The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

AMHERST, on leaving the train at Lynbrook, had paused in doubt on the
empty platform. His return was unexpected, and no carriage awaited him;
but he caught the signal of the village cab-driver's ready whip.
Amherst, however, felt a sudden desire to postpone the moment of
arrival, and consigning his luggage to the cab he walked away toward the
turnstile through which Justine had passed. In thus taking the longest
way home he was yielding another point to his reluctance. He knew that
at that hour his wife's visitors might still be assembled in the
drawing-room, and he wished to avoid making his unannounced entrance
among them.

It was not till now that he felt the embarrassment of such an arrival.
For some time past he had known that he ought to go back to Lynbrook,
but he had not known how to tell Bessy that he was coming. Lack of habit
made him inexpert in the art of easy transitions, and his inability to
bridge over awkward gaps had often put him at a disadvantage with his
wife and her friends. He had not yet learned the importance of observing
the forms which made up the daily ceremonial of their lives, and at
present there was just enough soreness between himself and Bessy to make
such observances more difficult than usual.

There had been no open estrangement, but peace had been preserved at the
cost of a slowly accumulated tale of grievances on both sides. Since
Amherst had won his point about the mills, the danger he had foreseen
had been realized: his victory at Westmore had been a defeat at
Lynbrook. It would be too crude to say that his wife had made him pay
for her public concession by the private disregard of his wishes; and if
something of this sort had actually resulted, his sense of fairness told
him that it was merely the natural reaction of a soft nature against the
momentary strain of self-denial. At first he had been hardly aware of
this consequence of his triumph. The joy of being able to work his will
at Westmore obscured all lesser emotions; and his sentiment for Bessy
had long since shrunk into one of those shallow pools of feeling which a
sudden tide might fill, but which could never again be the deep
perennial spring from which his life was fed.

The need of remaining continuously at Hanaford while the first changes
were making had increased the strain of the situation. He had never
expected that Bessy would stay there with him--had perhaps, at heart,
hardly wished it--and her plan of going to the Adirondacks with Miss
Brent seemed to him a satisfactory alternative to the European trip she
had renounced. He felt as relieved as though some one had taken off his
hands the task of amusing a restless child, and he let his wife go
without suspecting that the moment might be a decisive one between them.
But it had not occurred to Bessy that any one could regard six weeks in
the Adirondacks as an adequate substitute for a summer abroad. She felt
that her sacrifice deserved recognition, and personal devotion was the
only form of recognition which could satisfy her. She had expected
Amherst to join her at the camp, but he did not come; and when she went
back to Long Island she did not stop to see him, though Hanaford lay in
her way. At the moment of her return the work at the mills made it
impossible for him to go to Lynbrook; and thus the weeks drifted on
without their meeting.

At last, urged by his mother, he had gone down to Long Island for a
night; but though, on that occasion, he had announced his coming, he
found the house full, and the whole party except Mr. Langhope in the act
of starting off to a dinner in the neighbourhood. He was of course
expected to go too, and Bessy appeared hurt when he declared that he was
too tired and preferred to remain with Mr. Langhope; but she did not
suggest staying at home herself, and drove off in a mood of exuberant
gaiety. Amherst had been too busy all his life to know what intricacies
of perversion a sentimental grievance may develop in an unoccupied mind,
and he saw in Bessy's act only a sign of indifference. The next day she
complained to him of money difficulties, as though surprised that her
income had been suddenly cut down; and when he reminded her that she had
consented of her own will to this temporary reduction, she burst into
tears and accused him of caring only for Westmore.

He went away exasperated by her inconsequence, and bills from Lynbrook
continued to pour in on him. In the first days of their marriage, Bessy
had put him in charge of her exchequer, and she was too indolent--and at
heart perhaps too sensitive--to ask him to renounce the charge. It was
clear to him, therefore, how little she was observing the spirit of
their compact, and his mind was tormented by the anticipation of
financial embarrassments. He wrote her a letter of gentle expostulation,
but in her answer she ignored his remonstrance; and after that silence
fell between them.

The only way to break this silence was to return to Lynbrook; but now
that he had come back, he did not know what step to take next. Something
in the atmosphere of his wife's existence seemed to paralyze his
will-power. When all about her spoke a language so different from his
own, how could he hope to make himself heard? He knew that her family
and her immediate friends--Mr. Langhope, the Gaineses, Mrs. Ansell and
Mr. Tredegar--far from being means of communication, were so many
sentinels ready to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis at his
approach. They were all in league to stifle the incipient feelings he
had roused in Bessy, to push her back into the deadening routine of her
former life, and the only voice that might conceivably speak for him was
Miss Brent's.

