The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 30

Chapter 30

ON a September day, somewhat more than a year and a half after Bessy
Amherst's death, her husband and his mother sat at luncheon in the
dining-room of the Westmore house at Hanaford.

The house was John Amherst's now, and shortly after the loss of his wife
he had established himself there with his mother. By a will made some
six months before her death, Bessy had divided her estate between her
husband and daughter, placing Cicely's share in trust, and appointing
Mr. Langhope and Amherst as her guardians. As the latter was also her
trustee, the whole management of the estate devolved on him, while his
control of the Westmore mills was ensured by his receiving a slightly
larger proportion of the stock than his step-daughter.

The will had come as a surprise, not only to Amherst himself, but to his
wife's family, and more especially to her legal adviser. Mr. Tredegar
had in fact had nothing to do with the drawing of the instrument; but as
it had been drawn in due form, and by a firm of excellent standing, he
was obliged, in spite of his private views, and Mr. Langhope's open
adjurations that he should "do something," to declare that there was no
pretext for questioning the validity of the document.

To Amherst the will was something more than a proof of his wife's
confidence: it came as a reconciling word from her grave. For the date
showed that it had been made at a moment when he supposed himself to
have lost all influence over her--on the morrow of the day when she had
stipulated that he should give up the management of the Westmore mills,
and yield the care of her property to Mr. Tredegar.

While she smote him with one hand, she sued for pardon with the other;
and the contradiction was so characteristic, it explained and excused in
so touching a way the inconsistencies of her impulsive heart and
hesitating mind, that he was filled with that tender compunction, that
searching sense of his own shortcomings, which generous natures feel
when they find they have underrated the generosity of others. But
Amherst's was not an introspective mind, and his sound moral sense told
him, when the first pang of self-reproach had subsided, that he had done
his best by his wife, and was in no way to blame if her recognition of
the fact had come too late. The self-reproach subsided; and, instead of
the bitterness of the past, it left a softened memory which made him
take up his task with the sense that he was now working with Bessy and
not against her.

Yet perhaps, after all, it was chiefly the work itself which had healed
old wounds, and quelled the tendency to vain regrets. Amherst was only
thirty-four; and in the prime of his energies the task he was made for
had been given back to him. To a sound nature, which finds its outlet in
fruitful action, nothing so simplifies the complexities of life, so
tends to a large acceptance of its vicissitudes and mysteries, as the
sense of doing something each day toward clearing one's own bit of the
wilderness. And this was the joy at last conceded to Amherst. The mills
were virtually his; and the fact that he ruled them not only in his own
right but as Cicely's representative, made him doubly eager to justify
his wife's trust in him.

Mrs. Amherst, looking up from a telegram which the parlour-maid had
handed her, smiled across the table at her son.

"From Maria Ansell--they are all coming tomorrow."

"Ah--that's good," Amherst rejoined. "I should have been sorry if Cicely
had not been here."

"Mr. Langhope is coming too," his mother continued. "I'm glad of that,
John."

"Yes," Amherst again assented.

The morrow was to be a great day at Westmore. The Emergency Hospital,
planned in the first months of his marriage, and abandoned in the
general reduction of expenditure at the mills, had now been completed on
a larger and more elaborate scale, as a memorial to Bessy. The strict
retrenchment of all personal expenses, and the leasing of Lynbrook and
the town house, had enabled Amherst, in eighteen months, to lay by
enough income to carry out this plan, which he was impatient to see
executed as a visible commemoration of his wife's generosity to
Westmore. For Amherst persisted in regarding the gift of her fortune as
a gift not to himself but to the mills: he looked on himself merely as
the agent of her beneficent intentions. He was anxious that Westmore and
Hanaford should take the same view; and the opening of the Westmore
Memorial Hospital was therefore to be performed with an unwonted degree
of ceremony.

"I am glad Mr. Langhope is coming," Mrs. Amherst repeated, as they rose
from the table. "It shows, dear--doesn't it?--that he's really
gratified--that he appreciates your motive...."

