The Fruit of the Tree: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

AMHERST could never afterward regain a detailed impression of the weeks
that followed. They lived in his memory chiefly as exponents of the
unforeseen, nothing he had looked for having come to pass in the way or
at the time expected; while the whole movement of life was like the
noon-day flow of a river, in which the separate ripples of brightness
are all merged in one blinding glitter. His recurring conferences with
Mrs. Westmore formed, as it were, the small surprising kernel of fact
about which sensations gathered and grew with the swift ripening of a
magician's fruit. That she should remain on at Hanaford to look into the
condition of the mills did not, in itself, seem surprising to Amherst;
for his short phase of doubt had been succeeded by an abundant inflow of
faith in her intentions. It satisfied his inner craving for harmony that
her face and spirit should, after all, so corroborate and complete each
other; that it needed no moral sophistry to adjust her acts to her
appearance, her words to the promise of her smile. But her immediate
confidence in him, her resolve to support him in his avowed
insubordination, to ignore, with the royal license of her sex, all that
was irregular and inexpedient in asking his guidance while the whole
official strength of the company darkened the background with a
gathering storm of disapproval--this sense of being the glove flung by
her hand in the face of convention, quickened astonishingly the flow of
Amherst's sensations. It was as though a mountain-climber, braced to the
strain of a hard ascent, should suddenly see the way break into roses,
and level itself in a path for his feet.

On his second visit he found the two ladies together, and Mrs. Ansell's
smile of approval seemed to cast a social sanction on the episode, to
classify it as comfortably usual and unimportant. He could see that her
friend's manner put Bessy at ease, helping her to ask her own questions,
and to reflect on his suggestions, with less bewilderment and more
self-confidence. Mrs. Ansell had the faculty of restoring to her the
belief in her reasoning powers that her father could dissolve in a
monosyllable.

The talk, on this occasion, had turned mainly on the future of the
Dillon family, on the best means of compensating for the accident, and,
incidentally, on the care of the young children of the mill-colony.
Though Amherst did not believe in the extremer forms of industrial
paternalism, he was yet of opinion that, where married women were
employed, the employer should care for their children. He had been
gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, brought to this conviction by the
many instances of unavoidable neglect and suffering among the children
of the women-workers at Westmore; and Mrs. Westmore took up the scheme
with all the ardour of her young motherliness, quivering at the thought
of hungry or ailing children while her Cicely, leaning a silken head
against her, lifted puzzled eyes to her face.

On the larger problems of the case it was less easy to fix Bessy's
attention; but Amherst was far from being one of the extreme theorists
who reject temporary remedies lest they defer the day of general
renewal, and since he looked on every gain in the material condition of
the mill-hands as a step in their moral growth, he was quite willing to
hold back his fundamental plans while he discussed the establishment of
a nursery, and of a night-school for the boys in the mills.

The third time he called, he found Mr. Langhope and Mr. Halford Gaines
of the company. The President of the Westmore mills was a trim
middle-sized man, whose high pink varnish of good living would have
turned to purple could he have known Mr. Langhope's opinion of his
jewelled shirt-front and the padded shoulders of his evening-coat.
Happily he had no inkling of these views, and was fortified in his
command of the situation by an unimpaired confidence in his own
appearance; while Mr. Langhope, discreetly withdrawn behind a veil of
cigar-smoke, let his silence play like a fine criticism over the various
phases of the discussion.

It was a surprise to Amherst to find himself in Mr. Gaines's presence.
The President, secluded in his high office, seldom visited the mills,
and when there showed no consciousness of any presence lower than
Truscomb's; and Amherst's first thought was that, in the manager's
enforced absence, he was to be called to account by the head of the
firm. But he was affably welcomed by Mr. Gaines, who made it clear that
his ostensible purpose in coming was to hear Amherst's views as to the
proposed night-schools and nursery. These were pointedly alluded to as
Mrs. Westmore's projects, and the young man was made to feel that he was
merely called in as a temporary adviser in Truscomb's absence. This was,
in fact, the position Amherst preferred to take, and he scrupulously
restricted himself to the answering of questions, letting Mrs. Westmore
unfold his plans as though they had been her own. "It is much better,"
he reflected, "that they should all think so, and she too, for Truscomb
will be on his legs again in a day or two, and then my hours will be
numbered."

