Mercy Among the Children

Sydney is the son of Roy Henderson and the father of the narrator, Lyle. His life with his family in the Stumps, near New Brunswick, is blighted by suffering and social ostracism. He is a kind of Everyman, at times resembling Albert Camus’s Sisyphus, the suffering biblical Christ, and Werther, from late-18th to early 19th-century writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lyle reflects on his father, whose fate is at the heart of the novel, and determines to a large extent that of his family and community:

‘Man can overcome any fate by scorn,’ Albert Camus said in his essay on the myth of Sisyphus. Perhaps I was thinking of my father as Sisyphus. His plight seemed the embodiment of some great callous stupidity, comic in its futility (115).

After pushing Connie Devlin off a roof in retaliation as a child, Sydney makes a pact with God that seals his fate: never again will he cross another human being, and he will attend church every day. Though principled, Sydney’s actions contribute to the suffering of his family and earn him the hatred—and finally the praise—of the community. Lyle refers to Sydney’s sacrament with God as Goethe’s Faust might have his bond with the devil: “this horrible pact” (23). Sydney approaches his suffering like the Stoic Marcus Aurelius, whom he reads amid his court battle. As a child, he feels responsible for his mother’s death and walks for miles to see his father, Roy, in prison. Despite avidly reading and having a high IQ, Dr. David Scone denies Sydney an education. Perhaps an archetype of meekness, Sydney is kind to the point of death, offering his boots to a friend while he dies of appendicitis in a snowstorm. 

There are numerous aspects of Elly Henderson’s character that link her with the Virgin Mary. When Sydney Henderson looks up at her on the night on which he proposes, akin to Romeo gazing at Juliet on the balcony, he has a vision: “[I]t was as if [she], was standing naked, with angels on her left and right shoulders” (31). At the opening of the novel, Elly is likened explicitly to the Virgin: “pale statues of the Madonna. Our mother, Elly Henderson, took us to them” (9). Elly is considered unintelligent, but she is pure hearted and stays with Sydney throughout his sufferings out of love, mourning for him like the Virgin Mary for Christ. Critically, in a novel entitled Mercy Among the Children, Elly “believed—in her heart and soul—that mercy was truth” (129). Elly’s simple constancy is therefore central to the novel’s ethics. 

Richards describes the narrator of the novel as having “the appearance of a tavern bouncer” (1). Unlike the omniscient or postmodern narrators of other novels, Lyle positions himself as subject to the novel, inverting the typical empowerment of the storyteller. Autumn urges her brother to emulate Dickens’s David Copperfield, who struggles against his adversities to forge a path for himself, but Lyle cannot take up this position. Instead, he adopts the position of Camus’s rebel, who perceives the absurdity of human existence. Lyle can do nothing but reject society and even, nihilistically, existence itself, numbing himself with alcohol, cutting himself in penance, and drifting through life like a ghost.

Lyle is not entirely sympathetic as a character, and Richards leaves his readers to discern whether there is a moral to Lyle’s lengthy testimony. Though he resents his father’s passivity, he also envies Sydney. Lyle says, “I don’t care for learning—but I care for knowledge” (224). Despite the brutal realism of his narrative, Lyle intends his life story to be of an obscure parabolic significance.  

Named after the Fall wind, the albino daughter of Sydney and Elly Henderson takes after her mother’s connection with nature. Despite this, she escapes and ultimately transcends the hardships of their lives through art, specifically literature. Her striking colouring is a visual sign of the Hendersons’ separateness, but also figurative of their moral purity. Innocent in both nature and appearance then, she is initially ashamed at her difference before discovering a second life through art.

The youngest son of Elly and Sydney is just six years old when he is left unattended and run over during a storm. His altruism shines in his attempts to console Lyle, his mother, and his old dog, Scupper. After saving money for a guitar, Percy donates his money to the church. His heart is used to save sickly Teresa May’s life. 

Mathew Pit commits numerous petty and serious crimes before framing Sydney Henderson for the destruction of McVicer’s bridge, the death of Mathew’s own brother, Trenton, and the $500 robbery of McVicer’s home. His family, the Pits, are true to their name, the long-standing antagonists of the comparatively angelic and much maligned Hendersons. Mat Pit has already been to jail when Elly first meets Sydney. Mat continues to commit robbery and other crimes until he is pursued by Terrieux, and discovered, ill with bone cancer, by Lyle. It is through their antagonism with Mat Pit that the fates of Lyle and the ex-policeman to whom he tells his tale coincide. His actions suggest that he is a selfish, conniving individual who foils Sydney’s righteousness. 

