The Fruit of the Tree. Edith Wharton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ "What did you think of Westmore?"

      "I think it's one of the worst places I ever saw—and I am not unused to slums. It looks so dead. The slums of big cities are much more cheerful."

      He made no answer, and after a moment she asked: "Does the cotton-dust always affect the lungs?"

      "It's likely to, where there is the least phthisical tendency. But of course the harm could be immensely reduced by taking up the old rough floors which hold the dust, and by thorough cleanliness and ventilation."

      "What does the company do in such cases? Where an operative breaks down at twenty-five?"

      "The company says there was a phthisical tendency."

      "And will they give nothing in return for the two lives they have taken?"

      "They will probably pay for Dillon's care at the hospital, and they have taken the wife back as a scrubber."

      "To clean those uncleanable floors? She's not fit for it!"

      "She must work, fit for it or not; and there is less strain in scrubbing than in bending over the looms or cards. The pay is lower, of course, but she's very grateful for being taken back at all, now that she's no longer a first-class worker."

      Miss Brent's face glowed with a fine wrath. "She can't possibly stand more than two or three months of it without breaking down!"

      "Well, you see they've told her that in less than that time her husband will be at work again."

      "And what will the company do for them when the wife is a hopeless invalid, and the husband a cripple?"

      Amherst again uttered the dry laugh with which he had met her suggestion of an emergency hospital. "I know what I should do if I could get anywhere near Dillon—give him an overdose of morphine, and let the widow collect his life-insurance, and make a fresh start."

      She looked at him curiously. "Should you, I wonder?"

      "If I saw the suffering as you see it, and knew the circumstances as I know them, I believe I should feel justified—" He broke off. "In your work, don't you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?"

      She mused. "One might … but perhaps the professional instinct to save would always come first."

      "To save—what? When all the good of life is gone?"

      "I daresay," she sighed, "poor Dillon would do it himself if he could—when he realizes that all the good is gone."

      "Yes, but he can't do it himself; and it's the irony of such cases that his employers, after ruining his life, will do all they can to patch up the ruins."

      "But that at least ought to count in their favour."

      "Perhaps; if—" He paused, as though reluctant to lay himself open once more to the charge of uncharitableness; and suddenly she exclaimed, looking about her: "I didn't notice we had walked so far down Maplewood Avenue!"

      They had turned a few minutes previously into the wide thoroughfare crowning the high ground which is covered by the residential quarter of Hanaford. Here the spacious houses, withdrawn behind shrubberies and lawns, revealed in their silhouettes every form of architectural experiment, from the symmetrical pre-Revolutionary structure, with its classic portico and clipped box-borders, to the latest outbreak in boulders and Moorish tiles.

      Amherst followed his companion's glance with surprise. "We have gone a block or two out of our way. I always forget where I am when I'm talking about anything that interests me."

      Miss Brent looked at her watch. "My friends don't dine till seven, and I can get home in time by taking a Grove Street car," she said.

      "If you don't mind walking a little farther you can take a Liberty Street car instead. They run oftener, and you will get home just as soon."

      She made a gesture of assent, and as they walked on he continued: "I haven't yet explained why I am so anxious to get an unbiassed opinion of Dillon's case."

      She looked at him in surprise. "What you've told me about Dr. Disbrow and your manager is surely enough."

      "Well, hardly, considering that I am Truscomb's subordinate. I shouldn't have committed a breach of professional etiquette, or asked you to do so, if I hadn't a hope of bettering things; but I have, and that is why I've held on at Westmore for the last few months, instead of getting out of it altogether."

      "I'm glad of that," she said quickly.

      "The owner of the mills—young Richard Westmore—died last winter," he went on, "and my hope—it's no more—is that the new broom may sweep a little cleaner."

      "Who is the new broom?"

      "Westmore left everything to his widow, and she is coming here to-morrow to look into the management of the mills."

      "Coming? She doesn't live here, then?"

      "At Hanaford? Heaven forbid! It's an anomaly nowadays for the employer to live near the employed. The Westmores have always lived in New York—and I believe they have a big place on Long Island."

      "Well, at any rate she is coming, and that ought to be a good sign. Did she never show any interest in the mills during her husband's life?"

      "Not as far as I know. I've been at Westmore three years, and she's not been seen there in my time. She is very young, and Westmore himself didn't care. It was a case of inherited money. He drew the dividends, and Truscomb did the rest."

      Miss Brent reflected. "I don't know much about the constitution of companies—but I suppose Mrs. Westmore doesn't unite all the offices in her own person. Is there no one to stand between Truscomb and the operatives?"

      "Oh, the company, on paper, shows the usual official hierarchy. Richard Westmore, of course, was president, and since his death the former treasurer—Halford Gaines—has replaced him, and his son, Westmore Gaines, has been appointed treasurer. You can see by the names that it's all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss Westmore, and represents the clan at Hanaford—leads society, and keeps up the social credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines kept strictly to his special business, and always refused to interfere between Truscomb and the operatives. As president he will probably follow the same policy, the more so as it fits in with his inherited respect for the status quo, and his blissful ignorance of economics."

      "And the new treasurer—young Gaines? Is there no hope of his breaking away from the family tradition?"

      "Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New Yorker. So far he hasn't been here much, except for the quarterly meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin—you perceive that Westmore is a nest of nepotism."

      Miss Brent's work among the poor had developed her interest in social problems, and she followed these details attentively.

      "Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore's coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any one."

      "She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her СКАЧАТЬ