The Fruit of the Tree

by Edith Wharton

  XII

  THAT evening when dinner ended, Mrs. Ansell, with a glance through thetall dining-room windows, had suggested to Bessy that it would bepleasanter to take coffee on the verandah; but Amherst detained his wifewith a glance.

  "I should like Bessy to stay," he said.

  The dining-room being on the cool side the house, with a refreshingoutlook on the garden, the men preferred to smoke there rather than inthe stuffily-draped Oriental apartment destined to such rites; and BessyAmherst, with a faint sigh, sank back into her seat, while Mrs. Anselldrifted out through one of the open windows.

  The men surrounding Richard Westmore's table were the same who nearlythree years earlier had gathered in his house for the same purpose: thediscussion of conditions at the mills. The only perceptible change inthe relation to each other of the persons composing this group was thatJohn Amherst was now the host of the other two, instead of being asubordinate called in for cross-examination; but he was so indifferent,or at least so heedless, a host--so forgetful, for instance, of Mr.Tredegar's preference for a "light" cigar, and of Mr. Langhope'sfeelings on the duty of making the Westmore madeira circulate with thesun--that the change was manifest only in his evening-dress, and in thefact of his sitting at the foot of the table.

  If Amherst was conscious of the contrast thus implied, it was only as arestriction on his freedom. As far as the welfare of Westmore wasconcerned he would rather have stood before his companions as theassistant manager of the mills than as the husband of their owner; andit seemed to him, as he looked back, that he had done very little withthe opportunity which looked so great in the light of his presentrestrictions. What he _had_ done with it--the use to which, asunfriendly critics might insinuate, he had so adroitly put it--hadlanded him, ironically enough, in the ugly _impasse_ of a situation fromwhich no issue seemed possible without some wasteful sacrifice offeeling.

  His wife's feelings, for example, were already revealing themselves inan impatient play of her fan that made her father presently lean forwardto suggest: "If we men are to talk shop, is it necessary to keep Bessyin this hot room?"

  Amherst rose and opened the window behind his wife's chair.

  "There's a breeze from the west--the room will be cooler now," he said,returning to his seat.

  "Oh, I don't mind--" Bessy murmured, in a tone intended to give hercompanions the full measure of what she was being called on to endure.

  Mr. Tredegar coughed slightly. "May I trouble you for that other box ofcigars, Amherst? No, _not_ the Cabanas." Bessy rose and handed him thebox on which his glance significantly rested. "Ah, thank you, my dear. Iwas about to ask," he continued, looking about for the cigar-lighter,which flamed unheeded at Amherst's elbow, "what special purpose will beserved by a preliminary review of the questions to be discussedtomorrow."

  "Ah--exactly," murmured Mr. Langhope. "The madeira, my dear John?No--ah--_please_--to the left!"

  Amherst impatiently reversed the direction in which he had set theprecious vessel moving, and turned to Mr. Tredegar, who wasconspicuously lighting his cigar with a match extracted from hiswaist-coat pocket.

  "The purpose is to define my position in the matter; and I prefer thatBessy should do this with your help rather than with mine."

  Mr. Tredegar surveyed his cigar through drooping lids, as though thequestion propounded by Amherst were perched on its tip.

  "Is not your position naturally involved in and defined by hers? Youwill excuse my saying that--technically speaking, of course--I cannotdistinctly conceive of it as having any separate existence."

  Mr. Tredegar spoke with the deliberate mildness that was regarded as hismost effective weapon at the bar, since it was likely to abash thosewho were too intelligent to be propitiated by it.

  "Certainly it is involved in hers," Amherst agreed; "but how far thatdefines it is just what I have waited till now to find out."

  Bessy at this point recalled her presence by a restless turn of hergraceful person, and her father, with an affectionate glance at her,interposed amicably: "But surely--according to old-fashioned ideas--itimplies identity of interests?"

  "Yes; but whose interests?" Amherst asked.

  "Why--your wife's, man! She owns the mills."

  Amherst hesitated. "I would rather talk of my wife's interest in themills than of her interests there; but we'll keep to the plural if youprefer it. Personally, I believe the terms should be interchangeable inthe conduct of such a business."

  "Ah--I'm glad to hear that," said Mr. Tredegar quickly, "since it'sprecisely the view we all take."

  Amherst's colour rose. "Definitions are ambiguous," he said. "Before youadopt mine, perhaps I had better develop it a little farther. What Imean is, that Bessy's interests in Westmore should be regulated by herinterest in it--in its welfare as a social body, aside from its successas a commercial enterprise. If we agree on this definition, we are atone as to the other: namely that my relation to the matter is defined byhers."

