The Fruit of the Tree

by Edith Wharton

  XXIV

  JUSTINE was pacing the long library at Lynbrook, between the caged setsof standard authors.

  She felt as much caged as they: as much a part of a conventionalstage-setting totally unrelated to the action going on before it. Twoweeks had passed since her return from Philadelphia; and during thattime she had learned that her usefulness at Lynbrook was over. Thoughnot unwelcome, she might almost call herself unwanted; life swept by,leaving her tethered to the stake of inaction; a bitter lot for one whochose to measure existence by deeds instead of days. She had found Bessyostensibly busy with a succession of guests; no one in the house neededher but Cicely, and even Cicely, at times, was caught up into the whirlof her mother's life, swept off on sleighing parties and motor-trips, orcarried to town for a dancing-class or an opera matinee.

  Mrs. Fenton Carbury was not among the visitors who left Lynbrook on theMonday after Justine's return.

  Mr. Carbury, with the other bread-winners of the party, had hastenedback to his treadmill in Wall Street after a Sunday spent in silentlystudying the files of the Financial Record; but his wife stayed on,somewhat aggressively in possession, criticizing and rearranging thefurniture, ringing for the servants, making sudden demands on thestable, telegraphing, telephoning, ordering fires lighted or windowsopened, and leaving everywhere in her wake a trail of cigarette ashesand cocktail glasses.

  Ned Bowfort had not been included in the house-party; but on the day ofits dispersal he rode over unannounced for luncheon, put up his horse inthe stable, threaded his way familiarly among the dozing dogs in thehall, greeted Mrs. Ansell and Justine with just the right shade of quietdeference, produced from his pocket a new puzzle-game for Cicely, andsat down beside her mother with the quiet urbanity of the family friendwho knows his privileges but is too discreet to abuse them.

  After that he came every day, sometimes riding home late to the HuntClub, sometimes accompanying Bessy and Mrs. Carbury to town for dinnerand the theatre; but always with his deprecating air of having droppedin by accident, and modestly hoping that his intrusion was notunwelcome.

  The following Sunday brought another influx of visitors, and Bessyseemed to fling herself with renewed enthusiasm into the cares ofhospitality. She had avoided Justine since their midnight talk,contriving to see her in Cicely's presence, or pleading haste when theyfound themselves alone. The winter was unusually open, and she spentlong hours in the saddle when her time was not taken up with hervisitors. For a while she took Cicely on her daily rides; but she soonwearied of adapting her hunter's stride to the pace of the little girl'spony, and Cicely was once more given over to the coachman's care.

  Then came snow and a long frost, and Bessy grew restless at herimprisonment, and grumbled that there was no way of keeping well in awinter climate which made regular exercise impossible.

  "Why not build a squash-court?" Blanche Carbury proposed; and the twofell instantly to making plans under the guidance of Ned Bowfort andWesty Gaines. As the scheme developed, various advisers suggested thatit was a pity not to add a bowling-alley, a swimming-tank and agymnasium; a fashionable architect was summoned from town, measurementswere taken, sites discussed, sketches compared, and engineers consultedas to the cost of artesian wells and the best system for heating thetank.

  Bessy seemed filled with a feverish desire to carry out the plan asquickly as possible, and on as large a scale as even the architect'sinvention soared to; but it was finally decided that, before signing thecontracts, she should run over to New Jersey to see a building of thesame kind on which a sporting friend of Mrs. Carbury's had recentlylavished a fortune.

  It was on this errand that the two ladies, in company with Westy Gainesand Bowfort, had departed on the day which found Justine restlesslymeasuring the length of the library. She and Mrs. Ansell had the houseto themselves; and it was hardly a surprise to her when, in the courseof the afternoon, Mrs. Ansell, after a discreet pause on the threshold,advanced toward her down the long room.

  Since the night of her return Justine had felt sure that Mrs. Ansellwould speak; but the elder lady was given to hawk-like circlings abouther subject, to hanging over it and contemplating it before her wingsdropped for the descent.