Meanwhile he was surprised to find Mr. Gaines oddly amenable to the
proposed innovations, which he appeared to regard as new fashions in
mill-management, to be adopted for the same cogent reasons as a new cut
in coat-tails.

"Of course we want to be up-to-date--there's no reason why the Westmore
mills shouldn't do as well by their people as any mills in the country,"
he affirmed, in the tone of the entertainer accustomed to say: "I want
the thing done handsomely." But he seemed even less conscious than Mrs.
Westmore that each particular wrong could be traced back to a radical
vice in the system. He appeared to think that every murmur of assent to
her proposals passed the sponge, once for all, over the difficulty
propounded: as though a problem in algebra should be solved by wiping it
off the blackboard.

"My dear Bessy, we all owe you a debt of gratitude for coming here, and
bringing, so to speak, a fresh eye to bear on the subject. If I've been,
perhaps, a little too exclusively absorbed in making the mills
profitable, my friend Langhope will, I believe, not be the first
to--er--cast a stone at me." Mr. Gaines, who was the soul of delicacy,
stumbled a little over the awkward associations connected with this
figure, but, picking himself up, hastened on to affirm: "And in that
respect, I think we can challenge comparison with any industry in the
state; but I am the first to admit that there may be another side, a
side that it takes a woman--a mother--to see. For instance," he threw in
jocosely, "I flatter myself that I know how to order a good dinner; but
I always leave the flowers to my wife. And if you'll permit me to say
so," he went on, encouraged by the felicity of his image, "I believe it
will produce a most pleasing effect--not only on the operatives
themselves, but on the whole of Hanaford--on our own set of people
especially--to have you come here and interest yourself in
the--er--philanthropic side of the work."

Bessy coloured a little. She blushed easily, and was perhaps not
over-discriminating as to the quality of praise received; but under her
ripple of pleasure a stronger feeling stirred, and she said hastily: "I
am afraid I never should have thought of these things if Mr. Amherst had
not pointed them out to me."

Mr. Gaines met this blandly. "Very gratifying to Mr. Amherst to have you
put it in that way; and I am sure we all appreciate his valuable hints.
Truscomb himself could not have been more helpful, though his larger
experience will no doubt be useful later on, in developing
and--er--modifying your plans."

It was difficult to reconcile this large view of the moral issue with
the existence of abuses which made the management of the Westmore mills
as unpleasantly notorious in one section of the community as it was
agreeably notable in another. But Amherst was impartial enough to see
that Mr. Gaines was unconscious of the incongruities of the situation.
He left the reconciling of incompatibles to Truscomb with the simple
faith of the believer committing a like task to his maker: it was in the
manager's mind that the dark processes of adjustment took place. Mr.
Gaines cultivated the convenient and popular idea that by ignoring
wrongs one is not so much condoning as actually denying their existence;
and in pursuance of this belief he devoutly abstained from studying the
conditions at Westmore.

A farther surprise awaited Amherst when Truscomb reappeared in the
office. The manager was always a man of few words; and for the first
days his intercourse with his assistant was restricted to asking
questions and issuing orders. Soon afterward, it became known that
Dillon's arm was to be amputated, and that afternoon Truscomb was
summoned to see Mrs. Westmore. When he returned he sent for Amherst; and
the young man felt sure that his hour had come.

He was at dinner when the message reached him, and he knew from the
tightening of his mother's lips that she too interpreted it in the same
way. He was glad that Duplain's presence kept her from speaking her
fears; and he thanked her inwardly for the smile with which she watched
him go.

That evening, when he returned, the smile was still at its post; but it
dropped away wearily as he said, with his hands on her shoulders: "Don't
worry, mother; I don't know exactly what's happening, but we're not
blacklisted yet."

Mrs. Amherst had immediately taken up her work, letting her nervous
tension find its usual escape through her finger-tips. Her needles
flagged as she lifted her eyes to his.

"Something _is_ happening, then?" she murmured.

"Oh, a number of things, evidently--but though I'm in the heart of them,
I can't yet make out how they are going to affect me."

