The Fruit of the Tree

by Edith Wharton

  XXVI

  WITHIN Justine there was a moment's darkness; then, like terror-struckworkers rallying to their tasks, every faculty was again at its post,receiving and transmitting signals, taking observations, anticipatingorders, making her brain ring with the hum of a controlled activity.

  She had known the sensation before--the transmuting of terror and pityinto this miraculous lucidity of thought and action; but never had itsnatched her from such depths. Oh, thank heaven for her knowledgenow--for the trained mind that could take command of her senses and bendthem firmly to its service!

  Wyant seconded her well, after a moment's ague-fit of fear. She pitiedand pardoned the moment, aware of its cause, and respecting him for theway in which he rose above it into the clear air of professionalself-command. Through the first hours they worked shoulder to shoulder,conscious of each other only as of kindred will-powers, stretched to theutmost tension of discernment and activity, and hardly needing speech orlook to further their swift co-operation. It was thus that she had knownhim in the hospital, in the heat of his youthful zeal: the doctor sheliked best to work with, because no other so tempered ardour withjudgment.

  The great surgeon, arriving from town at midnight, confirmed hisdiagnosis: there was undoubted injury to the spine. Other consultantswere summoned in haste, and in the winter dawn the verdict waspronounced--a fractured vertebra, and possibly lesion of the cord....

  Justine got a moment alone when the surgeons returned to the sick-room.Other nurses were there now, capped, aproned, quickly and silentlyunpacking their appliances.... She must call a halt, clear her brainagain, decide rapidly what was to be done next.... Oh, if only thecrawling hours could bring Amherst! It was strange that there was notelegram yet--no, not strange, after all, since it was barely six in themorning, and her message had not been despatched till seven the nightbefore. It was not unlikely that, in that little southern settlement,the telegraph office closed at six.

  She stood in Bessy's sitting-room, her forehead pressed to thewindow-pane, her eyes straining out into the thin February darkness,through which the morning star swam white. As soon as she had yieldedher place to the other nurses her nervous tension relaxed, and she hungagain above the deeps of anguish, terrified and weak. In a moment thenecessity for action would snatch her back to a firm footing--herthoughts would clear, her will affirm itself, all the wheels of thecomplex machine resume their functions. But now she felt only thehorror....

  She knew so well what was going on in the next room. Dr. Garford, thegreat surgeon, who had known her at Saint Elizabeth's, had evidentlyexpected her to take command of the nurses he had brought from town;but there were enough without her, and there were other cares which, forthe moment, she only could assume--the despatching of messages to thescattered family, the incessant telephoning and telegraphing to town,the general guidance of the household swinging rudderless in the tide ofdisaster. Cicely, above all, must be watched over and guarded fromalarm. The little governess, reduced to a twittering heap of fears, hadbeen quarantined in a distant room till reason returned to her; and thechild, meanwhile, slept quietly in the old nurse's care.

  Cicely would wake presently, and Justine must go up to her with a brightface; other duties would press thick on the heels of this; their feetwere already on the threshold. But meanwhile she could only follow inimagination what was going on in the other room....

  She had often thought with dread of such a contingency. She alwayssympathized too much with her patients--she knew it was the joint in herarmour. Her quick-gushing pity lay too near that professional exteriorwhich she had managed to endue with such a bright glaze of insensibilitythat some sentimental patients--without much the matter--had been knownto call her "a little hard." How, then, should she steel herself if itfell to her lot to witness a cruel accident to some one she loved, andto have to perform a nurse's duties, steadily, expertly, unflinchingly,while every fibre was torn with inward anguish?

