The Fruit of the Tree

by Edith Wharton

  XV

  WHEN the door closed on Mrs. Amherst a resolve which had taken shape inJustine's mind during their talk together made her seat herself at herwriting-table, where, after a moment's musing over her suspended pen,she wrote and addressed a hurried note. This business despatched, sheput on her hat and jacket, and letter in hand passed down the corridorfrom her room, and descended to the entrance-hall below. She might haveconsigned her missive to the post-box which conspicuously tendered itsservices from a table near the door; but to do so would delay theletter's despatch till morning, and she felt a sudden impatience to seeit start.

  The tumult on the terrace had transferred itself within doors, and asJustine went down the stairs she heard the click of cues from thebilliard-room, the talk and laughter of belated bridge-players, themovement of servants gathering up tea-cups and mending fires. She hadhoped to find the hall empty, but the sight of Westy Gaines's figurelooming watchfully on the threshold of the smoking-room gave her, at thelast bend of the stairs, a little start of annoyance. He would want toknow where she was going, he would offer to go with her, and it wouldtake some time and not a little emphasis to make him understand that hissociety was not desired.

  This was the thought that flashed through Justine's mind as she reachedthe landing; but the next moment it gave way to a contradictory feeling.Westy Gaines was not alone in the hall. From under the stairway rose thevoices of a group ensconced in that popular retreat about a chess-board;and as Justine reached the last turn of the stairs she perceived thatMason Winch, an earnest youth with advanced views on political economy,was engaged, to the diversion of a circle of spectators, in teaching theTelfer girls chess. The futility of trying to fix the spasmodicattention of this effervescent couple, and their instructor's graveunconsciousness of the fact, constituted, for the lookers-on, thepeculiar diversion of the scene. It was of course inevitable that youngWinch, on his arrival at Lynbrook, should have succumbed at once to thetumultuous charms of the Telfer manner, which was equally attractive toinarticulate youth and to tired and talked-out middle-age; but that heshould have perceived no resistance in their minds to the deliberativeprocesses of the game of chess, was, even to the Telfers themselves, asource of unmitigated gaiety. Nothing seemed to them funnier than thatany one should credit them with any mental capacity; and they hadinexhaustibly amusing ways of drawing out and showing off each other'signorance.

  It was on this scene that Westy's appreciative eyes had been fixed tillJustine's appearance drew them to herself. He pronounced her namejoyfully, and moved forward to greet her; but as their hands met sheunderstood that he did not mean to press his company upon her. Under theeye of the Lynbrook circle he was chary of marked demonstrations, andeven Mrs. Amherst's approval could not, at such moments, bridge over thegap between himself and the object of his attentions. A Gaines was aGaines in the last analysis, and apart from any pleasing accident ofpersonality; but what was Miss Brent but the transient vehicle of thosegraces which Providence has provided for the delectation of theprivileged sex?

  These influences were visible in the temperate warmth of Westy's manner,and in his way of keeping a backward eye on the mute interchange ofcomment about the chess-board. At another time his embarrassment wouldhave amused Justine; but the feelings stirred by her talk with Bessy hadnot subsided, and she recognized with a sting of mortification theresemblance between her view of the Lynbrook set and its estimate ofherself. If Bessy's friends were negligible to her she was almostnon-existent to them; and, as against herself, they were overwhelminglyprovided with tangible means of proving their case.

  Such considerations, at a given moment, may prevail decisively even witha nature armed against them by insight and irony; and the mere fact thatWesty Gaines did not mean to join her, and that he was withheld fromdoing so by the invisible pressure of the Lynbrook standards, had theeffect of precipitating Justine's floating intentions.

  If anything farther had been needed to hasten this result, it would havebeen accomplished by the sound of footsteps which, over-taking her adozen yards from the house, announced her admirer's impetuous if tardypursuit. The act of dismissing him, though it took but a word and waseffected with a laugh, left her pride quivering with a hurt the morepainful because she would not acknowledge it. That she should waste amoment's resentment on the conduct of a person so unimportant as poorWesty, showed her in a flash the intrinsic falseness of her position atLynbrook. She saw that to disdain the life about her had not kept herintact from it; and the knowledge made her feel anew the need of somestrong decentralizing influence, some purifying influx of emotion andactivity.