  He paused a moment, as if to give his wife time to contribute some signof assent and encouragement; but she maintained a puzzled silence and hewent on: "There is nothing new in this. I have tried to make Bessyunderstand from the beginning what obligations I thought the ownershipof Westmore entailed, and how I hoped to help her fulfill them; but eversince our marriage all definite discussion of the subject has been putoff for one cause or another, and that is my reason for urging that itshould be brought up at the directors' meeting tomorrow."

  There was another pause, during which Bessy glanced tentatively at Mr.Tredegar, and then said, with a lovely rise of colour: "But, John, Isometimes think you forget how much has been done at Westmore--theMothers' Club, and the play-ground, and all--in the way of carrying outyour ideas."

  Mr. Tredegar discreetly dropped his glance to his cigar, and Mr.Langhope sounded an irrepressible note of approval and encouragement.

  Amherst smiled. "No, I have not forgotten; and I am grateful to you forgiving my ideas a trial. But what has been done hitherto is purelysuperficial." Bessy's eyes clouded, and he added hastily: "Don't think Iundervalue it for that reason--heaven knows the surface of life needsimproving! But it's like picking flowers and sticking them in the groundto make a garden--unless you transplant the flower with its roots, andprepare the soil to receive it, your garden will be faded tomorrow. Noradical changes have yet been made at Westmore; and it is of radicalchanges that I want to speak."

  Bessy's look grew more pained, and Mr. Langhope exclaimed with unwontedirascibility: "Upon my soul, Amherst, the tone you take about what yourwife has done doesn't strike me as the likeliest way of encouraging herto do more!"

  "I don't want to encourage her to do more on such a basis--the soonershe sees the futility of it the better for Westmore!"

  "The futility--?" Bessy broke out, with a flutter of tears in her voice;but before her father could intervene Mr. Tredegar had raised his handwith the gesture of one accustomed to wield the gavel.

  "My dear child, I see Amherst's point, and it is best, as he says, thatyou should see it too. What he desires, as I understand it, is thecomplete reconstruction of the present state of things at Westmore; andhe is right in saying that all your good works there--night-schools, andnursery, and so forth--leave that issue untouched."

  A smile quivered under Mr. Langhope's moustache. He and Amherst bothknew that Mr. Tredegar's feint of recognizing the justice of hisadversary's claim was merely the first step to annihilating it; butBessy could never be made to understand this, and always felt herselfdeserted and betrayed when any side but her own was given a hearing.

  "I'm sorry if all I have tried to do at Westmore is useless--but Isuppose I shall never understand business," she murmured, vainly seekingconsolation in her father's eye.

  "This is not business," Amherst broke in. "It's the question of yourpersonal relation to the people there--the last thing that businessconsiders."

  Mr. Langhope uttered an impatient exclamation. "I wish to heaven theowner of the mills had mad
e it clear just what that relation was to be!"

  "I think he did, sir," Amherst answered steadily, "in leaving his wifethe unrestricted control of the property."

  He had reddened under Mr. Langhope's thrust, but his voice betrayed noirritation, and Bessy rewarded him with an unexpected beam of sympathy:she was always up in arms at the least sign of his being treated as anintruder.

  "I am sure, papa," she said, a little tremulously, "that poor Richard,though he knew I was not clever, felt he could trust me to take the bestadvice----"

  "Ah, that's all we ask of you, my child!" her father sighed, while Mr.Tredegar drily interposed: "We are merely losing time by thisdigression. Let me suggest that Amherst should give us an idea of thechanges he wishes to make at Westmore."

  Amherst, as he turned to answer, remembered with what ardent faith inhis powers of persuasion he had responded to the same appeal three yearsearlier. He had thought then that all his cause needed was a hearing;now he knew that the practical man's readiness to let the idealist talkcorresponds with the busy parent's permission to destructive infancy to"run out and play." They would let him state his case to the fourcorners of the earth--if only he did not expect them to act on it! Itwas their policy to let him exhaust himself in argument and exhortation,to listen to him so politely and patiently that if he failed to enforcehis ideas it should not be for lack of opportunity to expound them....And the alternative struck him as hardly less to be feared. Supposingthat the incredible happened, that his reasons prevailed with his wife,and, through her, with the others--at what cost would the victory bewon? Would Bessy ever forgive him for winning it? And what would hissituation be, if it left him in control of Westmore but estranged fromhis wife?