  Now, however, it was plain that she had resolved to strike; and Justinehad a sense of relief at the thought. She had been too long isolated inher anxiety, her powerlessness to help; and she had a vague hope thatMrs. Ansell's worldly wisdom might accomplish what her inexperience hadfailed to achieve.

  "Shall we sit by the fire? I am glad to find you alone," Mrs. Ansellbegan, with the pleasant abruptness that was one of the subtlestinstruments of her indirection; and as Justine acquiesced, she added,yielding her slight lines to the luxurious depths of an arm-chair: "Ihave been rather suddenly asked by an invalid cousin to go to Europewith her next week, and I can't go contentedly without being at peaceabout our friends."

  She paused, but Justine made no answer. In spite of her growing sympathyfor Mrs. Ansell she could not overcome an inherent distrust, not of hermethods, but of her ultimate object. What, for instance, was herconception of being at peace about the Amhersts? Justine's ownconviction was that, as far as their final welfare was concerned, anyterms were better between them than the external harmony which hadprevailed during Amherst's stay at Lynbrook.

  The subtle emanation of her distrust may have been felt by Mrs. Ansell;for the latter presently continued, with a certain nobleness: "I am themore concerned because I believe I must hold myself, in a small degree,responsible for Bessy's marriage--" and, as Justine looked at her insurprise, she added: "I thought she could never be happy unless heraffections were satisfied--and even now I believe so."

  "I believe so too," Justine said, surprised into assent by thesimplicity of Mrs. Ansell's declaration.

  "Well, then--since we are agreed in our diagnosis," the older woman wenton, smiling, "what remedy do you suggest? Or rather, how can weadminister it?"

  "What remedy?" Justine hesitated.

  "Oh, I believe we are agreed on that too. Mr. Amherst must be broughtback--but how to bring him?" She paused, and then added, with a singulareffect of appealing frankness: "I ask you, because I believe you to bethe only one of Bessy's friends who is in the least in her husband'sconfidence."

  Justine's embarrassment increased. Would it not be disloyal both toBessy and Amherst to acknowledge to a third person a fact of which Bessyherself was unaware? Yet to betray embarrassment under Mrs. Ansell'seyes was to risk giving it a dangerous significance.

  "Bessy has spoken to me once or twice--but I know very little of Mr.Amherst's point of view; except," Justine added, after another moment'sweighing of alternatives, "that I believe he suffers most from being cutoff from his work at Westmore."

  "Yes--so I think; but that is a difficulty that time and expediency mustadjust. All _we_ can do--their friends, I mean--is to get them togetheragain before the breach is too wide."

  Justine pondered. She was perhaps more ignorant of the situation thanMrs. Ansell imagined, for since her talk with Bessy the latter had notagain alluded to Amherst's absence, and Justine could merely conjecturethat he had carried out his plan of taking the management of the mill hehad spoken of. What she most wished to know was whether he had listenedto her entreaty, and taken the position temporarily, without bindinghimself by the acceptance of a salary; or whether, wounded by theoutrage of Bessy's flight, he had freed himself from financialdependence by engaging himself definitely as manager.

  "I really know very little of the present situation," Justine said,looking at Mrs. Ansell. "Bessy merely told me that Mr. Amherst had takenup his old work in a cotton mill in the south."

  As her eyes met Mrs. Ansell's it flashed across her that the latter didnot believe what she said, and the perception made her instantly shrinkback into herself. But there was nothing in Mrs. Ansell's tone toconfirm the doubt which her look betrayed.

  "Ah--I hoped you knew more," she said simply; "for, like you, I haveonly heard from Bessy that her husband wen
t away suddenly to help afriend who is reorganizing some mills in Georgia. Of course, under thecircumstances, such a temporary break is natural enough--perhapsinevitable--only he must not stay away too long."