  She had walked on quickly through the clear October twilight, which wasstill saturated with the after-glow of a vivid sunset; and a few minutesbrought her to the village stretching along the turnpike beyond theLynbrook gates. The new post-office dominated the row of shabby housesand "stores" set disjointedly under reddening maples, and its archeddoorway formed the centre of Lynbrook's evening intercourse.

  Justine, hastening toward the knot of loungers on the threshold, had noconsciousness of anything outside of her own thoughts; and as shemounted the steps she was surprised to see Dr. Wyant detach himself fromthe group and advance to meet her.

  "May I post your letter?" he asked, lifting his hat.

  His gesture uncovered the close-curling hair of a smalldelicately-finished head just saved from effeminacy by the vigorous jutof heavy eye-brows meeting above full grey eyes. The eyes again, atfirst sight, might have struck one as too expressive, or as expressingthings too purely decorative for the purposes of a young country doctorwith a growing practice; but this estimate was corrected by anunexpected abruptness in their owner's voice and manner. Perhaps thefinal impression produced on a close observer by Dr. Stephen Wyant wouldhave been that the contradictory qualities of which he was compoundedhad not yet been brought into equilibrium by the hand of time.

  Justine, in reply to his question, had drawn back a step, slipping herletter into the breast of her jacket.

  "That is hardly worth while, since it was addressed to you," sheanswered with a slight smile as she turned to descend the post-officesteps.

  Wyant, still carrying his hat, and walking with quick uneven steps,followed her in silence till they had passed beyond earshot of theloiterers on the threshold; then, in the shade of the maple boughs, hepulled up and faced her.

  "You've written to say that I may come tomorrow?"

  Justine hesitated. "Yes," she said at length.

  "Good God! You give royally!" he broke out, pushing his hand with anervous gesture through the thin dark curls on his forehead.

  Justine laughed, with a trace of nervousness in her own tone. "And youtalk--well, imperially! Aren't you afraid to bankrupt the language?"

  "What do you mean?" he said, staring.

  "What do _you_ mean? I have merely said that I would see youtomorrow----"

  "Well," he retorted, "that's enough for my happiness!"

  She sounded her light laugh again. "I'm glad to know you're so easilypleased."

  "I'm not! But you couldn't have done a cruel thing without a struggle;and since you're ready to give me my answer tomorrow, I know it can'tbe a cruel one."

  They had begun to walk onward as they talked, but at this she halted."Please don't take that tone. I dislike sentimentality!" she exclaimed,with a tinge of imperiousness that was a surprise to her own ears.

  It was not the first time in the course of her friendship with StephenWyant that she had been startled by this intervention of somethingwithin her that resisted and almost resented his homage. When they wereapart, she was conscious only of the community of interests andsympathies that had first drawn them together. Why was it then--sincehis looks were of the kind generally thought to stand a suitor in goodstead--that whenever they had met of late she had been subject to theserushes of obscure hostility, the half-physical, half-moral shrinkingfrom some indefinable element in his nature against which she wasconstrained to defend herself by perpe
tual pleasantry and evasion?

  To Wyant, at any rate, the answer was not far to seek. His pale facereflected the disdain in hers as he returned ironically: "A thousandpardons; I know I'm not always in the key."

  "The key?"

  "I haven't yet acquired the Lynbrook tone. You must make allowances formy lack of opportunity."

  The retort on Justine's lips dropped to silence, as though his wordshad in fact brought an answer to her inward questioning. Could it bethat he was right--that her shrinking from him was the result of anincreased sensitiveness to faults of taste that she would once havedespised herself for noticing? When she had first known him, in her workat St. Elizabeth's some three years earlier, his excesses of manner hadseemed to her merely the boyish tokens of a richness of nature not yetcontrolled by experience. Though Wyant was somewhat older than herselfthere had always been an element of protection in her feeling for him,and it was perhaps this element which formed the real ground of herliking. It was, at any rate, uppermost as she returned, with a softenedgleam of mockery: "Since you are so sure of my answer I hardly know whyI should see you tomorrow."

  "You mean me to take it now?" he exclaimed.

  "I don't mean you to take it at all till it's given--above all not totake it for granted!"

  His jutting brows drew together again. "Ah, I can't split hairs withyou. Won't you put me out of my misery?"

  She smiled, but not unkindly. "Do you want an anaesthetic?"

  "No--a clean cut with the knife!"

