The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 23

Chapter 23

JUSTINE was coming back to Lynbrook. She had been, after all, unable to
stay out the ten days of her visit: the undefinable sense of being
needed, so often the determining motive of her actions, drew her back to
Long Island at the end of the week. She had received no word from
Amherst or Bessy; only Cicely had told her, in a big round hand, that
mother had been away three days, and that it had been very lonely, and
that the housekeeper's cat had kittens, and she was to have one; and
were kittens christened, or how did they get their names?--because she
wanted to call hers Justine; and she had found in her book a bird like
the one father had shown them in the swamp; and they were not alone now,
because the Telfers were there, and they had all been out sleighing;
but it would be much nicer when Justine came back....

It was as difficult to extract any sequence of facts from Cicely's
letter as from an early chronicle. She made no reference to Amherst's
return, which was odd, since she was fond of her step-father, yet not
significant, since the fact of his arrival might have been crowded out
by the birth of the kittens, or some incident equally prominent in her
perspectiveless grouping of events; nor did she name the date of her
mother's departure, so that Justine could not guess whether it had been
contingent on Amherst's return, or wholly unconnected with it. What
puzzled her most was Bessy's own silence--yet that too, in a sense, was
reassuring, for Bessy thought of others chiefly when it was painful to
think of herself, and her not writing implied that she had felt no
present need of her friend's sympathy.

Justine did not expect to find Amherst at Lynbrook. She had felt
convinced, when they parted, that he would persist in his plan of going
south; and the fact that the Telfer girls were again in possession made
it seem probable that he had already left. Under the circumstances,
Justine thought the separation advisable; but she was eager to be
assured that it had been effected amicably, and without open affront to
Bessy's pride.

She arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and when she entered the house the
sound of voices from the drawing-room, and the prevailing sense of
bustle and movement amid which her own coming was evidently an
unconsidered detail, showed that the normal life of Lynbrook had resumed
its course. The Telfers, as usual, had brought a lively throng in their
train; and amid the bursts of merriment about the drawing-room tea-table
she caught Westy Gaines's impressive accents, and the screaming laughter
of Blanche Carbury....

So Blanche Carbury was back at Lynbrook! The discovery gave Justine
fresh cause for conjecture. Whatever reciprocal concessions might have
resulted from Amherst's return to his wife, it seemed hardly probable
that they included a renewal of relations with Mrs. Carbury. Had his
mission failed then--had he and Bessy parted in anger, and was Mrs.
Carbury's presence at Lynbrook Bessy's retort to his assertion of
independence?

In the school-room, where Justine was received with the eager outpouring
of Cicely's minutest experiences, she dared not put the question that
would have solved these doubts; and she left to dress for dinner without
knowing whether Amherst had returned to Lynbrook. Yet in her heart she
never questioned that he had done so; all her fears revolved about what
had since taken place.

She saw Bessy first in the drawing-room, surrounded by her guests; and
their brief embrace told her nothing, except that she had never beheld
her friend more brilliant, more triumphantly in possession of recovered
spirits and health.

That Amherst was absent was now made evident by Bessy's requesting Westy
Gaines to lead the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Ansell, who was one
of the reassembled visitors; and the only one, as Justine presently
observed, not in key with the prevailing gaiety. Mrs. Ansell, usually so
tinged with the colours of her environment, preserved on this occasion a
grey neutrality of tone which was the only break in the general
brightness. It was not in her graceful person to express anything as
gross as disapproval, yet that sentiment was manifest, to the nice
observer, in a delicate aloofness which made the waves of laughter fall
back from her, and spread a circle of cloudy calm about her end of the
table. Justine had never been greatly drawn to Mrs. Ansell. Her own
adaptability was not in the least akin to the older woman's studied
self-effacement; and the independence of judgment which Justine
preserved in spite of her perception of divergent standpoints made her a
little contemptuous of an excess of charity that seemed to have been
acquired at the cost of all individual convictions. To-night for the
first time she felt in Mrs. Ansell a secret sympathy with her own
fears; and a sense of this tacit understanding made her examine with
sudden interest the face of her unexpected ally.... After all, what did
she know of Mrs. Ansell's history--of the hidden processes which had
gradually subdued her own passions and desires, making of her, as it
were, a mere decorative background, a connecting link between other
personalities? Perhaps, for a woman alone in the world, without the
power and opportunity that money gives, there was no alternative between
letting one's individuality harden into a small dry nucleus of egoism,
or diffuse itself thus in the interstices of other lives--and there fell
upon Justine the chill thought that just such a future might await her
if she missed the liberating gift of personal happiness....

