The Turmoil: A Novel

CHAPTER XXVIII

It is the consoling attribute of unused books that their decorative warmth will so often make even a ready-made library the actual “living-room” of a family to whom the shelved volumes are indeed sealed. Thus it was with Sheridan, who read nothing except newspapers, business letters, and figures; who looked upon books as he looked upon bric-a-brac or crocheting—when he was at home, and not abed or eating, he was in the library.

He stood in the many-colored light of the stained-glass window at the far end of the long room, when Roscoe and his wife came in, and he exhaled a solemnity. His deference to the Sabbath was manifest, as always, in the length of his coat and the closeness of his Saturday-night shave; and his expression, to match this religious pomp, was more than Sabbatical, but the most dismaying of his demonstrations was his keeping his hand in his sling.

Sibyl advanced to the middle of the room and halted there, not looking at him, but down at her muff, in which, it could be seen, her hands were nervously moving. Roscoe went to a chair in another part of the room. There was a deadly silence.

But Sibyl found a shaky voice, after an interval of gulping, though she was unable to lift her eyes, and the darkling lids continued to veil them. She spoke hurriedly, like an ungifted child reciting something committed to memory, but her sincerity was none the less evident for that.

“Father Sheridan, you and mother Sheridan have always been so kind to me, and I would hate to have you think I don't appreciate it, from the way I acted. I've come to tell you I am sorry for the way I did that night, and to say I know as well as anybody the way I behaved, and it will never happen again, because it's been a pretty hard lesson; and when we come back, some day, I hope you'll see that you've got a daughter-in-law you never need to be ashamed of again. I want to ask you to excuse me for the way I did, and I can say I haven't any feelings toward Edith now, but only wish her happiness and good in her new life. I thank you for all your kindness to me, and I know I made a poor return for it, but if you can overlook the way I behaved I know I would feel a good deal happier—and I know Roscoe would, too. I wish to promise not to be as foolish in the future, and the same error would never occur again to make us all so unhappy, if you can be charitable enough to excuse it this time.”

He looked steadily at her without replying, and she stood before him, never lifting her eyes; motionless, save where the moving fur proved the agitation of her hands within the muff.

“All right,” he said at last.

She looked up then with vast relief, though there was a revelation of heavy tears when the eyelids lifted.

“Thank you,” she said. “There's something else—about something different—I want to say to you, but I want mother Sheridan to hear it, too.”

“She's up-stairs in her room,” said Sheridan. “Roscoe—”

Sibyl interrupted. She had just seen Bibbs pass through the hall and begin to ascend the stairs; and in a flash she instinctively perceived the chance for precisely the effect she wanted.

“No, let me go,” she said. “I want to speak to her a minute first, anyway.”

And she went away quickly, gaining the top of the stairs in time to see Bibbs enter his room and close the door. Sibyl knew that Bibbs, in his room, had overheard her quarrel with Edith in the hall outside; for bitter Edith, thinking the more to shame her, had subsequently informed her of the circumstance. Sibyl had just remembered this, and with the recollection there had flashed the thought—out of her own experience—that people are often much more deeply impressed by words they overhear than by words directly addressed to them. Sibyl intended to make it impossible for Bibbs not to overhear. She did not hesitate—her heart was hot with the old sore, and she believed wholly in the justice of her cause and in the truth of what she was going to say. Fate was virtuous at times; it had delivered into her hands the girl who had affronted her.

Mrs. Sheridan was in her own room. The approach of Sibyl and Roscoe had driven her from the library, for she had miscalculated her husband's mood, and she felt that if he used his injured hand as a mark of emphasis again, in her presence, she would (as she thought of it) “have a fit right there.” She heard Sibyl's step, and pretended to be putting a touch to her hair before a mirror.

“I was just coming down,” she said, as the door opened.

“Yes, he wants you to,” said Sibyl. “It's all right, mother Sheridan. He's forgiven me.”

