The Fruit of the Tree

by Edith Wharton

  XXXVI

  WHEN Wyant had left the room, and the house-door had closed on him,Amherst spoke to his wife.

  "Come upstairs," he said.

  Justine followed him, scarcely conscious where she went, but movingalready with a lighter tread. Part of her weight of misery had beenlifted with Wyant's going. She had suffered less from the fear of whather husband might think than from the shame of making her avowal in herdefamer's presence. And her faith in Amherst's comprehension had begunto revive. He had dismissed Wyant with scorn and horror--did not thatshow that he was on her side already? And how many more arguments shehad at her call! Her brain hummed with them as she followed him up thestairs.

  In her bedroom he closed the door and stood motionless, the same heavyhalf-paralyzed look on his face. It frightened her and she went up tohim.

  "John!" she said timidly.

  He put his hand to his head. "Wait a moment----" he returned; and shewaited, her heart slowly sinking again.

  The moment over, he seemed to recover his power of movement. He crossedthe room and threw himself into the armchair near the hearth.

  "Now tell me everything."

  He sat thrown back, his eyes fixed on the fire, and the vertical linesbetween his brows forming a deep scar in his white face.

  Justine moved nearer, and touched his arm beseechingly. "Won't you lookat me?"

  He turned his head slowly, as if with an effort, and his eyes restedreluctantly on hers.

  "Oh, not like that!" she exclaimed.

  He seemed to make a stronger effort at self-control. "Please don't heedme--but say what there is to say," he said in a level voice, his gaze onthe fire.

  She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped fingerstwisting restlessly.

  "I don't know that there is much to say--beyond what I've told you."

  There was a slight sound in Amherst's throat, like the ghost of aderisive laugh. After another interval he said: "I wish to hear exactlywhat happened."

  She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, withhands interlocked and arms extended on her knees--every line reachingout to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged withpleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with thestony image that sat in her husband's place; and she told her story,detail by detail, omitting nothing, exaggerating nothing, speakingslowly, clearly, with precision, aware that the bare facts were herstrongest argument.

  Amherst, as he listened, shifted his position once, raising his hand sothat it screened his face; and in that attitude he remained when she hadended.

  As she waited for him to speak, Justine realized that her heart had beenalive with tremulous hopes. All through her narrative she had counted ona murmur of perception, an exclamation of pity: she had felt sure ofmelting the stony image. But Amherst said no word.

  At length he spoke, still without turning his head. "You have not toldme why you kept this from me."

  A sob formed in her throat, and she had to wait to steady her voice.

  "No--that was my wrong--my weakness. When I did it I never thought ofbeing afraid to tell you--I had talked it over with you in my ownmind...so often...before...."

  "Well?"

  "Then--- when you came back it was harder...though I was still sure youwould approve me."

  "Why harder?"

  "Because at first--at Lynbrook--I _could not_ tell it all over, indetail, as I have now...it was beyond human power...and without doingso, I couldn't make it all clear to you...and so should only have addedto your pain. If you had been there you would have done as I did.... Ifelt sure of that from the first. But coming afterward, you couldn'tjudge...no one who was not there could judge...and I wanted to spareyou...."

  "And afterward?"

  She had shrunk in advance from this question, and she could not answerit at once. To gain time she echoed it. "Afterward?"

  "Did it never occur to you, when we met later--when you first went toMr. Langhope----"?

  "To tell you then? No--because by that time I had come to see that Icould never be quite sure of making you understand. No one who was notthere at the time could know what it was to see her suffer."

  "You thought it all over, then--decided definitely against telling me?"

  "I did not have to think long. I felt I had done right--I still feelso--and I was sure you would feel so, if you were in the samecircumstances."

  There was another pause. Then Amherst said: "And last September--atHanaford?"

  It was the word for which she had waited--the word of her inmost fears.She felt the blood mount to her face.

  "Did you see no difference--no special reason for telling me then?"

  "Yes----" she faltered.

  "Yet you said nothing."

  "No."

  Silence again. Her eyes strayed to the clock, and some dim associationof ideas told her that Cicely would soon be coming in.

  "Why did you say nothing?"

  He lowered his hand and turned toward her as he spoke; and she looked upand faced him.

  "Because I regarded the question as settled. I had decided it in my ownmind months before, and had never regretted my decision. I should havethought it morbid...unnatural...to go over the whole subject again...tolet it affect a situation that had come about...so much later...sounexpectedly."