  He recalled suddenly a phrase he had used that afternoon to thedark-eyed girl at the garden-party: "What risks we run when we scrambleinto the chariot of the gods!" And at the same instant he heard herretort, and saw her fine gesture of defiance. How could he ever havedoubted that the thing was worth doing at whatever cost? Something inhim--some secret lurking element of weakness and evasion--shrank out ofsight in the light of her question: "Do _you_ act on that?" and the "Godforbid!" he had instantly flashed back to her. He turned to Mr. Tredegarwith his answer.

  Amherst knew that any large theoretical exposition of the case would beas much wasted on the two men as on his wife. To gain his point he musttake only one step at a time, and it seemed to him that the first thingneeded at Westmore was that the hands should work and live underhealthier conditions. To attain this, two important changes werenecessary: the floor-space of the mills must be enlarged, and thecompany must cease to rent out tenements, and give the operatives theopportunity to buy land for themselves. Both these changes involved theupheaval of the existing order. Whenever the Westmore mills had beenenlarged, it had been for the sole purpose of increasing the revenues ofthe company; and now Amherst asked that these revenues should bematerially and permanently reduced. As to the suppression of the companytenement, such a measure struck at the roots of the baneful paternalismwhich was choking out every germ of initiative in the workman. Once theoperatives had room to work in, and the hope of homes of their own togo to when work was over, Amherst was willing to trust to time for thesatisfaction of their other needs. He believed that a sounderunderstanding of these needs would develop on both sides the moment theemployers proved their good faith by the deliberate and permanentsacrifice of excessive gain to the well-being of the employed; and oncethe two had learned to regard each other not as antagonists but ascollaborators, a long step would have been taken toward a readjustmentof the whole industrial relation. In regard to general and distantresults, Amherst tried not to be too sanguine, even in his own thoughts.His aim was to remedy the abuse nearest at hand, in the hope of thusgetting gradually closer to the central evil; and, had his action beenunhampered, he would still have preferred the longer and more circuitouspath of practical experiment to the sweeping adoption of a newindustrial system.

  But his demands, moderate as they were, assumed in his hearers theconsciousness of a moral claim superior to the obligation of makingone's business "pay"; and it was the futility of this assumption thatchilled the arguments on his lips, since in the orthodox creed of thebusiness world it was a weakness and not a strength to be content withfive per cent where ten was obtainable. Business was one thing,philanthropy another; and the enthusiasts who tried combining them wereusually reduced, after a brief flight, to paying fifty cents on thedollar, and handing over their stock to a promoter presumably unhamperedby humanitarian ideals.

  Amherst knew that this was the answer with which his plea would be met;knew, moreover, that the plea was given a hearing simply because hisjudges deemed it so pitiably easy to refute. But the knowledge, once hehad begun to speak, fanned his argument to a white heat of pleading,since, with failure so plainly ahead, small concessions and compromiseswere not worth making. Reason would be wasted on all; but eloquencemight at least prevail with Bessy....

  * * * * *

  When, late that night, he went upstairs after long pacings of thegarden, he was surprised to see a light in her room. She was not givento midnight study, and fearing that she might be ill he knocked at herdoor. There was no answer, and after a short pause he turned the handleand entered.

  In the great canopied Westmore couch, her arms flung upward and herhands clasped beneath her head, she lay staring fretfully at the globeof electric light which hung from the centre of the embossed and gildedceiling. Seen thus, with the soft curves of throat and arms revealed,and her face childishly set in a cloud of loosened hair, she looked noolder than Cicely--and, like Cicely, inaccessible to grown-up argumentsand the stronger logic of experience.

  It was a trick of hers, in such moods, to ignore any attempt to attracther notice; and Amherst was prepared for her remaining motionless as hepaused on the threshold and then advanced toward the middle of the room.There had been a time when he would have been exasperated by herpretense of not seeing him, but a deep weariness of spirit now dulledhim to these surface pricks.

  "I was afraid you were not well when I saw the light burning," he began.

  "Thank you--I am quite well," she answered in a colourless voice,without turning her head.

  "Shall I put it out, then? You can't sleep with such a glare in youreyes."

  "I should not sleep at any rate; and I hate to lie awake in the dark."

  "Why shouldn't you sleep?" He moved nearer, looking down compassionatelyon her perturbed face and struggling lips.

  She lay silent a moment; then she faltered out: "B--because I'm sounhappy!"

  The pretense of indifference was swept away by a gush of childish sobsas she flung over on her side and buried her face in the embroideredpillows.

  Amherst, bending down, laid a quieting hand on her shoulder. "Bessy----"

  She sobbed on.