She raised a proud glance to her tall son, whose head seemed to tower
higher than ever above her small proportions. Renewed self-confidence,
and the habit of command, had in fact restored the erectness to
Amherst's shoulders and the clearness to his eyes. The cleft between the
brows was gone, and his veiled inward gaze had given place to a glance
almost as outward-looking and unspeculative as his mother's.

"It shows--well, yes--what you say!" he rejoined with a slight laugh,
and a tap on her shoulder as she passed.

He was under no illusions as to his father-in-law's attitude: he knew
that Mr. Langhope would willingly have broken the will which deprived
his grand-daughter of half her inheritance, and that his subsequent show
of friendliness was merely a concession to expediency. But in his
present mood Amherst almost believed that time and closer relations
might turn such sentiments into honest liking. He was very fond of his
little step-daughter, and deeply sensible of his obligations toward her;
and he hoped that, as Mr. Langhope came to recognize this, it might
bring about a better understanding between them.

His mother detained him. "You're going back to the mills at once? I
wanted to consult you about the rooms. Miss Brent had better be next to
Cicely?"

"I suppose so--yes. I'll see you before I go." He nodded affectionately
and passed on, his hands full of papers, into the Oriental smoking-room,
now dedicated to the unexpected uses of an office and study.

Mrs. Amherst, as she turned away, found the parlour-maid in the act of
opening the front door to the highly-tinted and well-dressed figure of
Mrs. Harry Dressel.

"I'm so delighted to hear that you're expecting Justine," began Mrs.
Dressel as the two ladies passed into the drawing-room.

"Ah, you've heard too?" Mrs. Amherst rejoined, enthroning her visitor in
one of the monumental plush armchairs beneath the threatening weight of
the Bay of Naples.

"I hadn't till this moment; in fact I flew in to ask for news, and on
the door-step there was such a striking-looking young man enquiring for
her, and I heard the parlour-maid say she was arriving tomorrow."

"A young man? Some one you didn't know?" Striking apparitions of the
male sex were of infrequent occurrence at Hanaford, and Mrs. Amherst's
unabated interest in the movement of life caused her to dwell on this
statement.

"Oh, no--I'm sure he was a stranger. Extremely slight and pale, with
remarkable eyes. He was so disappointed--he seemed sure of finding her."

"Well, no doubt he'll come back tomorrow.--You know we're expecting the
whole party," added Mrs. Amherst, to whom the imparting of good news was
always an irresistible temptation.

Mrs. Dressel's interest deepened at once. "Really? Mr. Langhope too?"

"Yes. It's a great pleasure to my son."

"It must be! I'm so glad. I suppose in a way it will be rather sad for
Mr. Langhope--seeing everything here so unchanged----"

Mrs. Amherst straightened herself a little. "I think he will prefer to
find it so," she said, with a barely perceptible change of tone.

"Oh, I don't know. They were never very fond of this house."

There was an added note of authority in Mrs. Dressel's accent. In the
last few months she had been to Europe and had had nervous prostration,
and these incontestable evidences of growing prosperity could not always
be kept out of her voice and bearing. At any rate, they justified her in
thinking that her opinion on almost any subject within the range of
human experience was a valuable addition to the sum-total of wisdom; and
unabashed by the silence with which her comment was received, she
continued her critical survey of the drawing-room.

"Dear Mrs. Amherst--you know I can't help saying what I think--and I've
so often wondered why you don't do this room over. With these high
ceilings you could do something lovely in Louis Seize."

A faint pink rose to Mrs. Amherst's cheeks. "I don't think my son would
ever care to make any changes here," she said.

"Oh, I understand his feeling; but when he begins to entertain--and you
know poor Bessy always _hated_ this furniture."

Mrs. Amherst smiled slightly. "Perhaps if he marries again--" she said,
seizing at random on a pretext for changing the subject.

Mrs. Dressel dropped the hands with which she was absent-mindedly
assuring herself of the continuance of unbroken relations between her
hat and her hair.