Mrs. Sheridan sniffed instantly; tears appeared. She kissed her daughter-in-law's cheek; then, in silence, regarded the mirror afresh, wiped her eyes, and applied powder.

“And I hope Edith will be happy,” Sibyl added, inciting more applications of Mrs. Sheridan's handkerchief and powder.

“Yes, yes,” murmured the good woman. “We mustn't make the worst of things.”

“Well, there was something else I had to say, and he wants you to hear it, too,” said Sibyl. “We better go down, mother Sheridan.”

She led the way, Mrs. Sheridan following obediently, but when they came to a spot close by Bibbs's door, Sibyl stopped. “I want to tell you about it first,” she said, abruptly. “It isn't a secret, of course, in any way; it's something the whole family has to know, and the sooner the whole family knows it the better. It's something it wouldn't be RIGHT for us ALL not to understand, and of course father Sheridan most of all. But I want to just kind of go over it first with you; it'll kind of help me to see I got it all straight. I haven't got any reason for saying it except the good of the family, and it's nothing to me, one way or the other, of course, except for that. I oughtn't to've behaved the way I did that night, and it seems to me if there's anything I can do to help the family, I ought to, because it would help show I felt the right way. Well, what I want to do is to tell this so's to keep the family from being made a fool of. I don't want to see the family just made use of and twisted around her finger by somebody that's got no more heart than so much ice, and just as sure to bring troubles in the long run as—as Edith's mistake is. Well, then, this is the way it is. I'll just tell you how it looks to me and see if it don't strike you the same way.”

Within the room, Bibbs, much annoyed, tapped his ear with his pencil. He wished they wouldn't stand talking near his door when he was trying to write. He had just taken from his trunk the manuscript of a poem begun the preceding Sunday afternoon, and he had some ideas he wanted to fix upon paper before they maliciously seized the first opportunity to vanish, for they were but gossamer. Bibbs was pleased with the beginnings of his poem, and if he could carry it through he meant to dare greatly with it—he would venture it upon an editor. For he had his plan of life now: his day would be of manual labor and thinking—he could think of his friend and he could think in cadences for poems, to the crashing of the strong machine—and if his father turned him out of home and out of the Works, he would work elsewhere and live elsewhere. His father had the right, and it mattered very little to Bibbs—he faced the prospect of a working-man's lodging-house without trepidation. He could find a washstand to write upon, he thought; and every evening when he left Mary he would write a little; and he would write on holidays and on Sundays—on Sundays in the afternoon. In a lodging-house, at least he wouldn't be interrupted by his sister-in-law's choosing the immediate vicinity of his door for conversations evidently important to herself, but merely disturbing to him. He frowned plaintively, wishing he could think of some polite way of asking her to go away. But, as she went on, he started violently, dropping manuscript and pencil upon the floor.

“I don't know whether you heard it, mother Sheridan,” she said, “but this old Vertrees house, next door, had been sold on foreclosure, and all THEY got out of it was an agreement that let's 'em live there a little longer. Roscoe told me, and he says he heard Mr. Vertrees has been up and down the streets more'n two years, tryin' to get a job he could call a 'position,' and couldn't land it. You heard anything about it, mother Sheridan?”

“Well, I DID know they been doin' their own house-work a good while back,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “And now they're doin' the cookin', too.”

Sibyl sent forth a little titter with a sharp edge. “I hope they find something to cook! She sold her piano mighty quick after Jim died!”

Bibbs jumped up. He was trembling from head to foot and he was dizzy—of all the real things he could never have dreamed in his dream the last would have been what he heard now. He felt that something incredible was happening, and that he was powerless to stop it. It seemed to him that heavy blows were falling on his head and upon Mary's; it seemed to him that he and Mary were being struck and beaten physically—and that something hideous impended. He wanted to shout to Sibyl to be silent, but he could not; he could only stand, swallowing and trembling.

