Westmore

“ But I can’t sit still and twirl my thumbs while people blow up a canal belonging to an ally of France, can I?”
“Hark!” motioned Barres. “They’re singing! Poor devils. They’re like Cree Indians singing their death song.”
“I suppose,” said Westmore sombrely, “that deep in each man’s heart there remains a glimmer of hope that he, at least, may come out of it.” ”

“ Westmore's projects, and the young man was made to feel that he was merely called in as a temporary adviser in Truscomb's absence. This was, in fact, the position Amherst preferred to take, and he scrupulously restricted himself to the answering of questions, letting Mrs. Westmore unfold his plans as though they had been her own. "It is much better," he reflected, "that they should all think so, and she too, for Truscomb will be on his legs again in a day or two, and then my hours will be numbered." ”

“ Westmore tiptoed around amid lovely, frail mounds of fabrics, until ordered to an empty chair and forbidden further motion. It was all the same to him, so long as his fascinated gaze could rest on Thessalie.
Which further annoyed Barres, and he backed out and walked to the studio, considerably disturbed in his mind.
“That man,” he thought, “is making an ass of himself, hanging around Thessa like a half-witted child. She can’t help noticing it, but she doesn’t seem to do anything about it. ”

“ Whenever I try to do anything at Westmore—to give a real start to the work that Bessy and I planned together—some pretext is found to stop it: to pack us off to the ends of the earth, to cry out against reducing her income, to encourage her in some new extravagance to which the work at the mills must be sacrificed!"
Mrs. Amherst, growing pale under this outbreak, assured herself by a nervous backward glance that their privacy was still uninvaded ”

“ In the Irish Volunteers!”
“Hurrah!” cried Westmore, beating time and picking up the chorus of the “Irish Volunteers,” which Dulcie played to a thunderous finish amid frantic applause.
She sang for them “The West’s Awake!”, “The Risin’ of the Moon,” “Clare’s Dragoons,” and “Paddy Get Up!” And after Westmore had exercised his lungs sufficiently in every chorus, he and Thessalie went off to their respective quarters, leaving Barres leaning on the piano beside Dulcie.
“Your people are a splendid lot—given half a chance,” he said. ”

“ Mr. Westmore was always nice. But—but you are so kind—I can’t express—I—c-can’t——” Her emotion checked her.
“Don’t try, dear!” he said hastily. “We’re going in to have a jolly dance now. You and I begin it together. Don’t you let any other fellow take you away!”
She looked up, laughed blissfully, gazing at him with brilliant eyes a little dimmed.
“They’ll all be at your heels,” he said, beginning to comprehend the beauty he had let loose on the world, “—every man-jack of them, mark my prophecy! But ours is the first dance, Dulcie. Promise?” ”

“ 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. [p 18] 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." ”

“ Barres, following him later, discovered him on the library lounge with Thessalie’s fair cheek resting against his.
“I’m s-sorry!” he stammered, backing out, and very conscious of Westmore’s unconcealed annoyance. But Thessalie called to him in a perfectly calm voice, and he ventured to come back.
“Are you going to tell Dulcie about this horrible affair?” she asked.
“Not immediately.... Are you feeling all right, Thessa?”
“Yes. I had a horrid night. Isn’t it odd how a girl can so completely lose her nerve after a thing is all over?”
“That’s the best time to lose it,” said Westmore. ”

“ Westmore,” she said demurely.
“Oh, Jim Westmore! Well, Thessa, he’s a corker. 184 He’s really a splendid fellow, but look out for him! He’s also a philanderer.”
“Oh, dear. I thought he was just a sculptor and a rather strenuous young man.”
“I wasn’t knocking him,” said Barres, laughing, “but he falls in love with every pretty woman he meets. I’m merely warning you.”
“Thank you, Garry,” she smiled. She gave him her hand again, pulled the rose-coloured cloak around her bare shoulders, ran across the sidewalk to the taxi, and whispered to the driver.
“You’ll telephone me when you get home?” ”

“ Westmore's withdrawal, and the two ladies, after an exchange of goodnights, left the men to their cigars.
Mr. Langhope was the first to speak.
"Bessy's as hopelessly vague about business as I am, Tredegar. Why the deuce Westmore left her everything outright—but he was only a heedless boy himself."
"Yes. The way he allowed things to go, it's a wonder there was anything to leave. This Truscomb must be an able fellow."
"Devoted to Dick's interests, I've always understood." [p 38]
"He makes the mills pay well, at any rate, and that's not so easy nowadays. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Westmore. Of course she would never let any one see that she's not perfectly happy; but I'm told he has given them all a great deal of trouble by interfering in the management of the mills, and his manner is so cold and sarcastic—the truth is, I suppose he's never quite at ease in society. Her family have never been really reconciled to the marriage; and Westy Gaines says——"
"Ah, Westy Gaines would," Justine interposed lightly. "But if Mrs. Amherst is really the Bessy Langhope I used to know it must be rather a struggle for the wings!" ”