The "case" which, unexpectedly presented to her by one of the Hope
Hospital physicians, had detained Justine at Hanaford during the month
of June, was the means of establishing a friendship between herself and
Amherst. They did not meet often, or get to know each other very well;
but he saw her occasionally at his mother's and at Mrs. Dressel's, and
once he took her out to Westmore, to consult her about the emergency
hospital which was to be included among the first improvements there.
The expedition had been memorable to both; and when, some two weeks
later, Bessy wrote suggesting that she should take Miss Brent to the
Adirondacks, it seemed to Amherst that there was no one whom he would
rather have his wife choose as her companion.

He was much too busy at the time to cultivate or analyze his feeling for
Miss Brent; he rested vaguely in the thought of her, as of the "nicest"
girl he had ever met, and was frankly pleased when accident brought them
together; but the seeds left in both their minds by these chance
encounters had not yet begun to germinate.

So unperceived had been their gradual growth in intimacy that it was a
surprise to Amherst to find himself suddenly thinking of her as a means
of communication with his wife; but the thought gave him such
encouragement that, when he saw Justine in the path before him he went
toward her with unusual eagerness.

Justine, on her part, felt an equal pleasure. She knew that Bessy did
not expect her husband, and that his prolonged absence had already been
the cause of malicious comment at Lynbrook; and she caught at the hope
that this sudden return might betoken a more favourable turn of affairs.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" she exclaimed; and her tone had the
effect of completing his reassurance, his happy sense that she would
understand and help him.

"I wanted to see you too," he began confusedly; then, conscious of the
intimacy of the phrase, he added with a slight laugh: "The fact is, I'm
a culprit looking for a peace-maker."

"A culprit?"

"I've been so tied down at the mills that I didn't know, till yesterday,
just when I could break away; and in the hurry of leaving--" He paused
again, checked by the impossibility of uttering, to the girl before him,
the little conventional falsehoods which formed the small currency of
Bessy's circle. Not that any scruple of probity restrained him: in
trifling matters he recognized the usefulness of such counters in the
social game; but when he was with Justine he always felt the obscure
need of letting his real self be seen.

"I was stupid enough not to telegraph," he said, "and I am afraid my
wife will think me negligent: she often has to reproach me for my sins
of omission, and this time I know they are many."

The girl received this in silence, less from embarrassment than from
surprise; for she had already guessed that it was as difficult for
Amherst to touch, even lightly, on his private affairs, as it was
instinctive with his wife to pour her grievances into any willing ear.
Justine's first thought was one of gratification that he should have
spoken, and of eagerness to facilitate the saying of whatever he wished
to say; but before she could answer he went on hastily: "The fact is,
Bessy does not know how complicated the work at Westmore is; and when I
caught sight of you just now I was thinking that you are the only one of
her friends who has any technical understanding of what I am trying to
do, and who might consequently help her to see how hard it is for me to
take my hand from the plough."

Justine listened gravely, longing to cry out her comprehension and
sympathy, but restrained by the sense that the moment was a critical
one, where impulse must not be trusted too far. It was quite possible
that a reaction of pride might cause Amherst to repent even so guarded
an avowal; and if that happened, he might never forgive her for having
encouraged him to speak. She looked up at him with a smile.

"Why not tell Bessy yourself? Your understanding of the case is a good
deal clearer than mine or any one else's."

"Oh, Bessy is tired of hearing about it from me; and besides--" She
detected a shade of disappointment in his tone, and was sorry she had
said anything which might seem meant to discourage his confidence. It
occurred to her also that she had been insincere in not telling him at
once that she had already been let into the secret of his domestic
differences: she felt the same craving as Amherst for absolute openness
between them.

"I know," she said, almost timidly, "that Bessy has not been quite
content of late to have you give so much time to Westmore, and perhaps
she herself thinks it is because the work there does not interest her;
but I believe it is for a different reason."

"What reason?" he asked with a look of surprise.

"Because Westmore takes you from her; because she thinks you are happier
there than at Lynbrook."

The day had faded so rapidly that it was no longer possible for the
speakers to see each other's faces, and it was easier for both to
communicate through the veil of deepening obscurity.

