a mother is religiously devout, her children might get into heaven. More importantly, in Anabaptist heaven, there is an abundance of time to enjoy the benefits of heaven—sleigh rides and skating, good weather when desired and no illness, pain, aging, or dying.

To access this heaven that the Anabaptists dream of, Rebekka would only have to believe in their faith. Rebekka pictures herself talking with Jacob again. Now, though, with her husband gone, Rebekka is alone with the servants. Sorrow is worried about what will happen to her if Rebekka should die. Lina, though, seems unconcerned for her own future, as if “she has seen and survived everything.”

Rebekka remembers how, the second year that Jacob was away, she, Lina, and Patrician almost starved in an off-season blizzard. Rebekka recalls Lina going to the river, breaking the ice, and collecting salmon to feed them. Rebekka thinks that “that was Lina,” before wondering if it was, in fact, God. Rebekka wonders if her voyage to America and the death of her whole family is a test from God. Rebekka’s thoughts race as she wonders whether Florens will make it back with the Blacksmith in time to save her.