Cynthia is the younger sister of Mat Pit. She gives birth to a stillborn child just before Lyle is born, and later to Teresa May, whose birth she uses to blackmail Rudy Bellanger. Later, she becomes Leopold McVicer’s fiancée and relentlessly tries to secure his money for herself. At the close of the novel, she is living in the same apartment block as Terrieux, along with her daughter Teresa May and an ailing Mat Pit. Lyle characterizes Cynthia as deceptive:

[H]er face had a chameleon-like changeability seen in those who have studied social opportunity more than they have studied themselves—a beautiful face, no doubt, wanton at times, at times hilarious, but always resolute, fixed on purpose beyond her present state, which was rural poor (29).

Her decisions are usually selfish, but she acts in favor of her daughter after a dream pleads with her to do so. 

Cynthia and Mat Pit’s mentally less-able brother is accidentally killed by the blast meant to destroy the McVicer bridge. His mother, Alvina Pit, blames Sydney for his death. McVicer’s money is discovered on Trenton’s body. Rumors circulate that Trenton was sexually abused and tormented by Sydney, though this was not the case.

The daughter of Cynthia Pit and Rudy Bellanger, Teresa May is a sickly child, probably due to the proximity of the pesticides used at the McVicer Works. She is given Percy Henderson’s heart after he dies.

Cheryl grows up with her siblings, Monica and Darren, her mother, and father, Samson, in a dilapidated house near the bay. When Sydney brings the family members their box of Christmas goods, Samson threatens to kill Sydney but breaks down instead. Though in love with Penny Porier, Lyle loses his virginity to Cheryl, whom he reflects, is “his kind” and “a child of privation and disgrace” (58). At 14, Cheryl has a baby called “Moo Moo” and dreams of being a Hollywood star. Lyle sacrifices his education by punching the teacher who suspended Cheryl. Lyle sees her as an example of the community’s “failure.” At the end of the novel, Lyle proposes to Cheryl, but she is already engaged to Griffin Porier.

Leopold McVicer has a vice-like grip on the fortunes, literal and figurative, of all the characters in the novel. The wealthy industrialist made his money through local business, and thanks to his informants Father Porier and Frederick Snook, Leo is virtually omniscient when it comes to the movements of the community. Finally, the community discovers that McVicer fathered three sisters who were all fostered locally; Isabel Young, Elly Henderson, and Deidre Whyne. 

Married to Gladys Bellanger, Rudy is the weak-willed heir to McVicer’s fortune and is McVicer’s son-in-law. Rudy’s long-term affair with Cynthia Pit produces sickly Teresa May, who is eventually given Percy Henderson’s heart. Rudy is an occasionally unwilling accomplice in several of Mat Pit’s nefarious schemes and is blackmailed into keeping quiet by both Mat and Cynthia. Rudy also assaults Elly Henderson while she is working for McVicer but seems to feel guilt over the event and dies trying to save McVicer. 

Gladys is the daughter of McVicer and suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). For most of the novel, she is in love with Gerald Dove but married to Rudy Bellanger because of her father’s overprotection. She is yet another innocent sufferer, though far more privileged than the Hendersons. Lyle describes her as “spoiled and eccentric” (37). After the death of her father, she remarries to Dove. 

McVicer’s protégé, Gerald Dove, won the Rhodes Scholarship and received a doctorate in environmental biology. He and Gladys fell in love as teenagers, but McVicer disallowed them from seeing each other. McVicer brings Dove in to exculpate him from some environmental infringements. After five years of investigation, Dove must switch allegiances and tells McVicer he owes the families affected $50,000 each. Later, he supports Penny Porier as part of his allegations against McVicer, but McVicer thwarts his efforts by claiming he obtained government permission for the use of the pesticides, and the government cuts funds for his research. A dove is a biblical symbol for Christ, and Gerald Dove’s search for the truth makes him the “savior” of the pesticide-poisoned community. Likewise, he plays an important role in vindicating the saint-like Sydney. 

Brother of Abby Porier, Father Porier is the local clergyman who secretly knows the paternity of Elly Henderson, Deidre Wayne, and Isabel Young. He is the face of the church that plays such a central role in the lives of this impoverished community. Lyle describes him as “wily,” as he knows more than he lets on, including his assaults on Sydney Henderson and Connie Devlin when they were children.