“What I think the whole family ought to understand is just this,” said Sibyl, sharply. “Those people were so hard up that this Miss Vertrees started after Bibbs before they knew whether he was INSANE or not! They'd got a notion he might be, from his being in a sanitarium, and Mrs. Vertrees ASKED me if he was insane, the very first day Bibbs took the daughter out auto-riding!” She paused a moment, looking at Mrs. Sheridan, but listening intently. There was no sound from within the room.

“No!” exclaimed Mrs. Sheridan.

“It's the truth,” Sibyl declared, loudly. “Oh, of course we were all crazy about that girl at first. We were pretty green when we moved up here, and we thought she'd get us IN—but it didn't take ME long to read her! Her family were down and out when it came to money—and they had to go after it, one way or another, SOMEHOW! So she started for Roscoe; but she found out pretty quick he was married, and she turned right around to Jim—and she landed him! There's no doubt about it, she had Jim, and if he'd lived you'd had another daughter-in-law before this, as sure as I stand here telling you the God's truth about it! Well—when Jim was left in the cemetery she was waiting out there to drive home with Bibbs! Jim wasn't COLD—and she didn't know whether Bibbs was insane or not, but he was the only one of the rich Sheridan boys left. She had to get him.”

The texture of what was the truth made an even fabric with what was not, in Sibyl's mind; she believed every word that she uttered, and she spoke with the rapidity and vehemence of fierce conviction.

“What I feel about it is,” she said, “it oughtn't to be allowed to go on. It's too mean! I like poor Bibbs, and I don't want to see him made such a fool of, and I don't want to see the family made such a fool of! I like poor Bibbs, but if he'd only stop to think a minute himself he'd have to realize he isn't the kind of man ANY girl would be apt to fall in love with. He's better-looking lately, maybe, but you know how he WAS—just kind of a long white rag in good clothes. And girls like men with some GO to 'em—SOME sort of dashingness, anyhow! Nobody ever looked at poor Bibbs before, and neither'd she—no, SIR! not till she'd tried both Roscoe and Jim first! It was only when her and her family got desperate that she—”

Bibbs—whiter than when he came from the sanitarium—opened the door. He stepped across its threshold and stook looking at her. Both women screamed.

“Oh, good heavens!” cried Sibyl. “Were you in THERE? Oh, I wouldn't—” She seized Mrs. Sheridan's arm, pulling her toward the stairway. “Come on, mother Sheridan!” she urged, and as the befuddled and confused lady obeyed, Sibyl left a trail of noisy exclamations: “Good gracious! Oh, I wouldn't—too bad! I didn't DREAM he was there! I wouldn't hurt his feelings! Not for the world! Of course he had to know SOME time! But, good heavens—”

She heard his door close as she and Mrs. Sheridan reached the top of the stairs, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly, but Bibbs was not following; he had gone back into his room.

“He—he looked—oh, terrible bad!” stammered Mrs. Sheridan. “I—I wish—”

“Still, it's a good deal better he knows about it,” said Sibyl. “I shouldn't wonder it might turn out the very best thing could happened. Come on!”

And completing their descent to the library, the two made their appearance to Roscoe and his father. Sibyl at once gave a full and truthful account of what had taken place, repeating her own remarks, and omitting only the fact that it was through her design that Bibbs had overheard them.

“But as I told mother Sheridan,” she said, in conclusion, “it might turn out for the very best that he did hear—just that way. Don't you think so, father Sheridan?”

He merely grunted in reply, and sat rubbing the thick hair on the top of his head with his left hand and looking at the fire. He had given no sign of being impressed in any manner by her exposure of Mary Vertrees's character; but his impassivity did not dismay Sibyl—it was Bibbs whom she desired to impress, and she was content in that matter.

“I'm sure it was all for the best,” she said. “It's over now, and he knows what she is. In one way I think it was lucky, because, just hearing a thing that way, a person can tell it's SO—and he knows I haven't got any ax to grind except his own good and the good of the family.”