* * * * *

Neither that night nor the next day had she a private word with
Bessy--and it became evident, as the hours passed, that Mrs. Amherst was
deliberately postponing the moment when they should find themselves
alone. But the Lynbrook party was to disperse on the Monday; and Bessy,
who hated early rising, and all the details of housekeeping, tapped at
Justine's door late on Sunday night to ask her to speed the departing
visitors.

She pleaded this necessity as an excuse for her intrusion, and the
playful haste of her manner showed a nervous shrinking from any renewal
of confidence; but as she leaned in the doorway, fingering the diamond
chain about her neck, while one satin-tipped foot emerged restlessly
from the edge of her lace gown, her face lost the bloom of animation
which talk and laughter always produced in it, and she looked so pale
and weary that Justine needed no better pretext for drawing her into the
room.

It was not in Bessy to resist a soothing touch in her moments of nervous
reaction. She sank into the chair by the fire and let her head rest
wearily against the cushion which Justine slipped behind it.

Justine dropped into the low seat beside her, and laid a hand on hers.
"You don't look as well as when I went away, Bessy. Are you sure you've
done wisely in beginning your house-parties so soon?"

It always alarmed Bessy to be told that she was not looking her best,
and she sat upright, a wave of pink rising under her sensitive skin.

"I am quite well, on the contrary; but I was dying of inanition in this
big empty house, and I suppose I haven't got the boredom out of my
system yet!"

Justine recognized the echo of Mrs. Carbury's manner.

"Even if you _were_ bored," she rejoined, "the inanition was probably
good for you. What does Dr. Wyant say to your breaking away from his
r�gime?" She named Wyant purposely, knowing that Bessy had that respect
for the medical verdict which is the last trace of reverence for
authority in the mind of the modern woman. But Mrs. Amherst laughed with
gentle malice.

"Oh, I haven't seen Dr. Wyant lately. His interest in me died out the
day you left."

Justine forced a laugh to hide her annoyance. She had not yet recovered
from the shrinking disgust of her last scene with Wyant.

"Don't be a goose, Bessy. If he hasn't come, it must be because you've
told him not to--because you're afraid of letting him see that you're
disobeying him."

Bessy laughed again. "My dear, I'm afraid of nothing--nothing! Not even
of your big eyes when they glare at me like coals. I suppose you must
have looked at poor Wyant like that to frighten him away! And yet the
last time we talked of him you seemed to like him--you even hinted that
it was because of him that Westy had no chance."

Justine uttered an impatient exclamation. "If neither of them existed it
wouldn't affect the other's chances in the least. Their only merit is
that they both enhance the charms of celibacy!"

Bessy's smile dropped, and she turned a grave glance on her friend. "Ah,
most men do that--you're so clever to have found it out!"

It was Justine's turn to smile. "Oh, but I haven't--as a
generalization. I mean to marry as soon as I get the chance!"

"The chance----?"

"To meet the right man. I'm gambler enough to believe in my luck yet!"

Mrs. Amherst sighed compassionately. "There _is_ no right man! As
Blanche says, matrimony's as uncomfortable as a ready-made shoe. How can
one and the same institution fit every individual case? And why should
we all have to go lame because marriage was once invented to suit an
imaginary case?"