  Justine was silent. Mrs. Ansell's momentary self-betrayal had checkedall farther possibility of frank communion, and the discerning lady hadseen her error too late to remedy it.

  But her hearer's heart gave a leap of joy. It was clear from what Mrs.Ansell said that Amherst had not bound himself definitely, since hewould not have done so without informing his wife. And with a secretthrill of happiness Justine recalled his last word to her: "I willremember all you have said."

  He had kept that word and acted on it; in spite of Bessy's last assaulton his pride he had borne with her, and deferred the day of finalrupture; and the sense that she had had a part in his decision filledJustine with a glow of hope. The consciousness of Mrs. Ansell'ssuspicions faded to insignificance--Mrs. Ansell and her kind might thinkwhat they chose, since all that mattered now was that she herselfshould act bravely and circumspectly in her last attempt to save herfriends.

  "I am not sure," Mrs. Ansell continued, gently scrutinizing hercompanion, "that I think it unwise of him to have gone; but if he staystoo long Bessy may listen to bad advice--advice disastrous to herhappiness." She paused, and turned her eyes meditatively toward thefire. "As far as I know," she said, with the same air of seriouscandour, "you are the only person who can tell him this."

  "I?" exclaimed Justine, with a leap of colour to her pale cheeks.

  Mrs. Ansell's eyes continued to avoid her. "My dear Miss Brent, Bessyhas told me something of the wise counsels you have given her. Mr.Amherst is also your friend. As I said just now, you are the only personwho might act as a link between them--surely you will not renounce therole."

  Justine controlled herself. "My only role, as you call it, has been tourge Bessy to--to try to allow for her husband's views----"

  "And have you not given the same advice to Mr. Amherst?"

  The eyes of the two women met. "Yes," said Justine, after a moment.

  "Then why refuse your help now? The moment is crucial."

  Justine's thoughts had flown beyond the stage of resenting Mrs. Ansell'sgentle pertinacity. All her faculties were absorbed in the question asto how she could most effectually use whatever influence she possessed.

  "I put it to you as one old friend to another--will you write to Mr.Amherst to come back?" Mrs. Ansell urged her.

  Justine was past considering even the strangeness of this request, andits oblique reflection on the kind of power ascribed to her. Through theconfused beatings of her heart she merely struggled for a clearer senseof guidance.

  "No," she said slowly. "I cannot."

  "You cannot? With a friend's happiness in extremity?" Mrs. Ansell pauseda moment before she added. "Unless you believe that Bessy would behappier divorced?"

  "Divorced--? Oh, no," Justine shuddered.

  "That is what it will come to."

  "No, no! In time----"

  "Time is what I am most afraid of, when Blanche Carbury disposes of it."

  Justine breathed a deep sigh.

  "You'll write?" Mrs. Ansell murmured, laying a soft touch on her hand.

  "I have not the influence you think----"

  "Can you do any harm by trying?"

  "I might--" Justine faltered, losing her exact sense of the words sheused.

  "Ah," the other flashed back, "then you _have_ influence! Why will younot use it?"

  Justine waited a moment; then her resolve gathered itself into words."If I have any influence, I am not sure it would be well to use it asyou suggest."

  "Not to urge Mr. Amherst's return?"

  "No--not now."

  She caught the same veiled gleam of incredulity under Mrs. Ansell'slids--caught and disregarded it.

  "It must be now or never," Mrs. Ansell insisted.

  "I can't think so," Justine held out.

  "Nevertheless--will you try?"

  "No--no! It might be fatal."

  "To whom?"

  "To both." She considered. "If he came back now I know he would notstay."

  Mrs. Ansell was upon her abruptly. "You _know_? Then you speak withauthority?"

  "No--what authority? I speak as I feel," Justine faltered.

  The older woman drew herself to her feet. "Ah--then you shoulder a greatresponsibility!" She moved nearer to Justine, and once more laid afugitive touch upon her. "You won't write to him?"

