Her lip trembled. “Do you reproach me for that? I didn’t understand…you took advantage….”
“Oh!” he exclaimed.
At his tone the blood rushed back to her face. “It was my fault, of course—I only wanted to please you–-“
Amherst was silent, confronted by the sudden sense of his own responsibility. What she said was true—he had known, when he exacted the sacrifice, that she made it only to please him, on an impulse of reawakened feeling, and not from any real recognition of a larger duty. The perception of this made him answer gently: “I am willing to take any blame you think I deserve; but it won’t help us now to go back to the past. It is more important that we should come to an understanding about the future. If by keeping your personal account separate, you mean that you wish to resume control of your whole income, then you ought to understand that the improvements at the mills will have to be dropped at once, and things there go back to their old state.”
She started up with an impatient gesture. “Oh, I should like never to hear of the mills again!”
He looked at her a moment in silence. “Am I to take that as your answer?”
She walked toward her door without returning his look. “Of course,” she murmured, “you will end by doing as you please.”
The retort moved him, for he heard in it the cry of her wounded pride. He longed to be able to cry out in return that Westmore was nothing to him, that all he asked was to see her happy…. But it was not true, and his manhood revolted from the deception. Besides, its effect would be only temporary—would wear no better than her vain efforts to simulate an interest in his work. Between them, forever, were the insurmountable barriers of character, of education, of habit—and yet it was not in him to believe that any barrier was insurmountable.
“Bessy,” he exclaimed, following her, “don’t let us part in this way–-“
She paused with her hand on her dressing-room door. “It is time to dress for church,” she objected, turning to glance at the little gilt clock on the chimney-piece.
“For church?” Amherst stared, wondering that at such a crisis she should have remained detached enough to take note of the hour.
“You forget,” she replied, with an air of gentle reproof, “that before we married I was in the habit of going to church every Sunday.”
“Yes—to be sure. Would you not like me to go with you?” he rejoined gently, as if roused to the consciousness of another omission in the long list of his social shortcomings; for church-going, at Lynbrook, had always struck him as a purely social observance.
But Bessy had opened the door of her dressing-room. “I much prefer that you should do what you like,” she said as she passed from the room.
Amherst made no farther attempt to detain her, and the door closed on her as though it were closing on a chapter in their lives.
“That’s the end of it!” he murmured, picking up the letter-opener she had been playing with, and twirling it absently in his fingers. But nothing in life ever ends, and the next moment a new question confronted him—how was the next chapter to open?
BOOK III
XIX
IT was late in October when Amherst returned to Lynbrook.
He had begun to learn, in the interval, the lesson most difficult to his direct and trenchant nature: that compromise is the law of married life. On the afternoon of his talk with his wife he had sought her out, determined to make a final effort to clear up the situation between them; but he learned that, immediately after luncheon, she had gone off in the motor with Mrs. Carbury and two men of the party, leaving word that they would probably not be back till evening. It cost Amherst a struggle, when he had humbled himself to receive this information from the butler, not to pack his portmanteau and take the first train for Hanaford; but he was still under the influence of Justine Brent’s words, and also of his own feeling that, at this juncture, a break between himself and Bessy would be final.
He stayed on accordingly, enduring as best he might the mute observation of the household, and the gentle irony of Mr. Langhope’s attentions; and before he left Lynbrook, two days later, a provisional understanding had been reached.
His wife proved more firm than he had foreseen in her resolve to regain control of her income, and the talk between them ended in reciprocal concessions, Bessy consenting to let the town house for the winter and remain at Lynbrook, while Amherst agreed to restrict his improvements at Westmore to such alterations as had already been begun, and to reduce the expenditure on these as much as possible. It was virtually the defeat of his policy, and he had to suffer the decent triumph of the Gaineses, as well as the bitterer pang of his foiled aspirations. In spite of the opposition of the directors, he had taken advantage of Truscomb’s resignation to put Duplain at the head of the mills; but the new manager’s outspoken disgust at the company’s change of plan made it clear that he would not remain long at Westmore, and it was one of the miseries of Amherst’s situation that he could not give the reasons for his defection, but must bear to figure in Duplain’s terse vocabulary as a “quitter.” The difficulty of finding a new manager expert enough to satisfy the directors, yet in sympathy with his own social theories, made Amherst fear that Duplain’s withdrawal would open the way for Truscomb’s reinstatement, an outcome on which he suspected Halford Gaines had always counted; and this possibility loomed before him as the final defeat of his hopes.
Meanwhile the issues ahead had at least the merit of keeping him busy. The task of modifying and retrenching his plans contrasted drearily with the hopeful activity of the past months, but he had an iron capacity for hard work under adverse conditions, and the fact of being too busy for thought helped him to wear through the days. This pressure of work relieved him, at first, from too close consideration of his relation to Bessy. He had yielded up his dearest hopes at her wish, and for the moment his renunciation had set a chasm between them; but gradually he saw that, as he was patching together the ruins of his Westmore plans, so he must presently apply himself to the reconstruction of his married life.
Before leaving Lynbrook he had had a last word with Miss Brent; not a word of confidence—for the same sense of reserve kept both from any explicit renewal of their moment’s intimacy—but one of those exchanges of commonplace phrase that circumstances may be left to charge with special meaning. Justine had merely asked if he were really leaving and, on his assenting, had exclaimed quickly: “But you will come back soon?”
“I shall certainly come back,” he answered; and after a pause he added: “I shall find you here? You will remain at Lynbrook?”
On her part also there was a shade of hesitation; then she said with a smile: “Yes, I shall stay.”
His look brightened. “And you’ll write me if anything—if Bessy should not be well?”
“I will write you,” she promised; and a few weeks after his return to Hanaford he had, in fact, received a short note from her. Its ostensible purpose was to reassure him as to Bessy’s health, which had certainly grown stronger since Dr. Wyant had persuaded her, at the close of the last house-party, to accord herself a period of quiet; but (the writer added) now that Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell had also left, the quiet was perhaps too complete, and Bessy’s nerves were beginning to suffer from the reaction.
Amherst had no difficulty in interpreting this brief communication. “I have succeeded in dispersing the people who are always keeping you and your wife apart; now is your chance: come and take it.” That was what Miss Brent’s letter meant; and his answer was a telegram to Bessy, announcing his return to Long Island.
The step was not an easy one; but decisive action, however hard, was always easier to Amherst than the ensuing interval of readjustment. To come to Lynbrook had required a strong effort of will; but the effort of remaining there called into play less disciplined faculties.