The Turmoil (12 page)

“No,” said Mary, gravely.

“Well, to be frank,” said Sibyl, smiling, “that’s why I’ve come to you.”

“To ME!” Mary frowned.

Sibyl rippled and cooed again. “There isn’t ANYBODY ever made such a hit with Father Sheridan in his life as you have. And of course we ALL hope you’re not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the family!” (This sally with another and louder effect of laughter). “And if it’s MY duty, why, in a way, I think it might be thought yours, too.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Mary, sharply.

“Listen,” said Sibyl. “Now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this story, and Edith says it’s not true; suppose she says Lamhorn has a good reputation and that I’m repeating irresponsible gossip, or suppose (what’s most likely) she loses her temper and says I invented it, then what am I going to do? Father Sheridan doesn’t know Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter, and they’re out of the question, anyway. But suppose I could say: ‘All right, if you want proof, ask Miss Vertrees. She came with me, and she’s waiting in the next room right now, to—”

“No, no,” said Mary, quickly. “You mustn’t—”

“Listen just a minute more,” Sibyl urged, confidingly. She was on easy ground now, to her own mind, and had no doubt of her success. “You naturally don’t want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel, but if YOU take part in it, it won’t be one. You don’t know yourself what weight you carry over there, and no one would have the right to say you did it except out of the purest kindness. Don’t you see that Jim and his father would admire you all the more for it? Miss Vertrees, listen! Don’t you see we OUGHT to do it, you and I? Do you suppose Robert Lamhorn cares a snap of his finger for her? Do you suppose a man like him would LOOK at Edith Sheridan if it wasn’t for the money?” And again Sibyl’s emotion rose to the surface. “I tell you he’s after nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man’s money-pile, over there, next door! He’d marry ANYBODY to do it. Marry Edith?” she cried. “I tell you he’d marry their nigger cook for THAT!”

She stopped, afraid—at the wrong time—that she had been too vehement, but a glance at Mary reassured her, and Sibyl decided that she had produced the effect she wished. Mary was not looking at her; she was staring straight before her at the wall, her eyes wide and shining. She became visibly a little paler as Sibyl looked at her.

“After nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man’s money-pile, over there, next door!” The voice was vulgar, the words were vulgar—and the plain truth was vulgar! How it rang in Mary Vertrees’s ears! The clear mirror had caught its own image clearly in the flawed one at last.

Sibyl put forth her best bid to clench the matter. She offered her bargain. “Now don’t you worry,” she said, sunnily, “about this setting Edith against you. She’ll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in over there, or managed so as to sort of leave you out, why, I’ve got a house, and Jim likes to come there. I don’t THINK Edith WOULD be that way; she’s too crazy to have you take her around with the smart crowd, but if she DID, you needn’t worry. And another thing—I guess you won’t mind Jim’s own sister-in-law speaking of it. Of course, I don’t know just how matters stand between you and Jim, but Jim and Roscoe are about as much alike as two brothers can be, and Roscoe was very slow making up his mind; sometimes I used to think he actually never WOULD. Now, what I mean is, sisters-in-law can do lots of things to help matters on like that. There’s lots of little things can be said, and lots—”

She stopped, puzzled. Mary Vertrees had gone from pale to scarlet, and now, still scarlet indeed, she rose, without a word of explanation, or any other kind of word, and walked slowly to the open door and out of the room.

Sibyl was a little taken aback. She supposed Mary had remembered something neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant, and that she would return in a moment; but it was rather a rude excess of absent-mindedness not to have excused herself, especially as her guest was talking. And, Mary’s return being delayed, Sibyl found time to think this unprefaced exit odder and ruder than she had first considered it. There might have been more excuse for it, she thought, had she been speaking of matters less important—offering to do the girl all the kindness in her power, too!

Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently; she examined the sole of her shoe; she decided on a new shape of heel; she made an inventory of the furniture of the room, of the rugs, of the wall-paper and engravings. Then she looked at her watch and frowned; went to a window and stood looking out upon the brown lawn, then came back to the chair she had abandoned, and sat again. There was no sound in the house.

A strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her face, and slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary—scarlet to the ears. She looked at her watch again—and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she had looked at it before.

She went into the hall, glanced over her shoulder oddly; then she let herself softly out of the front door, and went across the street to her own house.