Justine gave a slight shrug. "You talk of walking lame--how else do we
all walk? It seems to me that life's the tight boot, and marriage the
crutch that may help one to hobble along!" She drew Bessy's hand into
hers with a caressing pressure. "When you philosophize I always know
you're tired. No one who feels well stops to generalize about symptoms.
If you won't let your doctor prescribe for you, your nurse is going to
carry out his orders. What you want is quiet. Be reasonable and send
away everybody before Mr. Amherst comes back!"

She dropped the last phrase carelessly, glancing away as she spoke; but
the stiffening of the fingers in her clasp sent a little tremor through
her hand.

"Thanks for your advice. It would be excellent but for one thing--my
husband is not coming back!"

The mockery in Bessy's voice seemed to pass into her features, hardening
and contracting them as frost shrivels a flower. Justine's face, on the
contrary, was suddenly illuminated by compassion, as though a light had
struck up into it from the cold glitter of her friend's unhappiness.

"Bessy! What do you mean by not coming back?"

"I mean he's had the tact to see that we shall be more comfortable
apart--without putting me to the unpleasant necessity of telling him
so."

Again the piteous echo of Blanche Carbury's phrases! The laboured
mimicry of her ideas!

Justine looked anxiously at her friend. It seemed horribly false not to
mention her own talk with Amherst, yet she felt it wiser to feign
ignorance, since Bessy could never be trusted to interpret rightly any
departure from the conventional.

"Please tell me what has happened," she said at length.

Bessy, with a smile, released her hand. "John has gone back to the life
he prefers--which I take to be a hint to me to do the same."

Justine hesitated again; then the pressure of truth overcame every
barrier of expediency. "Bessy--I ought to tell you that I saw Mr.
Amherst in town the day I went to Philadelphia. He spoke of going away
for a time...he seemed unhappy...but he told me he was coming back to
see you first--" She broke off, her clear eyes on her friend's; and she
saw at once that Bessy was too self-engrossed to feel any surprise at
her avowal. "Surely he came back?" she went on.

"Oh, yes--he came back!" Bessy sank into the cushions, watching the
firelight play on her diamond chain as she repeated the restless gesture
of lifting it up and letting it slip through her fingers.

"Well--and then?"

"Then--nothing! I was not here when he came."

"You were not here? What had happened?"

"I had gone over to Blanche Carbury's for a day or two. I was just
leaving when I heard he was coming back, and I couldn't throw her over
at the last moment."

Justine tried to catch the glance that fluttered evasively under Bessy's
lashes. "You knew he was coming--and you chose that time to go to Mrs.
Carbury's?"

"I didn't choose, my dear--it just happened! And it really happened for
the best. I suppose he was annoyed at my going--you know he has a
ridiculous prejudice against Blanche--and so the next morning he rushed
off to his cotton mill."

There was a pause, while the diamonds continued to flow in threads of
fire through Mrs. Amherst's fingers.

At length Justine said: "Did Mr. Amherst know that you knew he was
coming back before you left for Mrs. Carbury's?"

Bessy feigned to meditate the question. "Did he know that I knew that he
knew?" she mocked. "Yes--I suppose so--he must have known." She stifled
a slight yawn as she drew herself languidly to her feet.

"Then he took that as your answer?"

"My answer----?"

"To his coming back----"

"So it appears. I told you he had shown unusual tact." Bessy stretched
her softly tapering arms above her head and then dropped them along her
sides with another yawn. "But it's almost morning--it's wicked of me to
have kept you so late, when you must be up to look after all those
people!"

She flung her arms with a light gesture about Justine's shoulders, and
laid a dry kiss on her cheek.

"Don't look at me with those big eyes--they've eaten up the whole of
your face! And you needn't think I'm sorry for what I've done," she
declared. "I'm _not_--the--least--little--atom--of a bit!"

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