  "Did you never feel that, later, if I came to know--if others came toknow--it might be difficult----?"

  "No; for I didn't care for the others--and I believed that, whateveryour own feelings were, you would know I had done what I thought right."

  She spoke the words proudly, strongly, and for the first time the hardlines of his face relaxed, and a slight tremor crossed it.

  "If you believed this, why have you been letting that cur blackmailyou?"

  "Because when he began I saw for the first time that what I had donemight be turned against me by--by those who disliked our marriage. And Iwas afraid for my happiness. That was my weakness...it is what I amsuffering for now."

  "_Suffering_!" he echoed ironically, as though she had presumed to applyto herself a word of which he had the grim monopoly. He rose and took afew aimless steps; then he halted before her.

  "That day--last month--when you asked me for money...was it...?"

  "Yes----" she said, her head sinking.

  He laughed. "You couldn't tell me--but you could use my money to bribethat fellow to conspire with you!"

  "I had none of my own."

  "No--nor I either! You used _her_ money.--God!" he groaned, turning awaywith clenched hands.

  Justine had risen also, and she stood motionless, her hands claspedagainst her breast, in the drawn shrinking attitude of a fugitiveovertaken by a blinding storm. He moved back to her with an appealinggesture.

  "And you didn't see--it didn't occur to you--that your doing...as youdid...was an obstacle--an insurmountable obstacle--to our ever ...?"

  She cut him short with an indignant cry. "No! No! for it was _not_. Howcould it have anything to do with what...came after...with you or me? Idid it only for Bessy--it concerned only Bessy!"

  "Ah, don't name her!" broke from him harshly, and she drew back, cut tothe heart.

  There was another pause, during which he seemed to fall into a kind ofdazed irresolution, his head on his breast, as though unconscious of herpresence. Then he roused himself and went to the door.

  As he passed her she sprang after him. "John--John! Is that all you haveto say?"

  "What more is there?"

  "What more? Everything!--What right have you to turn from me as if Iwere a murderess? I did nothing but what your own reason, your ownarguments, have justified a hundred times! I made a mistake in nottelling you at once--but a mistake is not a crime. It can't be your realfeeling that turns you from me--it must be the dread of what otherpeople would think! But when have you cared for what other peoplethought? When have your own actions been governed by it?"

  He moved another step without speaking, and she cau
ght him by the arm."No! you sha'n't go--not like that!--Wait!"

  She turned and crossed the room. On the lower shelf of the little tableby her bed a few books were ranged: she stooped and drew one hurriedlyforth, opening it at the fly-leaf as she went back to Amherst.

  "There--read that. The book was at Lynbrook--in your room--and I cameacross it by chance the very day...."

  It was the little volume of Bacon which she was thrusting at him. Hetook it with a bewildered look, as if scarcely following what she said.

  "Read it--read it!" she commanded; and mechanically he read out thewords he had written.

  "_La vraie morale se moque de la morale.... We perish because we followother men's examples.... Socrates called the opinions of the manyLamiae._--Good God!" he exclaimed, flinging the book from him with agesture of abhorrence.

  Justine watched him with panting lips, her knees trembling under her."But you wrote it--you wrote it! I thought you meant it!" she cried, asthe book spun across a table and dropped to the floor.

  He looked at her coldly, almost apprehensively, as if she had grownsuddenly dangerous and remote; then he turned and walked out of theroom.

  * * * * *

  The striking of the clock roused her. She rose to her feet, rang thebell, and told the maid, through the door, that she had a headache, andwas unable to see Miss Cicely. Then she turned back into the room, anddarkness closed on her. She was not the kind to take grief passively--itdrove her in anguished pacings up and down the floor. She walked andwalked till her legs flagged under her; then she dropped stupidly intothe chair where Amherst had sat....

  All her world had crumbled about her. It was as if some law of mentalgravity had been mysteriously suspended, and every firmly-anchoredconviction, every accepted process of reasoning, spun disconnectedlythrough space. Amherst had not understood her--worse still, he hadjudged her as the world might judge her! The core of her misery wasthere. With terrible clearness she saw the suspicion that had crossedhis mind--the suspicion that she had kept silence in the beginningbecause she loved him, and feared to lose him if she spoke.