Roscoe met her upon the threshold, gloomily. “Saw you from the window,” he explained. “You must find a lot to say to that old lady.”

“What old lady?”

“Mrs. Vertrees. I been waiting for you a long time, and I saw the daughter come out, fifteen minutes ago, and post a letter, and then walk on up the street. Don’t stand out on the porch,” he said, crossly. “Come in here. There’s something it’s come time I’ll have to talk to you about. Come in!”

But as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father’s house and started. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun, staring fixedly. “Something’s the matter over there,” he muttered, and then, more loudly, as alarm came into his voice, he said, “What’s the matter over there?”

Bibbs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its highest speed, and as he saw Roscoe he made a genture singularly eloquent of calamity, and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street. Edith had followed part of the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she was crying bitterly. She lifted both arms to Roscoe, summoning him.

“By George!” gasped Roscoe. “I believe somebody’s dead!”

And he started for the New House at a run.

Sheridan had decided to conclude his day’s work early that afternoon, and at about two o’clock he left his office with a man of affairs from foreign parts, who had traveled far for a business conference with Sheridan and his colleagues. Herr Favre, in spite of his French name, was a gentleman of Bavaria. It was his first visit to our country, and Sheridan took pleasure in showing him the sights of the country’s finest city. They got into an open car at the main entrance of the Sheridan Building, and were driven first, slowly and momentously, through the wholesale district and the retail district; then more rapidly they inspected the packing-houses and the stock-yards; then skirmished over the “park system” and “boulevards”; and after that whizzed through the “residence section” on their way to the factories and foundries.

“All cray,” observed Herr Favre, smilingly.

“‘Cray’?” echoed Sheridan. “I don’t know what you mean. ‘Cray’?”

“No white,” said Herr Favre, with a wave of his hand toward the long rows of houses on both sides of the street. “No white lace window-curtains; all cray lace window-curtains.”

“Oh. I see!” Sheridan laughed indulgently. “You mean ‘GRAY.’ No, they ain’t, they’re white. I never saw any gray ones.”

Herr Favre shook his head, much amused. “There are NO white ones, he said. “There is no white ANYTHING in your city; no white window-curtains, no white house, no white peeble!” He pointed upward. “Smoke!” Then he sniffed the air and clasped his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Smoke! Smoke ef’rywhere. Smoke in your insites.” He tapped his chest. “Smoke in your lunks!”

“Oh! SMOKE!” Sheridan cried with gusto, drawing in a deep breath and patently finding it delicious. “You BET we got smoke!”

“Exbensif!” said Herr Favre. “Ruins foliage; ruins fabrics. Maybe in summer it iss not so bad, but I wonder your wifes will bear it.”

Sheridan laughed uproariously. “They know it means new spring hats for ‘em!”

“They must need many, too!” said the visitor. “New hats, new all things, but nothing white. In Munchen we could not do it; we are a safing peeble.”

“Where’s that?”

“In Munchen. You say ‘Munich.’”

“Well, I never been to Munich, but I took in the Mediterranean trip, and I tell you, outside o’ some right good scenery, all I saw was mighty dirty and mighty shiftless and mighty run-down at the heel. Now comin’ right down TO it, Mr. Farver, wouldn’t you rather live here in this town than in Munich? I know you got more enterprise up there than the part of the old country I saw, and I know YOU’RE a live business man and you’re associated with others like you, but when it comes to LIVIN’ in a place, wouldn’t you heap rather be here than over there?”

“For me,” said Herr Favre, “no. Here I should not think I was living. It would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work; nothing else.”

“We got a good many good citizens here from your part o’ the world. THEY like it.”

“Oh yes.” And Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly. “The first generation, they bring their Germany with them; then, after that, they are Americans, like you.” He tapped his host’s big knee genially. “You are patriot; so are they.”

“Well, I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself, Mr. Farver!” Sheridan exclaimed, gaily. “You certainly stand up for your own town, if you stick to sayin’ you’d rather live there than you would here. Yes, SIR! You sure are some patriot to say THAT—after you’ve seen our city! It ain’t reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of admire you for it; every man ought to stick up for his own, even when he sees the other fellow’s got the goods on him. Yet I expect way down deep in your heart, Mr. Farver, you’d rather live right here than any place else in the world, if you had your choice. Man alive! this is God’s country, Mr. Farver, and a blind man couldn’t help seein’ it! You couldn’t stand where you do in a business way and NOT see it. Soho, boy! Here we are. This is the big works, and I’ll show you something now that’ll make your eyes stick out!”