  "No--no," the girl flung back; and the voices of the returning party inthe hall made Mrs. Ansell, with an almost imperceptible gesture ofwarning, turn musingly away toward the fire.

  * * * * *

  Bessy came back brimming with the wonders she had seen. A glazed"sun-room," mosaic pavements, a marble fountain to feed the marbletank--and outside a water-garden, descending in successive terraces, totake up and utilize--one could see how practically!--the overflow fromthe tank. If one did the thing at all, why not do it decently? She hadgiven up her new motor, had let her town house, had pinched and stintedherself in a hundred ways--if ever woman was entitled to a littlecompensating pleasure, surely she was that woman!

  The days were crowded with consultations. Architect, contractors,engineers, a landscape gardener, and a dozen minor craftsmen, came andwent, unrolled plans, moistened pencils, sketched, figured, argued,persuaded, and filled Bessy with the dread of appearing, under BlancheCarbury's eyes, subject to any restraining influences of economy. What!She was a young woman, with an independent fortune, and she was alwayswavering, considering, secretly referring back to the mute criticism ofan invisible judge--of the husband who had been first to shake himselffree of any mutual subjection? The accomplished Blanche did not have tosay this--she conveyed it by the raising of painted brows, by a smile ofmocking interrogation, a judiciously placed silence or a resigned glanceat the architect. So the estimates poured in, were studied,resisted--then yielded to and signed; then the hour of advance paymentsstruck, and an imperious appeal was despatched to Mr. Tredegar, to whomthe management of Bessy's affairs had been transferred.

  Mr. Tredegar, to his client's surprise, answered the appeal in person.He had not been lately to Lynbrook, dreading the cold and damp of thecountry in winter; and his sudden arrival had therefore an ominoussignificance.

  He came for an evening in mid-week, when even Blanche Carbury wasabsent, and Bessy and Justine had the house to themselves. Mrs. Ansellhad sailed the week before with her invalid cousin. No farther words hadpassed between herself and Justine--but the latter was conscious thattheir talk had increased instead of lessened the distance between them.Justine herself meant to leave soon. Her hope of regaining Bessy'sconfidence had been deceived, and seeing herself definitely superseded,she chafed anew at her purposeless inactivity. She had already writtento one or two doctors in New York, and to the matron of SaintElizabeth's. She had made herself a name in surgical cases, and it couldnot be long before a summons came....

  Meanwhile Mr. Tredegar arrived, and the three dined together, the twowomen bending meekly to his discourse, which was never more oracular andauthoritative than when delivered to the gentler sex alone. Amherst'sabsence, in particular, seemed to loose the thin current of Mr.Tredegar's eloquence. He was never quite at ease in the presence of anindependent mind, and Justine often reflected that, even had the two menknown nothing of each other's views, there would have been between theman instinctive and irreducible hostility--they would have disliked eachother if they had merely jostled elbows in the street.

  Yet even freed from Amherst's presence Mr. Tredegar showed a darklingbrow, and as Justine slipped away after dinner she felt that she leftBessy to something more serious than the usual business conference.

  How serious, she was to learn that very night, when, in the small hours,her friend burst in on her tearfully. Bessy was ruined--ruined--that waswhat Mr. Tredegar had come to tell her! She might have known he wouldnot have travelled to Lynbrook
for a trifle.... She had expected to findherself cramped, restricted--to be warned that she must "manage,"hateful word!... But this! This was incredible! Unendurable! There wasno money to build the gymnasium--none at all! And all because it hadbeen swallowed up at Westmore--because the ridiculous changes there,the changes that nobody wanted, nobody approved of--that Truscomb andall the other experts had opposed and derided from the first--thesechanges, even modified and arrested, had already involved so much of herincome, that it might be years--yes, he said _years_!--before she wouldfeel herself free again--free of her own fortune, of Cicely'sfortune...of the money poor Dick Westmore had meant his wife and childto enjoy!