His mother's glance twinkled in time with the flash of her needles.
"There's always a safe place in the heart of a storm," she said
shrewdly; and Amherst rejoined with a laugh: "Well, if it's Truscomb's
heart, I don't know that it's particularly safe for me."

"Tell me just what he said, John," she begged, making no attempt to
carry the pleasantry farther, though its possibilities still seemed to
flicker about her lip; and Amherst proceeded to recount his talk with
the manager.

Truscomb, it appeared, had made no allusion to Dillon; his avowed
purpose in summoning his assistant had been to discuss with the latter
the question of the proposed nursery and schools. Mrs. Westmore, at
Amherst's suggestion, had presented these projects as her own; but the
question of a site having come up, she had mentioned to Truscomb his
assistant's proposal that the company should buy for the purpose the
notorious Eldorado. The road-house in question had always been one of
the most destructive influences in the mill-colony, and Amherst had made
one or two indirect attempts to have the building converted to other
uses; but the persistent opposition he encountered gave colour to the
popular report that the manager took a high toll from the landlord.

It therefore at once occurred to Amherst to suggest the purchase of the
property to Mrs. Westmore; and he was not surprised to find that
Truscomb's opposition to the scheme centred in the choice of the
building. But even at this point the manager betrayed no open
resistance; he seemed tacitly to admit Amherst's right to discuss the
proposed plans, and even to be consulted concerning the choice of a
site. He was ready with a dozen good reasons against the purchase of the
road-house; but here also he proceeded with a discretion unexampled in
his dealings with his subordinates. He acknowledged the harm done by the
dance-hall, but objected that he could not conscientiously advise the
company to pay the extortionate price at which it was held, and reminded
Amherst that, if that particular source of offense were removed, others
would inevitably spring up to replace it; marshalling the usual
temporizing arguments of tolerance and expediency, with no marked change
from his usual tone, till, just as the interview was ending, he asked,
with a sudden drop to conciliation, if the assistant manager had
anything to complain of in the treatment he received.

This came as such a surprise to Amherst that before he had collected
himself he found Truscomb ambiguously but unmistakably offering
him--with the practised indirection of the man accustomed to cover his
share in such transactions--a substantial "consideration" for dropping
the matter of the road-house. It was incredible, yet it had really
happened: the all-powerful Truscomb, who held Westmore in the hollow of
his hand, had stooped to bribing his assistant because he was afraid to
deal with him in a more summary manner. Amherst's leap of anger at the
offer was curbed by the instant perception of its cause. He had no time
to search for a reason; he could only rally himself to meet the
unintelligible with a composure as abysmal as Truscomb's; and his voice
still rang with the wonder of the incident as he retailed it to his
mother.

"Think of what it means, mother, for a young woman like Mrs. Westmore,
without any experience or any habit of authority, to come here, and at
the first glimpse of injustice, to be so revolted that she finds the
courage and cleverness to put her little hand to the machine and
reverse the engines--for it's nothing less that she's done! Oh, I know
there'll be a reaction--the pendulum's sure to swing back: but you'll
see it won't swing _as far_. Of course I shall go in the end--but
Truscomb may go too: Jove, if I could pull him down on me, like
what's-his-name and the pillars of the temple!"

He had risen and was measuring the little sitting-room with his long
strides, his head flung back and his eyes dark with the inward look his
mother had not always cared to see there. But now her own glance seemed
to have caught a ray from his, and the knitting flowed from her hands
like the thread of fate, as she sat silent, letting him exhale his hopes
and his wonder, and murmuring only, when he dropped again to the chair
at her side: "You won't go, Johnny--you won't go."