  And what if it were true? What if her unconscious guilt went back evenfarther than his thought dared to track it? She could not now recall atime when she had not loved him. Every chance meeting with him, fromtheir first brief talk at Hanaford, stood out embossed and glowingagainst the blur of lesser memories. Was it possible that she had lovedhim during Bessy's life--that she had even, sub-consciously, blindly,been urged by her feeling for him to perform the act?

  But she shook herself free from this morbid horror--the rebound ofhealth was always prompt in her, and her mind instinctively rejectedevery form of moral poison. No! Her motive had been normal, sane andjustifiable--completely justifiable. Her fault lay in having dared torise above conventional restrictions, her mistake in believing that herhusband could rise with her. These reflections steadied her but they didnot bring much comfort. For her whole life was centred in Amherst, andshe saw that he would never be able to free himself from the traditionalview of her act. In looking back, and correcting her survey of hischaracter in the revealing light of the last hours, she perceived that,like many men of emancipated thought, he had remained subject to the oldconventions of feeling. And he had probably never given much thought towomen till he met her--had always been content to deal with them in theaccepted currency of sentiment. After all, it was the currency theyliked best, and for which they offered their prettiest wares!

  But what of the intellectual accord between himself and her? She had notbeen deceived in that! He and she had really been wedded in mind as wellas in heart. But until now there had not arisen in their lives one ofthose searching questions which call into play emotions rooted far belowreason and judgment, in the dark primal depths of inherited feeling. Itis easy to judge impersonal problems intellectually, turning on them thefull light of acquired knowledge; but too often one must still gropeone's way through the personal difficulty by the dim taper carried inlong-dead hands....

  But was there then no hope of lifting one's individual life to a clearerheight of conduct? Must one be content to think for the race, and tofeel only--feel blindly and incoherently--for one's self? And was it notfrom such natures as Amherst's--natures in which independence ofjudgment was blent with strong human sympathy--that the liberatingimpulse should come?

  Her mind grew weary of revolving in this vain circle of questions. Thefact was that, in their particular case, Amherst had not risen aboveprejudice and emotion; that, though her act was one to which hisintellectual sanction was given, he had turned from her with instinctiverepugnance, had dishonoured her by the most wounding suspicions. Thetie between them was forever stained and debased.

  Justine's long hospital-discipline made it impossible for her to loseconsciousness of the lapse of time, or to let her misery thicken intomental stupor. She could not help thinking and moving; and she presentlylifted herself to her feet, turned on the light, and began to preparefor dinner. It would be terrible to face her husband across Mr.Langhope's pretty dinner-table, and afterward in the charmingdrawing-room, with its delicate old ornaments and intimate luxuriousfurniture; but she could not continue to sit motionless in the dark: itwas her innermost instinct to pick herself up and go on.

  While she dressed she listened anxiously for Amherst's step in the nextroom; but there was no sound, and when she dragged herself downstairsthe drawing-room was empty, and the parlour-maid, after a decent delay,came to ask if dinner should be postponed.

  She said no, murmuring some vague pretext for her husband's absence, andsitting alone through the succession of courses which composed the briefbut carefully-studied _menu_. When this ordeal was over she returned tothe drawing-room and took up a book. It chanced to be a new volume onlabour problems, which Amherst must have brought back with him fromWestmore; and it carried her thoughts instantly to the mills. Wouldthis disaster poison their work there as well as their personalrelation? Would he think of her as carrying contamination even into thetask their love had illumined?

  The hours went on without his returning, and at length it occurred toher that he might have taken the night train to Hanaford. Her heartcontracted at the thought: she remembered--though every nerve shrankfrom the analogy--his sudden flight at another crisis in his life, andshe felt obscurely that if he escaped from her now she would neverrecover her hold on him. But could he be so cruel--could he wish any oneto suffer as she was suffering?

  At ten o'clock she could endure the drawing-room no longer, and went upto her room again. She undressed slowly, trying to prolong the processas much as possible, to put off the period of silence and inaction whichwould close in on her when she lay down on her bed. But at length thedreaded moment came--there was nothing more between her and the night.She crept into bed and put out the light; but as she slipped between thecold sheets a trembling seized her, and after a moment she drew on herdressing-gown again and groped her way to the lounge by the fire.