Mrs. Sheridan went nervously to the door and stood there, looking toward the stairway. “I wish—I wish I knew what he was doin',” she said. “He did look terrible bad. It was like something had been done to him that was—I don't know what. I never saw anybody look like he did. He looked—so queer. It was like you'd—” She called down the hall, “George!”

“Yes'm?”

“Were you up in Mr. Bibbs's room just now?”

“Yes'm. He ring bell; tole me make him fiah in his grate. I done buil' him nice fiah. I reckon he ain' feelin' so well. Yes'm.” He departed.

“What do you expect he wants a fire for?” she asked, turning toward her husband. “The house is warm as can be, I do wish I—”

“Oh, quit frettin'!” said Sheridan.

“Well, I—I kind o' wish you hadn't said anything, Sibyl. I know you meant it for the best and all, but I don't believe it would been so much harm if—”

“Mother Sheridan, you don't mean you WANT that kind of a girl in the family? Why, she—”

“I don't know, I don't know,” the troubled woman quavered. “If he liked her it seems kind of a pity to spoil it. He's so queer, and he hasn't ever taken much enjoyment. And besides, I believe the way it was, there was more chance of him bein' willin' to do what papa wants him to. If she wants to marry him—”

Sheridan interrupted her with a hooting laugh. “She don't!” he said. “You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Sibyl. She ain't that kind of a girl.”

“But, father Sheridan, didn't she—”

He cut her short. “That's enough. You may mean all right, but you guess wrong. So do you, mamma.”

Sibyl cried out, “Oh! But just LOOK how she ran after Jim—”

“She did not,” he said, curtly. “She wouldn't take Jim. She turned him down cold.”

“But that's impossi—”

“It's not. I KNOW she did.”

Sibyl looked flatly incredulous.

“And YOU needn't worry,” he said, turning to his wife. “This won't have any effect on your idea, because there wasn't any sense to it, anyhow. D'you think she'd be very likely to take Bibbs—after she wouldn't take JIM? She's a good-hearted girl, and she lets Bibbs come to see her, but if she'd ever given him one sign of encouragement the way you women think, he wouldn't of acted the stubborn fool he has—he'd 'a' been at me long ago, beggin' me for some kind of a job he could support a wife on. There's nothin' in it—and I've got the same old fight with him on my hands I've had all his life—and the Lord knows what he won't do to balk me! What's happened now'll probably only make him twice as stubborn, but—”

“SH!” Mrs. Sheridan, still in the doorway, lifted her hand. “That's his step—he's comin' down-stairs.” She shrank away from the door as if she feared to have Bibbs see her. “I—I wonder—” she said, almost in a whisper—“I wonder what he's goin'—to do.”

Her timorousness had its effect upon the others. Sheridan rose, frowning, but remained standing beside his chair; and Roscoe moved toward Sibyl, who stared uneasily at the open doorway. They listened as the slow steps descended the stairs and came toward the library.

Bibbs stopped upon the threshold, and with sick and haggard eyes looked slowly from one to the other until at last his gaze rested upon his father. Then he came and stood before him.

“I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with me,” he said, gently. “You won't, any more. I'll take the job you offered me.”

Sheridan did not speak—he stared, astounded and incredulous; and Bibbs had left the room before any of its occupants uttered a sound, though he went as slowly as he came. Mrs. Sheridan was the first to move. She went nervously back to the doorway, and then out into the hall. Bibbs had gone from the house.

Bibbs's mother had a feeling about him then that she had never known before; it was indefinite and vague, but very poignant—something in her mourned for him uncomprehendingly. She felt that an awful thing had been done to him, though she did not know what it was. She went up to his room.

The fire George had built for him was almost smothered under thick, charred ashes of paper. The lid of his trunk stood open, and the large upper tray, which she remembered to have seen full of papers and note-books, was empty. And somehow she understood that Bibbs had given up the mysterious vocation he had hoped to follow—and that he had given it up for ever. She thought it was the wisest thing he could have done—and yet, for an unknown reason, she sat upon the bed and wept a little before she went down-stairs.

So Sheridan had his way with Bibbs, all through.