They had arrived at the Pump Works; and for an hour Mr. Favre was personally conducted and personally instructed by the founder and president, the buzzing queen bee of those buzzing hives.

“Now I’ll take you for a spin in the country,” said Sheridan, when at last they came out to the car again. “We’ll take a breezer.” But, with his foot on the step, he paused to hail a neat young man who came out of the office smiling a greeting. “Hello, young fellow!” Sheridan said, heartily. “On the job, are you, Jimmie? Ha! They don’t catch you OFF of it very often, I guess, though I do hear you go automobile-ridin’ in the country sometimes with a mighty fine-lookin’ girl settin’ up beside you!” He roared with laughter, clapping his son upon the shoulder. “That’s all right with me—if it is with HER! So, Jimmie? Well, when we goin’ to move into your new warehouses? Monday?”

“Sunday, if you want to,” said Jim.

“No!” cried his father, delighted. “Don’t tell me you’re goin’ to keep your word about dates! That’s no way to do contractin’! Never heard of a contractor yet didn’t want more time.”

“They’ll be all ready for you on the minute,” said Jim. “I’m going over both of ‘em now, with Links and Sherman, from foundation to roof. I guess they’ll pass inspection, too!”

“Well, then, when you get through with that,” said his father, “you go and take your girl out ridin’. By George! you’ve earned it! You tell her you stand high with ME!” He stepped into the car, waving a waggish farewell, and when the wheels were in motion again, he turned upon his companion a broad face literally shining with pride. “That’s my boy Jimmie!” he said.

“Fine young man, yes,” said Herr Favre.

“I got two o’ the finest boys,” said Sheridan, “I got two o’ the finest boys God ever made, and that’s a fact, Mr. Farver! Jim’s the oldest, and I tell you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch HIM in bed! My other boy, Roscoe, he’s always to the good, too, but Jim’s a wizard. You saw them two new-process warehouses, just about finished? Well, JIM built ‘em. I’ll tell you about that, Mr. Farver.” And he recited this history, describing the new process at length; in fact, he had such pride in Jim’s achievement that he told Herr Favre all about it more than once.

“Fine young man, yes,” repeated the good Munchner, three-quarters of an hour later. They were many miles out in the open country by this time.

He is that!” said Sheridan, adding, as if confidentially: “I got a fine family, Mr. Farver—fine chuldern. I got a daughter now; you take her and put her anywhere you please, and she’ll shine up with ANY of ‘em. There’s culture and refinement and society in this town by the car-load, and here lately she’s been gettin’ right in the thick of it—her and my daughter-in-law, both. I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law, Mr. Farver. I’m goin’ to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town, and you’ll see—and, well, sir, from all I hear the two of ‘em been holdin’ their own with the best. Myself, I and the wife never had time for much o’ that kind o’ doin’s, but it’s all right and good for the chuldern; and my daughter she’s always kind of taken to it. I’ll read you a poem she wrote when I get you up at the house. She wrote it in school and took the first prize for poetry with it. I tell you they don’t make ‘em any smarter’n that girl, Mr. Farver. Yes, sir; take us all round, we’re a pretty happy family; yes, sir. Roscoe hasn’t got any chuldern yet, and I haven’t ever spoke to him and his wife about it—it’s kind of a delicate matter— but it’s about time the wife and I saw some gran’-chuldern growin’ up around us. I certainly do hanker for about four or five little curly-headed rascals to take on my knee. Boys, I hope, o’ course; that’s only natural. Jim’s got his eye on a mighty splendid-lookin’ girl; lives right next door to us. I expect you heard me joshin’ him about it back yonder. She’s one of the ole blue-bloods here, and I guess it was a mighty good stock—to raise HER! She’s one these girls that stand tight up and look at you! And pretty? She’s the prettiest thing you ever saw! Good size, too; good health and good sense. Jim’ll be just right if he gets her. I must say it tickles ME to think o’ the way that boy took ahold o’ that job back yonder. Four months and a half! Yes, sir—”