  She knew the horror of it now--and she knew also that her self-enforcedexile from the sick-room was a hundred times worse. To stand there,knowing, with each tick of the clock, what was being said and donewithin--how the great luxurious room, with its pale draperies andscented cushions, and the hundred pretty trifles strewing the lacetoilet-table and the delicate old furniture, was being swept bare,cleared for action like a ship's deck, drearily garnished with rows ofinstruments, rolls of medicated cotton, oiled silk, bottles, bandages,water-pillows--all the grim paraphernalia of the awful rites of pain: toknow this, and to be able to call up with torturing vividness that poorpale face on the pillows, vague-eyed, expressionless, perhaps, as shehad last seen it, or--worse yet--stirred already with the first creepingpangs of consciousness: to have these images slowly, deliberately burnthemselves into her brain, and to be aware, at the same time, of thatunderlying moral disaster, of which the accident seemed the monstrousoutward symbol--ah, this was worse than anything she had ever dreamed!

  She knew that the final verdict could not be pronounced till theoperation which was about to take place should reveal the extent ofinjury to the spine. Bessy, in falling, must have struck on the back ofher head and shoulders, and it was but too probable that the fracturedvertebra had caused a bruise if not a lesion of the spinal cord. In thatcase paralysis was certain--and a slow crawling death the almostinevitable outcome. There had been cases, of course--Justine'sprofessional memory evoked them--cases of so-called "recovery," whereactual death was kept at bay, a semblance of life preserved for years inthe poor petrified body.... But the mind shrank from such a fate forBessy. And it might still be that the injury to the spine was notgrave--though, here again, the fracturing of the fourth vertebra wasominous.

  The door opened and some one came from the inner room--Wyant, in searchof an instrument-case. Justine turned and they looked at each other.

  "It will be now?"

  "Yes. Dr. Garford asked if there was no one you could send for."

  "No one but Mr. Tredegar and the Halford Gaineses. They'll be here thisevening, I suppose."

  They exchanged a discouraged glance, knowing how little difference thepresence of the Halford Gaineses would make.

  "He wanted to know if there was no telegram from Amherst."

  "No."

  "Then they mean to begin."

  A nursemaid appeared in the doorway. "Miss Cicely--" she said; andJustine bounded upstairs.

  The day's work had begun. From Cicely to the governess--from thegoverness to the housekeeper--from the telephone to thewriting-table--Justine vibrated back and forth, quick, noiseless,self-possessed--sobering, guiding, controlling her confused andpanic-stricken world. It seemed to her that half the day had elapsedbefore the telegraph office at Lynbrook opened--she was at the telephoneat the stroke of the hour. No telegram? Only one--a message from HalfordGaines--"Arrive at eight tonight." Amherst was still silent! Was there adifference of time to be allowed for? She tried to remember, tocalculate, but her brain was too crowded with other thoughts.... Sheturned away from the instrument discouraged.

  Whenever she had time to think, she was overwhelmed by the weight of hersolitude. Mr. Langhope was in Egypt, accessible only through a Londonbanker--Mrs. Ansell presumably wandering on the continent. Her cablesmight not reach them for days. And among the throng of Lynbrookhabitues, she knew not to whom to turn. To loose the Telfer tribe andMrs. Carbury upon that stricken house--her thought revolted from it, andshe was thankful to know that February had dispersed their migratoryflock to southern shores. But if only Amherst would come!

  Cicely and the tranquillized governess had been despatched on a walkwith the dogs, and Justine was returning upstairs when she met one ofthe servants with a telegram. She tore it open with a great throb ofrelief. It was her own message to Amherst--_address unknown_....

  Had she misdirected it, then? In that first blinding moment her mindmight so easily have failed her. But no--there was the name of the townbefore her...Millfield, Georgia...the same name as in his letter.... Shehad made no mi
stake, but he was gone! Gone--and without leaving anaddress.... For a moment her tired mind refused to work; then she rousedherself, ran down the stairs again, and rang up the telegraph-office.The thing to do, of course, was to telegraph to the owner of themills--of whose very name she was ignorant!--enquiring where Amherstwas, and asking him to forward the message. Precious hours must be lostmeanwhile--but, after all, they were waiting for no one upstairs.