  He seated himself silently in the arm-chair beside the bed, and kept hissoothing hold on her shoulder. The time had come when he went throughall these accustomed acts of pacification as mechanically as a nursesoothing a fretful child. And once he had thought her weeping eloquent!He looked about him at the spacious room, with its heavy hangings ofdamask and the thick velvet carpet which stifled his steps. Everywherewere the graceful tokens of her presence--the vast lace-drapedtoilet-table strewn with silver and crystal, the embroidered muslincushions heaped on the lounge, the little rose-lined slippers she hadjust put off, the lace wrapper, with a scent of violets in its folds,which he had pushed aside when he sat down beside her; and he rememberedhow full of a mysterious and intimate charm these things had onceappeared to him. It was characteristic that the remembrance made himmore patient with her now. Perhaps, after all, it was his failure thatshe was crying over....

  "Don't be unhappy. You decided as seemed best to you," he said.

  She pressed her handkerchief against her lips, still keeping her headaverted. "But I hate all these arguments and disputes. Why should youunsettle ever
ything?" she murmured.

  His mother's words! Involuntarily he removed his hand from hershoulder, though he still remained seated by the bed.

  "You are right. I see the uselessness of it," he assented, with anuncontrollable note of irony.

  She turned her head at the tone, and fixed her plaintive brimming eyeson him. "You _are_ angry with me!"

  "Was that troubling you?" He leaned forward again, with compassion inhis face. _Sancta simplicitas!_ was the thought within him.

  "I am not angry," he went on; "be reasonable and try to sleep."

  She started upright, the light masses of her hair floating about herlike silken sea-weed lifted on an invisible tide. "Don't talk like that!I can't endure to be humoured like a baby. I am unhappy because I can'tsee why all these wretched questions should be dragged into our life. Ihate to have you always disagreeing with Mr. Tredegar, who is so cleverand has so much experience; and yet I hate to see you give way to him,because that makes it appear as if...as if...."

  "He didn't care a straw for my ideas?" Amherst smiled. "Well, hedoesn't--and I never dreamed of making him. So don't worry about thateither."

  "You never dreamed of making him care for your ideas? But then why doyou----"

  "Why do I go on setting them forth at such great length?" Amherst smiledagain. "To convince you--that's my only ambition."

  She stared at him, shaking her head back to toss a loose lock from herpuzzled eyes. A tear still shone on her lashes, but with the motion itfell and trembled down her cheek.

  "To convince _me_? But you know I am so ignorant of such things."

  "Most women are."

  "I never pretended to understand anything about--economics, or whateveryou call it."

  "No."

  "Then how----"

  He turned and looked at her gently. "I thought you might have begun tounderstand something about _me_."

  "About you?" The colour flowered softly under her clear skin.

  "About what my ideas on such subjects were likely to be worth--judgingfrom what you know of me in other respects." He paused and glanced awayfrom her. "Well," he concluded deliberately, "I suppose I've had myanswer tonight."

  "Oh, John----!"

  He rose and wandered across the room, pausing a moment to fingerabsently the trinkets on the dressing-table. The act recalled with acurious vividness certain dulled sensations of their first daystogether, when to handle and examine these frail little accessories ofher toilet had been part of the wonder and amusement of his newexistence. He could still hear her laugh as she leaned over him,watching his mystified look in the glass, till their reflected eyes metthere and drew down her lips to his. He laid down the fragrantpowder-puff he had been turning slowly between his fingers, and movedback toward the bed. In the interval he had reached a decision.

  "Well--isn't it natural that I should think so?" he began again, as hestood beside her. "When we married I never expected you to care or knowmuch about economics. It isn't a quality a man usually chooses his wifefor. But I had a fancy--perhaps it shows my conceit--that when we hadlived together a year or two, and you'd found out what kind of a fellowI was in other ways--ways any woman can judge of--I had a fancy that youmight take my opinions on faith when it came to my own specialbusiness--the thing I'm generally supposed to know about."

  He knew that he was touching a sensitive chord, for Bessy had to thefull her sex's pride of possessorship. He was human and faulty tillothers criticized him--then he became a god. But in this case aconflicting influence restrained her from complete response to hisappeal.

  "I _do_ feel sure you know--about the treatment of the hands and allthat; but you said yourself once--the first time we ever talked aboutWestmore--that the business part was different----"

  Here it was again, the ancient ineradicable belief in the separable bodyand soul! Even an industrial organization was supposed to be subject tothe old theological distinction, and Bessy was ready to co-operate withher husband in the emancipation of Westmore's spiritual part if only itsbody remained under the law.