  She pushed the lounge closer to the hearth and lay down, stillshivering, though she had drawn the quilted coverlet up to her chin. Shelay there a long time, with closed eyes, in a mental darkness torn bysudden flashes of memory. In one of these flashes a phrase of Amherst'sstood out--a word spoken at Westmore, on the day of the opening of theEmergency Hospital, about a good-looking young man who had called to seeher. She remembered Amherst's boyish burst of jealousy, his suddenrelief at the thought that the visitor might have been Wyant. And nodoubt it _was_ Wyant--Wyant who had come to Hanaford to threaten her,and who, baffled by her non-arrival, or for some other unexplainedreason, had left again without carrying out his purpose.

  It was dreadful to think by how slight a chance her first draught ofhappiness had escaped that drop of poison; yet, when she understood, herinward cry was: "If it had happened, my dearest need not havesuffered!"... Already she was feeling Amherst's pain more than her own,understanding that it was harder to bear than hers because it was at warwith all the reflect
ive part of his nature.

  As she lay there, her face pressed into the cushions, she heard a soundthrough the silent house--the opening and closing of the outer door. Sheturned cold, and lay listening with strained ears.... Yes; now there wasa step on the stairs--her husband's step! She heard him turn into hisown room. The throbs of her heart almost deafened her--she onlydistinguished confusedly that he was moving about within, so close thatit was as if she felt his touch. Then her door opened and he entered.

  He stumbled slightly in the darkness before he found the switch of thelamp; and as he bent over it she saw that his face was flushed, and thathis eyes had an excited light which, in any one less abstemious, mightalmost have seemed like the effect of wine.

  "Are you awake?" he asked.

  She started up against the cushions, her black hair streaming about hersmall ghostly face.

  "Yes."

  He walked over to the lounge and dropped into the low chair beside it.

  "I've given that cur a lesson he won't forget," he exclaimed, breathinghard, the redness deepening in his face.

  She turned on him in joy and trembling. "John!--Oh, John! You didn'tfollow him? Oh, what happened? What have you done?"

  "No. I didn't follow him. But there are some things that even the powersabove can't stand. And so they managed to let me run across him--by themerest accident--and I gave him something to remember."

  He spoke in a strong clear voice that had a brightness like thebrightness in his eyes. She felt its heat in her veins--the primitivewoman in her glowed at contact with the primitive man. But reflectionchilled her the next moment.

  "But why--why? Oh, how could you? Where did it happen--oh, not in thestreet?"

  As she questioned him, there rose before her the terrified vision of acrowd gathering--the police, newspapers, a hideous publicity. He musthave been mad to do it--and yet he must have done it because he lovedher!

  "No--no. Don't be afraid. The powers looked after that too. There was noone about--and I don't think he'll talk much about it."

  She trembled, fearing yet adoring him. Nothing could have been moreunlike the Amherst she fancied she knew than this act of irrationalanger which had magically lifted the darkness from his spirit; yet,magically also, it gave him back to her, made them one flesh once more.And suddenly the pressure of opposed emotions became too strong, and sheburst into tears.

  She wept painfully, violently, with the resistance of strong naturesunused to emotional expression; till at length, through the tumult ofher tears, she felt her husband's reassuring touch.

  "Justine," he said, speaking once more in his natural voice.

  She raised her face from her hands, and they looked at each other.

  "Justine--this afternoon--I said things I didn't mean to say."

  Her lips parted, but her throat was still full of sobs, and she couldonly look at him while the tears ran down.

  "I believe I understand now," he continued, in the same quiet tone.

  Her hand shrank from his clasp, and she began to tremble again. "Oh, ifyou only _believe_...if you're not sure...don't pretend to be!"

  He sat down beside her and drew her into his arms. "I am sure," hewhispered, holding her close, and pressing his lips against her face andhair.

  "Oh, my husband--my husband! You've come back to me?"

  He answered her with more kisses, murmuring through them: "Poorchild--poor child--poor Justine...." while he held her fast.

  With her face against him she yielded to the childish luxury ofmurmuring out unjustified fears. "I was afraid you had gone back toHanaford----"

  "Tonight? To Hanaford?"

  "To tell your mother."

  She felt a contraction of the arm embracing her, as though a throb ofpain had stiffened it.

  "I shall never tell any one," he said abruptly; but as he felt in her aresponsive shrinking he gathered her close again, whispering through thehair that fell about her cheek: "Don't talk, dear...let us never talkof it again...." And in the clasp of his arms her terror and anguishsubsided, giving way, not to the deep peace of tranquillized thought,but to a confused well-being that lulled all thought to sleep.