"But, good heavens, she might be there with me--she's as much needed
there as I am!" Amherst exclaimed.

"Yes; but you must remember that it's against all her habits--and
against the point of view of every one about her--that she should lead
that kind of life; and meanwhile----"

"Well?"

"Meanwhile, isn't it expedient that you should, a little more, lead
hers?"

Always the same answer to his restless questioning! His mother's answer,
the answer of Bessy and her friends. He had somehow hoped that the girl
at his side would find a different solution to the problem, and his
disappointment escaped in a bitter exclamation.

"But Westmore is my life--hers too, if she knew it! I can't desert it
now without being as false to her as to myself!"

As he spoke, he was overcome once more by the hopelessness of trying to
put his case clearly. How could Justine, for all her quickness and
sympathy, understand a situation of which the deeper elements were
necessarily unknown to her? The advice she gave him was natural enough,
and on her lips it seemed not the counsel of a shallow expediency, but
the plea of compassion and understanding. But she knew nothing of the
long struggle for mutual adjustment which had culminated in this crisis
between himself and his wife, and she could therefore not see that, if
he yielded his point, and gave up his work at Westmore, the concession
would mean not renewal but destruction. He felt that he should hate
Bessy if he won her back at that price; and the violence of his feeling
frightened him. It was, in truth, as he had said, his own life that he
was fighting for. If he gave up Westmore he could not fall back on the
futile activities of Lynbrook, and fate might yet have some lower
alternative to offer. He could trust to his own strength and
self-command while his energies had a normal outlet; but idleness and
self-indulgence might work in him like a dangerous drug.

Justine kept steadily to her point. "Westmore must be foremost to both
of you in time; I don't see how either of you can escape that. But the
realization of it must come to Bessy through _you_, and for that reason
I think that you ought to be more patient--that you ought even to put
the question aside for a time and enter a little more into her life
while she is learning to understand yours." As she ended, it seemed to
her that what she had said was trite and ineffectual, and yet that it
might have passed the measure of discretion; and, torn between two
doubts, she added hastily: "But you have done just that in coming back
now--that is the real solution of the problem."

While she spoke they passed out of the wood-path they had been
following, and rounding a mass of shrubbery emerged on the lawn below
the terraces. The long bulk of the house lay above them, dark against
the lingering gleam of the west, with brightly-lit windows marking its
irregular outline; and the sight produced in Amherst and Justine a vague
sense of helplessness and constraint. It was impossible to speak with
the same freedom, confronted by that substantial symbol of the accepted
order, which seemed to glare down on them in massive disdain of their
puny efforts to deflect the course of events: and Amherst, without
reverting to her last words, asked after a moment if his wife had many
guests.

He listened in silence while Justine ran over the list of names--the
Telfer girls and their brother, Mason Winch and Westy Gaines, a cluster
of young bridge-playing couples, and, among the last arrivals, the
Fenton Carburys and Ned Bowfort. The names were all familiar to
Amherst--he knew they represented the flower of week-end fashion; but he
did not remember having seen the Carburys among his wife's guests, and
his mind paused on the name, seeking to regain some lost impression
connected with it. But it evoked, like the others, merely the confused
sense of stridency and unrest which he had brought away from his last
Lynbrook visit; and this reminiscence made him ask Miss Brent, when her
list was ended, if she did not think that so continuous a succession of
visitors was too tiring for Bessy.

"I sometimes think it tires her more than she knows; but I hope she can
be persuaded to take better care of herself now that Mrs. Ansell has
come back."

Amherst halted abruptly. "Is Mrs. Ansell here?"

"She arrived from Europe today."

"And Mr. Langhope too, I suppose?"

"Yes. He came from Newport about ten days ago."

Amherst checked himself, conscious that his questions betrayed the fact
that he and his wife no longer wrote to each other. The same thought
appeared to strike Justine, and they walked across the lawn in silence,
hastening their steps involuntarily, as though to escape the oppressive
weight of the words which had passed between them. But Justine was
unwilling that this fruitless sense of oppression should be the final
outcome of their talk; and when they reached the upper terrace she
paused and turned impulsively to Amherst. As she did so, the light from
an uncurtained window fell on her face, which glowed with the inner
brightness kindled in it by moments of strong feeling.

"I am sure of one thing--Bessy will be very, very glad that you have
come," she exclaimed.

"Thank you," he answered.

Their hands met mechanically, and she turned away and entered the house.

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