"_Marries again?_ Why--you don't mean--? He doesn't think of it?"

"Not in the least--I spoke figuratively," her hostess rejoined with a
laugh.

"Oh, of course--I see. He really _couldn't_ marry, could he? I mean, it
would be so wrong to Cicely--under the circumstances."

Mrs. Amherst's black eye-brows gathered in a slight frown. She had
already noticed, on the part of the Hanaford clan, a disposition to
regard Amherst as imprisoned in the conditions of his trust, and
committed to the obligation of handing on unimpaired to Cicely the
fortune his wife's caprice had bestowed on him; and this open expression
of the family view was singularly displeasing to her.

"I had not thought of it in that light--but it's really of no
consequence how one looks at a thing that is not going to happen," she
said carelessly.

"No--naturally; I see you were only joking. He's so devoted to Cicely,
isn't he?" Mrs. Dressel rejoined, with her bright obtuseness.

A step on the threshold announced Amherst's approach.

"I'm afraid I must be off, mother--" he began, halting in the doorway
with the instinctive masculine recoil from the afternoon caller.

"Oh, Mr. Amherst, how d'you do? I suppose you're very busy about
tomorrow? I just flew in to find out if Justine was really coming," Mrs.
Dressel explained, a little fluttered by the effort of recalling what
she had been saying when he entered.

"I believe my mother expects the whole party," Amherst replied, shaking
hands with the false _bonhomie_ of the man entrapped.

"How delightful! And it's so nice to think that Mr. Langhope's
arrangement with Justine still works so well," Mrs. Dressel hastened on,
nervously hoping that her volubility would smother any recollection of
what he had chanced to overhear.

"Mr. Langhope is lucky in having persuaded Miss Brent to take charge of
Cicely," Mrs. Amherst quietly interposed.

"Yes--and it was so lucky for Justine too! When she came back from
Europe with us last autumn, I could see she simply hated the idea of
taking up her nursing again."

Amherst's face darkened at the allusion, and his mother said hurriedly:
"Ah, she was tired, poor child; but I'm only afraid that, after the
summer's rest, she may want some more active occupation than looking
after a little girl."

"Oh, I think not--she's so fond of Cicely. And of course it's everything
to her to have a comfortable home."

Mrs. Amherst smiled. "At her age, it's not always everything."

Mrs. Dressel stared slightly. "Oh, Justine's twenty-seven, you know;
she's not likely to marry now," she said, with the mild finality of the
early-wedded.

She rose as she spoke, extending cordial hands of farewell. "You must be
so busy preparing for the great day...if only it doesn't rain!... No,
_please_, Mr. Amherst!... It's a mere step--I'm walking...."

* * * * *

That afternoon, as Amherst walked out toward Westmore for a survey of
the final preparations, he found that, among the pleasant thoughts
accompanying him, one of the pleasantest was the anticipation of seeing
Justine Brent.

Among the little group who were to surround him on the morrow, she was
the only one discerning enough to understand what the day meant to him,
or with sufficient knowledge to judge of the use he had made of his
great opportunity. Even now that the opportunity had come, and all
obstacles were levelled, sympathy with his work was as much lacking as
ever; and only Duplain, at length reinstated as manager, really
understood and shared in his aims. But Justine Brent's sympathy was of a
different kind from the manager's. If less logical, it was warmer, more
penetrating--like some fine imponderable fluid, so subtle that it could
always find a way through the clumsy processes of human intercourse.
Amherst had thought very often of this quality in her during the weeks
which followed his abrupt departure for Georgia; and in trying to define
it he had said to himself that she felt with her brain.

And now, aside from the instinctive understanding between them, she was
set apart in his thoughts by her association with his wife's last days.
On his arrival from the south he had gathered on all sides evidences of
her tender devotion to Bessy: even Mr. Tredegar's chary praise swelled
the general commendation. From the surgeons he heard how her unwearied
skill had helped them in their fruitless efforts; poor Cicely, awed by
her loss, clung to her mother's friend with childish tenacity; and the
young rector of Saint Anne's, shyly acquitting himself of his visit of
condolence, dwelt chiefly on the consolatory thought of Miss Brent's
presence at the death-bed.