  "You forget that we're not allowed to despatch hopeless cases--more'sthe pity!"

  He flushed to the roots of his thin hair. "Hopeless cases? That's it,then--that's my answer?"

  They had reached the point where, at the farther edge of the stragglingsettlement, the tiled roof of the railway-station fronted thepost-office cupola; and the shriek of a whistle now reminded Justinethat the spot was not propitious to private talk. She halted a momentbefore speaking.

  "I have no answer to give you now but the one in my note--that I'll seeyou tomorrow."

  "But if you're sure of knowing tomorrow you must know now!"

  Their eyes met, his eloquently pleading, hers kind but stillimpenetrable. "If I knew now, you should know too. Please be contentwith that," she rejoined.

  "How can I be, when a day may make such a difference? When I know thatevery influence about you is fighting against me?"

  The words flashed a refracted light far down into the causes of her ownuncertainty.

  "Ah," she said, drawing a little away from him, "I'm not so sure that Idon't like a fight!"

  "Is that why you won't give in?" He moved toward her with a despairinggesture. "If I let you go now, you're lost to me!"

  She stood her ground, facing him with a quick lift of the head. "If youdon't let me go I certainly am," she said; and he drew back, as ifconscious of the uselessness of the struggle. His submission, as usual,had a disarming effect on her irritation, and she held out her hand."Come tomorrow at three," she said, her voice and manner suddenlyseeming to give back the hope she had withheld from him.

  He seized on her hand with an inarticulate murmur; but at the samemoment a louder whistle and the thunder of an approaching train remindedher of the impossibility of prolonging the scene. She was ordinarilycareless of appearances, but while she was Mrs. Amherst's guest she didnot care to be seen romantically loitering through the twilight withStephen Wyant; and she freed herself with a quick goodbye.

  He gave her a last look, hesitating and imploring; then, in obedience toher gesture, he turned away and strode off in the opposite direction.

  As soon as he had left her she began to retrace her steps towardLynbrook House; but instead of traversing the whole length of thevillage she passed through a turnstile in the park fencing, taking amore circuitous but quieter way home.

  She walked on slowly through the dusk, wishing to give herself time tothink over her conversation with Wyant. Now that she was alone again, itseemed to her that the part she had played had been both inconsistentand undignified. When she had written to Wyant that she would see him onthe morrow she had done so with the clear understanding that she was togive, at that meeting, a definite answer to his offer of marriage; andduring her talk with Bessy she had suddenly, and, as it seemed to her,irrevocably, decided that the answer should be favourable. From thefirst days of her acquaintance with Wyant she had appreciated hisintelligence and had been stimulated by his zeal for his work. He hadremained only six months at Saint Elizabeth's, and though his feelingfor her had even then been manifest, it had been kept from expression bythe restraint of their professional relation, and by her absorption inher duties. It was only when they had met again at Lynbrook that she hadbegun to feel a personal interest in him. His youthful promise seemednearer fulfillment than she had once thought possible, and the contrasthe presented to the young men in Bessy's train was really all in hisfavour. He had gained in strength and steadiness without losing his highflashes of enthusiasm; and though, even now, she was not in love withhim, she began to feel that the union of their common interests mightcreate a life full and useful enough to preclude the possibility ofvague repinings. It would, at any rate, take her out of the stagnantcircle of her present existence, and restore her to contact with thefruitful energies of life.

  All this had seemed quite clear when she wrote her letter; why, then,had she not made use of their chance encounter to give her answer,instead of capriciously postponing it? The act might have been that of aself-conscious girl in her teens; but neither inexperience nor coquetryhad prompted it. She had merely yielded to the spirit of resistance thatWyant's presence had of late aroused in her; and the possibility thatthis resistance might be due to some sense of his social defects, hislack of measure and facility, was so humiliating that for a moment shestood still in the path, half-meaning to turn back and overtake him----

  As she paused she was surprised to hear a man's step behind her; and thethought that it might be Wyant's brought about another revulsion offeeling. What right had he to pursue her in this way, to dog her stepseven into the Lynbrook grounds? She was sure that his persistentattentions had already attracted the notice of Bessy's visitors; andthat he should thus force himself on her after her dismissal seemedsuddenly to make their whole relation ridiculous.

  She turned about to rebuke him, and found herself face to face with JohnAmherst.