  Justine listened anxiously to this confused outpouring of resentments.Bessy's born incapacity for figures made it indeed possible that thefacts came on her as a surprise--that she had quite forgotten thetemporary reduction of her income, and had begun to imagine that whatshe had saved in one direction was hers to spend in another. All thiswas conceivable. But why had Mr. Tredegar drawn so dark a picture of thefuture? Or was it only that, thwarted of her immediate desire, Bessy'sdisappointment blackened the farthest verge of her horizon? Justine,though aware of her friend's lack of perspective, suspected that aconniving hand had helped to throw the prospect out of drawing....

  Could it be possible, then, that Mr. Tredegar was among those whodesired a divorce? That the influences at which Mrs. Ansell had hintedproceeded not only from Blanche Carbury and her group? Helpless amidthis rush of forebodings, Justine could do no more than soothe andrestrain--to reason would have been idle. She had never till nowrealized how completely she had lost ground with Bessy.

  "The humiliation--before my friends! Oh, I was warned...my father, everyone...for Cicely's sake I was warned...but I wouldn't listen--and _now_!From the first it was all he cared for--in Europe, even, he was alwaysdragging me to factories. _Me?_--I was only the owner of Westmore! Hewanted power--power, that's all--when he lost it he left me...oh, I'mglad now my baby is dead! Glad there's nothing between us--nothing,nothing in the world to tie us together any longer!"

  The disproportion between this violent grief and its trivial cause wouldhave struck Justine as simply grotesque, had she not understood that theincident of the gymnasium, which followed with cumulative pressure on aseries of similar episodes, seemed to Bessy like the reaching out of aretaliatory hand--a mocking reminder that she was still imprisoned inthe consequences of her unhappy marriage.

  Such folly seemed past weeping for--it froze Justine's compassion intodisdain, till she remembered that the sources of our sorrow aresometimes nobler than their means of expression, and that a baffledunappeased love was perhaps the real cause of Bessy's anger against herhusband.

  At any rate, the moment was a critical one, and Justine remembered witha pang that Mrs. Ansell had foreseen such a contingency, and imploredher to take measures against it. She had refused, from a sincere dreadof precipitating a definite estrangement--but had she been right injudging the situation so logically? With a creature of Bessy's emotionaluncertainties the result of contending influences was reallyincalculable--it might still be that, at this juncture, Amherst's returnwould bring about a reaction of better feelings....

  Justine sat and mused on these things after leaving her friend exhaustedupon a tearful pillow. She felt that she had perhaps taken too large asurvey of the situation--that the question whether there could ever behappiness between this tormented pair was not one to concern those whostruggled for their welfare. Most marriages are a patch-work of jarringtastes and ill-assorted ambitions--if here and there, for a moment, twocolours blend, two textures are the same, so much the better for thepattern! Justine, certainly, could foresee in reunion no positivehappiness for either of her friends; but she saw positive disaster forBessy in separation from her husband....

  Suddenly she rose from her chair by the falling fire, and crossed overto the writing-table. She would write to Amherst herself--she would tellhim to come. The decision once reached, hope flowed back to herheart--the joy of action so often deceived her into immediate faith inits results!

  "Dear Mr. Amherst," she wrote, "the last time I saw you, you told me youwould remember what I said. I ask you to do so now--to remember that Iurged you not to be away too long. I believe you ought to come back now,though I know Bessy will not ask you to. I am writing without herknowledge, but with the conviction that she needs you, though perhapswithout knowing it herself...."

  She paused, and laid down her pen. Why did it make her so happy to writeto him? Was it merely the sense of recovered helpfulness, or somethingwarmer, more personal, that made it a joy to trace his name, and toremind him of their last intimate exchange of words? Well--perhaps itwas that too. There were moments when she was so mortally lonely thatany sympathetic contact with another life sent a glow into herveins--that she was thankful to warm herself at any fire.