* * * * *

Mrs. Westmore lingered on for over two weeks, and during that time
Amherst was able, in various directions, to develop her interest in the
mill-workers. His own schemes involved a complete readjustment of the
relation between the company and the hands: the suppression of the
obsolete company "store" and tenements, which had so long sapped the
thrift and ambition of the workers; the transformation of the Hopewood
grounds into a park and athletic field, and the division of its
remaining acres into building lots for the mill-hands; the establishing
of a library, a dispensary and emergency hospital, and various other
centres of humanizing influence; but he refrained from letting her see
that his present suggestion was only a part of this larger plan, lest
her growing sympathy should be checked. He had in his mother an example
of the mind accessible only to concrete impressions: the mind which
could die for the particular instance, yet remain serenely indifferent
to its causes. To Mrs. Amherst, her son's work had been interesting
simply because it _was_ his work: remove his presence from Westmore, and
the whole industrial problem became to her as non-existent as star-dust
to the naked eye. And in Bessy Westmore he divined a nature of the same
quality--divined, but no longer criticized it. Was not that
concentration on the personal issue just the compensating grace of her
sex? Did it not offer a warm tint of human inconsistency to eyes chilled
by contemplating life in the mass? It pleased Amherst for the moment to
class himself with the impersonal student of social problems, though in
truth his interest in them had its source in an imagination as open as
Bessy's to the pathos of the personal appeal. But if he had the same
sensitiveness, how inferior were his means of expressing it! Again and
again, during their talks, he had the feeling which had come to him when
she bent over Dillon's bed--that her exquisite lines were, in some
mystical sense, the visible flowering of her nature, that they had taken
shape in response to the inward motions of the heart.

To a young man ruled by high enthusiasms there can be no more dazzling
adventure than to work this miracle in the tender creature who yields
her mind to his--to see, as it were, the blossoming of the spiritual
seed in forms of heightened loveliness, the bluer beam of the eye, the
richer curve of the lip, all the physical currents of life quickening
under the breath of a kindled thought. It did not occur to him that any
other emotion had effected the change he perceived. Bessy Westmore had
in full measure that gift of unconscious hypocrisy which enables a woman
to make the man in whom she is interested believe that she enters into
all his thoughts. She had--more than this--the gift of self-deception,
supreme happiness of the unreflecting nature, whereby she was able to
believe herself solely engrossed in the subjects they discussed, to
regard him as the mere spokesman of important ideas, thus saving their
intercourse from present constraint, and from the awkward contemplation
of future contingencies. So, in obedience to the ancient sorcery of
life, these two groped for and found each other in regions seemingly so
remote from the accredited domain of romance that it would have been as
a great surprise to them to learn whither they had strayed as to see
the arid streets of Westmore suddenly bursting into leaf.

With Mrs. Westmore's departure Amherst, for the first time, became aware
of a certain flatness in his life. His daily task seemed dull and
purposeless, and he was galled by Truscomb's studied forbearance, under
which he suspected a quickly accumulating store of animosity. He almost
longed for some collision which would release the manager's pent-up
resentment; yet he dreaded increasingly any accident that might make his
stay at Westmore impossible.

It was on Sundays, when he was freed from his weekly task, that he was
most at the mercy of these opposing feelings. They drove him forth on
long solitary walks beyond the town, walks ending most often in the
deserted grounds of Hopewood, beautiful now in the ruined gold of
October. As he sat under the beech-limbs above the river, watching its
brown current sweep the willow-roots of the banks, he thought how this
same current, within its next short reach, passed from wooded seclusion
to the noise and pollution of the mills. So his own life seemed to have
passed once more from the tranced flow of the last weeks into its old
channel of unillumined labour. But other thoughts came to him too: the
vision of converting that melancholy pleasure-ground into an outlet for
the cramped lives of the mill-workers; and he pictured the weed-grown
lawns and paths thronged with holiday-makers, and the slopes nearer the
factories dotted with houses and gardens.

An unexpected event revived these hopes. A few days before Christmas it
became known to Hanaford that Mrs. Westmore would return for the
holidays. Cicely was drooping in town air, and Bessy had persuaded Mr.
Langhope that the bracing cold of Hanaford would be better for the child
than the milder atmosphere of Long Island. They reappeared, and brought
with them a breath of holiday cheerfulness such as Westmore had never
known. It had always been the rule at the mills to let the operatives
take their pleasure as they saw fit, and the Eldorado and the Hanaford
saloons throve on this policy. But Mrs. Westmore arrived full of festal
projects. There was to be a giant Christmas tree for the mill-children,
a supper on the same scale for the operatives, and a bout of skating and
coasting at Hopewood for the older lads--the "band" and "bobbin" boys in
whom Amherst had always felt a special interest. The Gaines ladies,
resolved to show themselves at home in the latest philanthropic
fashions, actively seconded Bessy's endeavours, and for a week Westmore
basked under a sudden heat-wave of beneficence.