  Amherst controlled his impatience, as it was always easy for him to dowhen he had fixed on a definite line of conduct.

  "It was my situation that was different; not what you call the businesspart. That is inextricably bound up with the treatment of the hands. IfI am to have anything to do with the mills now I can deal with them onlyas your representative; and as such I am bound to take in the wholequestion."

  Bessy's face clouded: was he going into it all again? But he read herlook and went on reassuringly: "That was what I meant by saying that Ihoped you would take me on faith. If I want the welfare of Westmore it'sabove all, I believe, because I want Westmore to see you as _I_ do--asthe dispenser of happiness, who could not endure to benefit by any wrongor injustice to others."

  "Of course, of course I don't want to do them injustice!"

  "Well, then----"

  He had seated himself beside her again, clasping in his the hand withwhich she was fretting the lace-edged sheet. He felt her restlessfingers surrender slowly, and her eyes turned to him in appeal.

  "But I care for what people say of you too! And you know--it's horrid,but one must consider it--if they say you're spending my moneyimprudently...." The blood rose to her neck and face. "I don't mind formyself...even if I have to give up as many things as papa and Mr.Tredegar think...but there is Cicely...and if people said...."

  "If people said I was spending Cicely's money on improving the conditionof the people to whose work she will some day owe all her wealth--"Amherst paused: "Well, I would rather hear that said of me than anyother thing I can think of, except one."

  "Except what?"

  "That I was doing it with her mother's help and approval."

  She drew a long tremulous sigh: he knew it was always a relief to her tohave him assert himself strongly. But a residue of resistance stillclouded her mind.

  "I should always want to help you, of course; but if Mr. Tredegar andHalford Gaines think your plan unbusinesslike----"

  "Mr. Tredegar and Halford Gaines are certain to think it so. And that iswhy I said, just now, that it comes, in the end, to your choosingbetween us; taking them on experience or taking me on faith."

  She looked at him wistfully. "Of course I should expect to give upthings.... You wouldn't want me to live here?"

  "I should not ask you to," he said, half-smiling.

  "I suppose there would be a good many things we couldn't do----"

  "You would certainly have less money for a number of years; after that,I believe you would have more rather than less; but I should not wantyou to think that, beyond a reasonable point, the prosperity of themills was ever to be measured by your dividends."

  "No." She leaned back wearily among the pillows. "I suppose, forinstance, we should have to give up Europe this summer----?"

  Here at last was the bottom of her thought! It was always on theimmediate pleasure that her soul hung: she had not enough imagination tolook beyond, even in the projecting of her own desires. And it was onhis knowledge of this limitation that Amherst had deliberately built.

  "I don't see how you could go to Europe," he said.

  "The doctor thinks I need it," she faltered.

  "In that case, of course--" He stood up, not abruptly, or with any showof irritation, but as if accepting this as her final answer. "What youneed most, in the meantime, is a little sleep," he said. "I will tellyour maid not to disturb you in the morning." He had returned to hissoothing way of speech, as though definitely resigned to the inutilityof farther argument. "And I will say goodbye now," he continued,"because I shall probably take an early train, before you wake----"

  She sat up with a start. "An early train? Why, where are you going?"

  "I must go to Chicago some time this month, and as I shall not be wantedhere tomorrow I might as well run out there at once, and join you nextweek at Lynbrook."

  Bessy had grown pale. "But I don't understand----"

  Their eyes met. "Can'
t you understand that I am human enough to prefer,under the circumstances, not being present at tomorrow's meeting?" hesaid with a dry laugh.

  She sank back with a moan of discouragement, turning her face away as hebegan to move toward his room.

  "Shall I put the light out?" he asked, pausing with his hand on theelectric button.

  "Yes, please."

  He pushed in the button and walked on, guided through the obscurity bythe line of light under his door. As he reached the threshold he heard alittle choking cry.

  "John--oh, John!"

  He paused.

  "I can't _bear_ it!" The sobs increased.

  "Bear what?"

  "That you should hate me----"

  "Don't be foolish," he said, groping for his door-handle.

  "But you do hate me--and I deserve it!"

  "Nonsense, dear. Try to sleep."

  "I can't sleep till you've forgiven me. Say you don't hate me! I'll doanything...only say you don't hate me!"

  He stood still a moment, thinking; then he turned back, and made his wayacross the room to her side. As he sat down beside her, he felt her armsreach for his neck and her wet face press itself against his cheek.

  "I'll do anything..." she sobbed; and in the darkness he held her to himand hated his victory.