“ Westmore's appearance, even Amherst, for all his sympathy with their views, could not detect. They knew that she was the new owner, that a disproportionate amount of the result of their toil would in future pass through her hands, spread carpets for her steps, and hang a setting of beauty about her eyes; but the knowledge seemed to produce no special interest in her personality. A change of employer was not likely to make any change in their lot: their welfare would probably continue to depend on Truscomb's favour. The men hardly raised their heads as Mrs. Westmore passed ”

“ Are there any lower depths for us?—any sub-cellars of iniquity into which we can tumble, like the basket of jelly-fish we seem to be!”
“It’s a nightmare,” said Barres. “Since Liège and the Lusitania, it’s been a bad dream getting worse. We’ll have to wake, you know. If we don’t, we’re of no more substance than the dream itself:—we are the dream, and we’ll end like one.”
“I’m going to wait a bit longer,” said Westmore restlessly, “and if there’s nothing doing, it’s me for the other side.”
“For me, too, Jim.” ”

“ Richard Westmore's name was always tacitly avoided between them, for in Amherst's case the disagreeable sense of dependence on a dead man's bounty increased that feeling of obscure constraint and repugnance which any reminder of the first husband's existence is wont to produce in his successor. ”

“ Westmore to be all the more alive to the other side—the dark side of monotonous human toil, of the banquet of flesh and blood and brain perpetually served up to the monster whose insatiable jaws the looms so grimly typified. Truscomb, as he had told her, was a good manager from the profit-taking standpoint. Since it was profitable to keep the machinery in order, he maintained throughout the factory a high standard of mechanical supervision, except where one or two favoured overseers—for Truscomb was given to favoritism—shirked the duties of their departments. ”

“ Tredegar with his answer.
Amherst knew that any large theoretical exposition of the case would be as much wasted on the two men as on his wife. To gain his point he must take only one step at a time, and it seemed to him that the first thing needed at Westmore was that the hands should work and live under healthier conditions. To attain this, two important changes were necessary: the floor-space of the mills must be enlarged, and the company must cease to rent out tenements, and give the operatives the opportunity to buy land for themselves. ”

“ Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms—not exactly rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb impertinence, all the same—and practising coquetry as if she had been beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. ”

“ Wordsworth says of the small freeholders of Westmoreland, "Many of these humble sons of the hills had a consciousness that the land which they tilled had for more than five hundred years been possessed by men of the same name and blood." ”

“ Oh, that that old man in Westmoreland would die and be gathered to his fathers, now that he was full of years and ripe for the sickle! But there was no sign of death about the old man. ”

“ The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match; ”

“ And stepping westward seem'd to be
A kind of heavenly destiny; ”

“ All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for Autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland on the west. ”

“ Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity—and a touch of wistfulness—the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring 'Home' to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred. ”

“ There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it. ”

“ It was quite a different sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing. ”

“ Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen a good deal of trouble. ”

“ Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew sober as the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hers no longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come to be the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end. ”

“ In reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the chapters of "Far from the Madding Crowd," as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word "Wessex" from the pages of early English history, and give it a fictitious significance as the existing name of the district once included in that extinct kingdom. The series of novels I projected being mainly of the kind called local, they seemed to require a territorial definition of some sort to lend unity to their scene. ”

“ And when Elmer was about to slip out to the kitchen with her to make lemonade, Benham held him by demanding, "What do you think of John Wesley's doctrine of perfection?"
"Oh, it's absolutely sound and proven," admitted Elmer, wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley's doctrine of perfection might be. ”

“ 'I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey,' she answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, 'but it 'ud be better if no change was wanted.'
'You're very hard-hearted, Nancy,'said Godfrey, pettishly. ”

“ Is there a God, do you think, Henry?"
"Yes," he answered. "I think there is One, but of what kind He is I don't know."
"There must be. . . . There must be. . . . To go out like this when one's heart and soul are at their strongest. And He is loving, I can't but fancy. He smiles, perhaps, at the importance that we give to death and to pain. So short a time it must seem to Him that we are here. . . . But if He isn't. . . . If there is nothing more—— What a cruel, cold game for Something to play with us——"
Henry knew then that Duncombe was sure he would not survive the operation. ”

“ Captain West advanced to meet me, and before our outstretched hands touched, before his face broke from repose to greeting and the lips moved to speech, I got the first astonishing impact of his personality. Long, lean, in his face a touch of race I as yet could only sense, he was as cool as the day was cold, as poised as a king or emperor, as remote as the farthest fixed star, as neutral as a proposition of Euclid. And then, just ere our hands met, a twinkle of—oh—such distant and controlled geniality quickened the many tiny wrinkles in the corner of the eyes; ”