The time had passed when Amherst might have made light of such efforts.
With Bessy Westmore smiling up, holly-laden, from the foot of the ladder
on which she kept him perched, how could he question the efficacy of
hanging the opening-room with Christmas wreaths, or the ultimate benefit
of gorging the operatives with turkey and sheathing their offspring in
red mittens? It was just like the end of a story-book with a pretty
moral, and Amherst was in the mood to be as much taken by the tinsel as
the youngest mill-baby held up to gape at the tree.

At the New Year, when Mrs. Westmore left, the negotiations for the
purchase of the Eldorado were well advanced, and it was understood that
on their completion she was to return for the opening of the
night-school and nursery. Suddenly, however, it became known that the
proprietor of the road-house had decided not to sell. Amherst heard of
the decision from Duplain, and at once foresaw the inevitable
result--that Mrs. Westmore's plan would be given up owing to the
difficulty of finding another site. Mr. Gaines and Truscomb had both
discountenanced the erection of a special building for what was, after
all, only a tentative enterprise. Among the purchasable houses in
Westmore no other was suited to the purpose, and they had, therefore, a
good excuse for advising Bessy to defer her experiment.

Almost at the same time, however, another piece of news changed the
aspect of affairs. A scandalous occurrence at the Eldorado, witnesses to
which were unexpectedly forthcoming, put it in Amherst's power to
threaten the landlord with exposure unless he should at once accept the
company's offer and withdraw from Westmore. Amherst had no long time to
consider the best means of putting this threat into effect. He knew it
was not only idle to appeal to Truscomb, but essential to keep the facts
from him till the deed was done; yet how obtain the authority to act
without him? The seemingly insuperable difficulties of the situation
whetted Amherst's craving for a struggle. He thought first of writing to
Mrs. Westmore;, but now that the spell of her presence was withdrawn he
felt how hard it would be to make her understand the need of prompt and
secret action; and besides, was it likely that, at such short notice,
she could command the needful funds? Prudence opposed the attempt, and
on reflection he decided to appeal to Mr. Gaines, hoping that the
flagrancy of the case would rouse the President from his usual attitude
of indifference.

Mr. Gaines was roused to the extent of showing a profound resentment
against the cause of his disturbance. He relieved his sense of
responsibility by some didactic remarks on the vicious tendencies of the
working-classes, and concluded with the reflection that the more you did
for them the less thanks you got. But when Amherst showed an
unwillingness to let the matter rest on this time-honoured aphorism, the
President retrenched himself behind ambiguities, suggestions that they
should await Mrs. Westmore's return, and general considerations of a
pessimistic nature, tapering off into a gloomy view of the weather.

"By God, I'll write to her!" Amherst exclaimed, as the Gaines portals
closed on him; and all the way back to Westmore he was busy marshalling
his arguments and entreaties.

He wrote the letter that night, but did not post it. Some unavowed
distrust of her restrained him--a distrust not of her heart but of her
intelligence. He felt that the whole future of Westmore was at stake,
and decided to await the development of the next twenty-four hours. The
letter was still in his pocket when, after dinner, he was summoned to
the office by Truscomb.

That evening, when he returned home, he entered the little sitting-room
without speaking. His mother sat there alone, in her usual place--how
many nights he had seen the lamplight slant at that particular angle
across her fresh cheek and the fine wrinkles about her eyes! He was
going to add another wrinkle to the number now--soon they would creep
down and encroach upon the smoothness of the cheek.

She looked up and saw that his glance was turned to the crowded
bookshelves behind her.

"There must be nearly a thousand of them," he said as their eyes met.

"Books? Yes--with your father's. Why--were you thinking...?" She started
up suddenly and crossed over to him.

"Too many for wanderers," he continued, drawing her hands to his breast;
then, as she clung to him, weeping and trembling a little: "It had to
be, mother," he said, kissing her penitently where the fine wrinkles
died into the cheek.

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