The knowledge that Justine had been with his wife till the end had, in
fact, done more than anything else to soften Amherst's regrets; and he
had tried to express something of this in the course of his first talk
with her. Justine had given him a clear and self-possessed report of the
dreadful weeks at Lynbrook; but at his first allusion to her own part in
them, she shrank into a state of distress which seemed to plead with him
to refrain from even the tenderest touch on her feelings. It was a
peculiarity of their friendship that silence and absence had always
mysteriously fostered its growth; and he now felt that her reticence
deepened the understanding between them as the freest confidences might
not have done.

Soon afterward, an opportune attack of nervous prostration had sent Mrs.
Harry Dressel abroad; and Justine was selected as her companion. They
remained in Europe for six months; and on their return Amherst learned
with pleasure that Mr. Langhope had asked Miss Brent to take charge of
Cicely.

Mr. Langhope's sorrow for his daughter had been aggravated by futile
wrath at her unaccountable will; and the mixed sentiment thus engendered
had found expression in a jealous outpouring of affection toward Cicely.
He took immediate possession of the child, and in the first stages of
his affliction her companionship had been really consoling. But as time
passed, and the pleasant habits of years reasserted themselves, her
presence became, in small unacknowledged ways, a source of domestic
irritation. Nursery hours disturbed the easy routine of his household;
the elderly parlour-maid who had long ruled it resented the intervention
of Cicely's nurse; the little governess, involved in the dispute, broke
down and had to be shipped home to Germany; a successor was hard to
find, and in the interval Mr. Langhope's privacy was invaded by a stream
of visiting teachers, who were always wanting to consult him about
Cicely's lessons, and lay before him their tiresome complaints and
perplexities. Poor Mr. Langhope found himself in the position of the
mourner who, in the first fervour of bereavement, has undertaken the
construction of an imposing monument without having counted the cost. He
had meant that his devotion to Cicely should be a monument to his
paternal grief; but the foundations were scarcely laid when he found
that the funds of time and patience were almost exhausted.

Pride forbade his consigning Cicely to her step-father, though Mrs.
Amherst would gladly have undertaken her care; Mrs. Ansell's migratory
habits made it impossible for her to do more than intermittently hover
and advise; and a new hope rose before Mr. Langhope when it occurred to
him to appeal to Miss Brent.

The experiment had proved a success, and when Amherst met Justine again
she had been for some months in charge of the little girl, and change
and congenial occupation had restored her to a normal view of life.
There was no trace in her now of the dumb misery which had haunted him
at their parting; she was again the vivid creature who seemed more
charged with life than any one he had ever known. The crisis through
which she had passed showed itself only in a smoothing of the brow and
deepening of the eyes, as though a bloom of experience had veiled
without deadening the first brilliancy of youth.

As he lingered on the image thus evoked, he recalled Mrs. Dressel's
words: "Justine is twenty-seven--she's not likely to marry now."

Oddly enough, he had never thought of her marrying--but now that he
heard the possibility questioned, he felt a disagreeable conviction of
its inevitableness. Mrs. Dressel's view was of course absurd. In spite
of Justine's feminine graces, he had formerly felt in her a kind of
elfin immaturity, as of a flitting Ariel with untouched heart and
senses: it was only of late that she had developed the subtle quality
which calls up thoughts of love. Not marry? Why, the vagrant fire had
just lighted on her--and the fact that she was poor and unattached, with
her own way to make, and no setting of pleasure and elegance to
embellish her--these disadvantages seemed as nothing to Amherst against
the warmth of personality in which she moved. And besides, she would
never be drawn to the kind of man who needed fine clothes and luxury to
point him to the charm of sex. She was always finished and graceful in
appearance, with the pretty woman's art of wearing her few plain dresses
as if they were many and varied; yet no one could think of her as
attaching much importance to the upholstery of life.... No, the man who
won her would be of a different type, have other inducements to
offer...and Amherst found himself wondering just what those inducements
would be.