Penny Porier is the niece of Father Porier, the community’s clergyman, and daughter of Abby Porier, Leo McVicer’s foreman. Richards employs an intentional pun on “penny” and “poor” in the name of Lyle’s childhood crush: “It was almost as if, if I could ever touch her, just once, I’d be saved” (55). After disobeying her family and attending protests organized by Gerald Dove, she dies at 18 of an illness brought on by the pesticides used by McVicer’s Works.

Alongside his first cousin Mat Pit, Connie Devlin antagonizes Sydney Henderson. He and Sydney are both assaulted as children. After Sydney Henderson pushes him off a roof for stealing Sydney’s lunch in childhood, Sydney vows never to raise a word or hand to another as well as to attend church daily. This covenant or “horrible pact” (24), which Sydney keeps absolutely, is responsible for his passivity in the face of the hardships that shape the lives of the Hendersons.

The words “con” and “devil” are audible in Connie Devlin’s name, positioning him as the serpent that disrupts the Hendersons’ Eden. Sydney advocates on Connie’s behalf, regaining Connie’s job that Connie lost for being intoxicated on the job. Yet, like an incompetent Mephistopheles, Connie is Mat Pit’s accessory in the bridge explosion and death of Trenton Pit, and Connie willingly blames the crime on Sydney. He is also instrumental in Sydney’s death, but is not wholly evil, as he is so overcome with guilt that he attempts suicide. 

Constable Morris, the face of the law in the small town until Constable John Delano intervenes, is eager to blame Sydney Henderson for the crimes committed in town because of his affection for Elly Henderson. Constable Morris courts Elly Henderson in Sydney’s absence and is ultimately replaced by Delano due to his incompetence. Lyle describes Morris “as a man who had no idea of the responsibility or maturity his vocation required” (252).

Constable John Delano takes over the investigation into the bridge incident from Constable Morris. Lyle says that he is intelligent. Delano discourages Lyle from taking revenge against the people who harmed his family. He investigates the long-forgotten bullet hole in the Hendersons’ house, among the other evidence. He tells Lyle, “The truth does matter” (334). Delano is the benevolent face of the law as well as one of the characters, like Sydney Henderson and Gerald Dove, who stand for truth in the novel. 

The 57-year-old ex-policeman lives in New Brunswick in a dilapidated apartment block, which he inadvertently shares with the Pit family. He hears Lyle’s lengthy testimony, discovering that their fates have been interconnected all their lives. At the beginning of the novel, he is a kind of mirror of Lyle, “cynical of change,” “heavy set”, and accustomed to “feeling betrayed in a way by Canada” (1-2). Terrieux retired as a police officer and joined the navy after Mat Pitt almost drowned during a police chase. Terrieux is divorced, and despite remarrying, his wife still blames him for her unhappiness in life. 

The childhood friend of Elly Henderson is “sharp and gifted” (25) and from a more affluent family. Later, we learn that Deidre Whyne is Elly’s sister and the daughter of Leo McVicer. The literal sisterhood between the women echoes that of the Convent in which Deidre is accused of sexually assaulting the young girls. Deidre opposed Elly’s marriage to Sydney and takes the children away during Elly’s third pregnancy. The word “whine” and is audible in her name, appropriately in view of Lyle’s low opinion of social services. Later, she is the face of the implacable tax department, which generates an arbitrary number in compensation for financial oversights in Sydney’s former well-digging business. It is this debt that divides the Henderson family and arguably leads to the death of more than half of the Hendersons.

Unbeknownst to Elly, Isabel Young is also her sister by Leo McVicer. Young is the “only friend” of the Hendersons’, responsible for the acquittal of Sydney Henderson through her thorough and unbiased legal work. Despite her kindness, she disappears from Lyle’s life like everyone else. He describes her has being “one of the many women who sacrifice all their lives for a point of law or truth or faith. Brilliant, kind, and unforgiving about something in her own nature” (154), and “a tissue-carrying hypochondriac who in her life never had a date” (155). 

After her time at the Convent, Elly goes to live with Hanny Brown, her adoptive brother, who later becomes a fisherman. The parallel with Christ’s disciples and the biblical significance of fish is no coincidence in view of Hanny’s altruistic character. When social services take Lyle and Autumn, Lyle lives with Hanny Brown and his family. Hanny’s family gives him a lifestyle he had never enjoyed when he lived with his parents. When Lyle steals food from Hanny, Hanny just adds extra to Lyle’s stash of stolen items. Later, Lyle punches Hanny because he thinks that this will make him appear brave, but Hanny does not retaliate.