The Turmoil (11 page)

“Yes, you BETTER go home!” Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly. “You better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!”

“Edie, Edie!” he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.

“You see here!” This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and tremulous. “Don’t you talk to me that way! I came here to tell Mother Sheridan what I’d heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she thought she ought to, and I did it for your own good.”

“Yes, you did!” And Edith’s gibing laughter tooted loudly. “Yes, you did! YOU didn’t have any other reason! OH no! YOU don’t want to break it up between Bobby Lamhorn and me because—”

“Edie, Edie! Now, now!”

“Oh, hush up, mamma! I’d like to know, then, if she says her new friends tell her he’s got such a reputation that he oughtn’t to come here, what about his not going to HER house. How—”

“I’ve explained that to Mother Sheridan.” Sibyl’s voice indicated that she was descending the stairs. “Married people are not the same. Some things that should be shielded from a young girl—”

This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith. “‘Shielded from a young girl’!” she shrilled. “You seem pretty willing to be the shield! You look out Roscoe doesn’t notice what kind of a shield you are!”

Sibyl’s answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan’s flurried attempts at pacification were renewed. “Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good, and you’d oughtn’t to—”

“Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone! If you dare tell papa—”

“Now, now! I’m not going to tell him to-day, and maybe—”

“You’ve got to promise NEVER to tell him!” the girl cried, passionately.

“Well, we’ll see. You just come back in your own room, and we’ll—”

“No! I WON’T ‘talk it over’! Stop pulling me! Let me ALONE!” And Edith, flinging herself violently upon Bibbs’s door, jerked it open, swung round it into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself, face down, upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no perception of Bibbs’s presence in the room. Gasping and sobbing in a passion of tears, she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched fists. “Sneak!” she babbled aloud. “Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass! Cat!”

Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward the door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some sound of his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.

“Bibbs! I thought I saw you go out awhile ago.”

“Yes. I came back, though. I’m sorry—”

“Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?”

“Only what you said in the hall. You lie down again, Edith. I’m going out.”

“No; don’t go.” She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob, and repeated her request. “Don’t go. I don’t mind you; you’re quiet, anyhow. Mamma’s so fussy, and never gets anywhere. I don’t mind you at all, but I wish you’d sit down.”

“All right.” And he returned to his chair beside the trunk. “Go ahead and cry all you want, Edith,” he said. “No harm in that!”

“Sibyl told mamma—OH!” she began, choking. “Mary Vertrees had mamma and Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had some women there that Sibyl’s been crazy to get in with, and she just laid herself out to make a hit with ‘em, and she’s been running after ‘em ever since, and now she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn is so bad that, even though they like his family, none of the nice people in town would let him in their houses. In the first place, it’s a falsehood, and I don’t believe a word of it; and in the second place I know the reason she did it, and, what’s more, she KNOWS I know it! I won’t SAY what it is—not yet—because papa and all of you would think I’m as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe’s such a fool he’d probably quit speaking to me. But it’s true! Just you watch her; that’s all I ask. Just you watch that woman. You’ll see!”

As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching “that woman.” Glancing from the window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old house next door. She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked quickly up the path to the door, undoubtedly with the intention of calling. But he did not mention this to his sister, who, after delivering herself of a rather vague jeremiad upon the subject of her sister-in-law’s treacheries, departed to her own chamber, leaving him to his speculations. The chief of these concerned the social elasticities of women. Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene; she had suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to the presence of people whom she knew no more than “formally.” Bibbs marveled. Surely, he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl’s face or in her manner; she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses’ door.

And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to master. But Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a casual caller. She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose that brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely intelligent. For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its antiquity. She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may and does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex as well, finding invariably strong supporters among these latter. It is a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought greater, save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women and by its own “lack of perspective,” for it is a type that never sees itself. Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question—it was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not even the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that she was believed.

“My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn’t come down,” Mary said, when they were seated.

Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms. It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an impression of sweetness.

“Just thought I’d fly in a minute,” she said, continuing the cooing to relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. “I thought I’d just behave like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far from down-town, aren’t we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here before, I’ve had to depend on my husband’s friends almost entirely, and I really’ve known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course—”

She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

“Of course,” said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

“Yes. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that afternoon,” Sibyl went on. “They’re really delightful people. Indeed they are! Yes—”

She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl’s eyelids, in that moment of abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the errand was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of cheerful ease. There was a restlessnes of breathing, a restlessness of hands.

“Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some to the people here in town the other day,” said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and protracting it. “They said something that took ME by surprise! We were talking about our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn—”

Mary interrupted her promptly. “Do you mean ‘mutual’ to include my mother and me?” she asked.

“Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean.”

“No,” said Mary. “We shouldn’t consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of ours.”

To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased. “That’s just the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!” she cried, with a vehemence that made Mary stare. “Yes, and I hear that’s the way ALL you old families here speak of him!”

Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure. “I had the impression he was a friend of yours,” she said; adding, hastily, “and your husband’s.”

“Oh yes,” said the caller, absently. “He is, certainly. A man’s reputation for a little gaiety oughtn’t to make a great difference to married people, of course. It’s where young girls are in question. THEN it may be very, very dangerous. There are a great many things safe and proper for married people that might be awf’ly imprudent for a young girl. Don’t you agree, Miss Vertrees?”

“I don’t know,” returned the frank Mary. “Do you mean that you intend to remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn’s, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan’s doing so?”

“That’s it exactly!” was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl. “What I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn’t at all suitable for Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it. I tell you,” she cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, “her father ought to put his foot down!”

Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into hiding under a bush.

“Of course,” said Sibyl, much more composedly, “I hardly need say that it’s entirely on Edith’s account that I’m worried about this. I’m as fond of Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can’t help fretting about it. It would break my heart to have Edith’s life spoiled.”

This tune was off the key, to Mary’s ear. Sibyl tried to sing with pathos, but she flatted.

And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other, one clear and the other flawed. In this case, particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect consciousness of Mary. The Mary Vertrees that she saw was merely something to be cozened to her own frantic purpose—a Mary Vertrees who was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong—perhaps even violent. What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

“And Edith’s life WOULD be spoiled,” Sibyl continued. “It would be a dreadful thing for the whole family. She’s the very apple of Father Sheridan’s eye, and he’s as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe. It would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert Lamhorn; but he doesn’t KNOW anything about him, and if somebody doesn’t tell him, what I’m most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent and hurry on the wedding before he finds out, and then it would be too late. You see, Miss Vertrees, it’s very difficult for me to decide just what it’s my duty to do.”

“I see,” said Mary, looking at her thoughtfully, “Does Miss Sheridan seem to—to care very much about him?”

“He’s deliberately fascinated her,” returned the visitor, beginning to breathe quickly and heavily. “Oh, she wasn’t difficult! She knew she wasn’t in right in this town, and she was crazy to meet the people that were, and she thought he was one of ‘em. But that was only the start that made it easy for him—and he didn’t need it. He could have done it, anyway!” Sibyl was launched now; her eyes were furious and her voice shook. “He went after her deliberately, the way he does everything; he’s as cold-blooded as a fish. All he cares about is his own pleasure, and lately he’s decided it would be pleasant to get hold of a piece of real money—and there was Edith! And he’ll marry her! Nothing on earth can stop him unless he finds out she won’t HAVE any money if she marries him, and the only person that could make him understand that is Father Sheridan. Somehow, that’s got to be managed, because Lamhorn is going to hurry it on as fast as he can. He told me so last night. He said he was going to marry her the first minute he could persuade her to it—and little Edith’s all ready to be persuaded!” Sibyl’s eyes flashed green again. “And he swore he’d do it,” she panted. “He swore he’d marry Edith Sheridan, and nothing on earth could stop him!”

And then Mary understood. Her lips parted and she stared at the babbling creature incredulously, a sudden vivid picture in her mind, a canvas of unconscious Sibyl’s painting. Mary beheld it with pity and horror: she saw Sibyl clinging to Robert Lamhorn, raging, in a whisper, perhaps—for Roscoe might have been in the house, or servants might have heard. She saw Sibyl entreating, beseeching, threatening despairingly, and Lamhorn—tired of her—first evasive, then brutally letting her have the truth; and at last, infuriated, “swearing” to marry her rival. If Sibyl had not babbled out the word “swore” it might have been less plain.

The poor woman blundered on, wholly unaware of what he had confessed. “You see,” she said, more quietly, “whatever’s going to be done ought to be done right away. I went over and told Mother Sheridan what I’d heard about Lamhorn—oh, I was open and aboveboard! I told her right before Edith. I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because nobody can say it isn’t for the girl’s own good and what her best friend would do. But Mother Sheridan’s under Edith’s thumb, and she’s afraid to ever come right out with anything. Father Sheridan’s different. Edith can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary indulgence, but when it comes to a matter like this he’d be a steel rock. If it’s a question of his will against anybody else’s he’d make his will rule if it killed ‘em both! Now, he’d never in the world let Lamhorn come near the house again if he knew his reputation. So, you see, somebody’s got to tell him. It isn’t a very easy position for me, is it, Miss Vertrees?”