Suddenly he remembered something his mother had said as he left the
house--something about a distinguished-looking young man who had called
to ask for Miss Brent. Mrs. Amherst, innocently inquisitive in small
matters, had followed her son into the hall to ask the parlour-maid if
the gentleman had left his name; and the parlour-maid had answered in
the negative. The young man was evidently not indigenous: all the social
units of Hanaford were intimately known to each other. He was a
stranger, therefore, presumably drawn there by the hope of seeing Miss
Brent. But if he knew that she was coming he must be intimately
acquainted with her movements.... The thought came to Amherst as an
unpleasant surprise. It showed him for the first time how little he knew
of Justine's personal life, of the ties she might have formed outside
the Lynbrook circle. After all, he had seen her chiefly not among her
own friends but among his wife's. Was it reasonable to suppose that a
creature of her keen individuality would be content to subsist on the
fringe of other existences? Somewhere, of course, she must have a centre
of her own, must be subject to influences of which he was wholly
ignorant. And since her departure from Lynbrook he had known even less
of her life. She had spent the previous winter with Mr. Langhope in New
York, where Amherst had seen her only on his rare visits to Cicely; and
Mr. Langhope, on going abroad for the summer, had established his
grand-daughter in a Bar Harbour cottage, where, save for two flying
visits from Mrs. Ansell, Miss Brent had reigned alone till his return in
September.

Very likely, Amherst reflected, the mysterious visitor was a Bar Harbour
acquaintance--no, more than an acquaintance: a friend. And as Mr.
Langhope's party had left Mount Desert but three days previously, the
arrival of the unknown at Hanaford showed a singular impatience to
rejoin Miss Brent.

As he reached this point in his meditations, Amherst found himself at
the street-corner where it was his habit to pick up the Westmore
trolley. Just as it bore down on him, and he sprang to the platform,
another car, coming in from the mills, stopped to discharge its
passengers. Among them Amherst noticed a slender undersized man in
shabby clothes, about whose retreating back, as he crossed the street to
signal a Station Avenue car, there was something dimly familiar, and
suggestive of troubled memories. Amherst leaned out and looked again:
yes, the back was certainly like Dr. Wyant's--but what could Wyant be
doing at Hanaford, and in a Westmore car?

Amherst's first impulse was to spring out and overtake him. He knew how
admirably the young physician had borne himself at Lynbrook; he even
recalled Dr. Garford's saying, with his kindly sceptical smile: "Poor
Wyant believed to the end that we could save her"--and felt again his
own inward movement of thankfulness that the cruel miracle had not been
worked.

He owed a great deal to Wyant, and had tried to express his sense of the
fact by warm words and a liberal fee; but since Bessy's death he had
never returned to Lynbrook, and had consequently lost sight of the young
doctor.

Now he felt that he ought to try to rejoin him, to find out why he was
at Hanaford, and make some proffer of hospitality; but if the stranger
were really Wyant, his choice of the Station Avenue car made it appear
that he was on his way to catch the New York express; and in any case
Amherst's engagements at Westmore made immediate pursuit impossible.

He consoled himself with the thought that if the physician was not
leaving Hanaford he would be certain to call at the house; and then his
mind flew back to Justine Brent. But the pleasure of looking forward to
her arrival was disturbed by new feelings. A sense of reserve and
embarrassment had sprung up in his mind, checking that free mental
communion which, as he now perceived, had been one of the unconscious
promoters of their friendship. It was as though his thoughts faced a
stranger instead of the familiar presence which had so long dwelt in
them; and he began to see that the feeling of intelligence existing
between Justine and himself was not the result of actual intimacy, but
merely of the charm she knew how to throw over casual intercourse.

When he had left his house, his mind was like a summer sky, all open
blue and sunlit rolling clouds; but gradually the clouds had darkened
and massed themselves, till they drew an impenetrable veil over the
upper light and stretched threateningly across his whole horizon.

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