  * * * * *

  The verdict had been pronounced: dislocation and fracture of the fourthvertebra, with consequent injury to the spinal cord. Dr. Garford andWyant came out alone to tell her. The surgeon ran over the technicaldetails, her brain instantly at attention as he developed his diagnosisand issued his orders. She asked no questions as to the future--sheknew it was impossible to tell. But there were no immediate signs of afatal ending: the patient had rallied well, and the general conditionswere not unfavourable.

  "You have heard from Mr. Amherst?" Dr. Garford concluded.

  "Not yet...he may be travelling," Justine faltered, unwilling to saythat her telegram had been returned. As she spoke there was a tap on thedoor, and a folded paper was handed in--a telegram telephoned from thevillage.

  "Amherst gone South America to study possibilities cotton growing havecabled our correspondent Buenos Ayres."

  Concealment was no longer possible. Justine handed the message to thesurgeon.

  "Ah--and there would be no chance of finding his address among Mrs.Amherst's papers?"

  "I think not--no."

  "Well--we must keep her alive, Wyant."

  "Yes, sir."

  * * * * *

  At dusk, Justine sat in the library, waiting for Cicely to be brought toher. A lull had descended on the house--a new order developed out of themorning's chaos. With soundless steps, with lowered voices, themachinery of life was carried on. And Justine, caught in one of thepauses of inaction which she had fought off since morning, was reliving,for the hundredth time, her few moments at Bessy's bedside....

  She had been summoned in the course of the afternoon, and stealing intothe darkened room, had bent over the bed while the nurses noiselesslywithdrew. There lay the white face which had been burnt into her inwardvision--the motionless body, and the head stirring ceaselessly, asthough to release the agitation of the imprisoned limbs. Bessy's eyesturned to her, drawing her down.

  "Am I going to die, Justine?"

  "No."

  "The pain is...so awful...."

  "It will pass...you will sleep...."

  "Cicely----"

  "She has gone for a walk. You'll see her presently."

  The eyes faded, releasing Justine. She stole away, and the nurses cameback.

  Bessy had spoken of Cicely--but not a word of her husband! Perhaps herpoor dazed mind groped for him, or perhaps it shrank from his name....Justine was thankful for her silence. For the moment her heart wasbitter against Amherst. Why, so soon after her appeal and his answer,had he been false to the spirit of their agreement? This unannounced,unexplained departure was nothing less than a breach of his tacitpledge--the pledge not to break definitely with Lynbrook. And why had hegone to South America? She drew her aching brows together, trying toretrace a vague memory of some allusion to the cotton-growingcapabilities of the region.... Yes, he had spoken of it once in talkingof the world's area of cotton production. But what impulse had sent himoff on such an exploration? Mere unrest, perhaps--the intolerable burdenof his useless life? The questions spun round and round in her head,weary, profitless, yet persistent....

  It was a relief when Cicely came--a relief to measure out the cambrictea, to make the terrier beg for ginger-bread, even to take up thethread of the interrupted fairy-tale--though through it all she waswrung by the thought that, just twenty-four hours earlier, she and thechild had sat in the same place, listening for the trot of Bessy'shorse....

  The day passed: the hands of the clocks moved, food was cooked andserved, blinds were drawn up or down, lamps lit and fires renewed...allthese tokens of the passage of time took place before her, while herreal consciousness seemed to hang in some dim central void, wherenothing happened, nothing would ever happen....

  And now Cicely was in bed, the last "long-distance" call was answered,the last orders to kitchen and stable had been despatched, Wyant hadstolen down to her with his hourly report--"no change"--and she waswaiting in the library for the Gaineses.

  Carriage-wheels on the gravel: they were there at last. Justine started upand went into the hall. As she passed out of the library the outer dooropened, and the gusty night swooped in--as, at the same hour the daybefore, it had swooped in ahead of the dreadful procession--preceding nowthe carriageful of Hanaford relations: Mr. Gaines, red-glazed, brief andinterrogatory; Westy, small, nervous, ill at ease with his grief; and Mrs.Gaines, supreme in the possession of a consolatory yet funereal manner,and sinking on Justine's breast with the solemn whisper: "Have you sentfor the clergyman?"