The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

handkerchief upon her eyes. “I’m so glad you made us go! I wouldn’t have missed it⁠—”

Mrs. Vertrees shook her head. “I suppose I’m very dull,” she said, gently. “I didn’t see anything amusing. They’re most ordinary, and the house is altogether in bad taste, but we anticipated that, and⁠—”

“Papa!” Mary cried, breaking in. “They asked us to dinner!”

“What!”

“And I’m going!” she shouted, and was seized with fresh paroxysms. “Think of it! Never in their house before; never met any of them but the daughter⁠—and just barely met her⁠—”

“What about you?” interrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon his wife.

She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten would not agree with her. “I couldn’t!” she said. “I⁠—”

“Yes, that’s just⁠—just the way she⁠—she looked when they asked her!” cried Mary, choking. “And then she⁠—she realized it, and tried to turn it into a cough, and she didn’t know how, and it sounded like⁠—like a squeal!”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, “that Mary will have an uproarious time at my funeral. She makes fun of⁠—”

Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel and, leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of her shoe, twinkling in the firelight.

“They didn’t notice anything,” she said. “So far as they were concerned, mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed.”

“Who were ‘they’?” asked her father. “Whom did you see?”

“Only the mother and daughter,” Mary answered. “Mrs. Sheridan is dumpy and rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing⁠—dresses by the fashion magazines and talks about New York people that have their pictures in ’em. She tutors the mother, but not very successfully⁠—partly because her own foundation is too flimsy and partly because she began too late. They’ve got an enormous Moor of painted plaster or something in the hall, and the girl evidently thought it was to her credit that she selected it!”

“They have oil-paintings, too,” added Mrs. Vertrees, with a glance of gentle price at the Landseers. “I’ve always thought oil-paintings in a private house the worst of taste.”

“Oh, if one owned a Raphael or a Titian!” said Mr. Vertrees, finishing the implication, not in words, but with a wave of his hand. “Go on, Mary. None of the rest of them came in? You didn’t meet Mr. Sheridan or⁠—” He paused and adjusted a lump of coal in the fire delicately with the poker. “Or one of the sons?”

Mary’s glance crossed his, at that, with a flash of utter comprehension. He turned instantly away, but she had begun to laugh again.

“No,” she said, “no one except the women, but mamma inquired about the sons thoroughly!”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees protested.

“Oh, most adroitly, too!” laughed the girl. “Only she couldn’t help unconsciously turning to look at me⁠—when she did it!”

“Mary Vertrees!”

“Never mind, mamma! Mrs. Sheridan and Miss Sheridan neither of them could help unconsciously turning to look at me⁠—speculatively⁠—at the same time! They all three kept looking at me and talking about the oldest son, Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. Mrs. Sheridan said his father is very anxious ‘to get Jim to marry and settle down,’ and she assured me that ‘Jim is right cultivated.’ Another of the sons, the youngest one, caught me looking in the window this afternoon; but they didn’t seem to consider him quite one of themselves, somehow, though Mrs. Sheridan mentioned that a couple of years or so ago he had been ‘right sick,’ and had been to some cure or other. They seemed relieved to bring the subject back to ‘Jim’ and his virtues⁠—and to look at me! The other brother is the middle one, Roscoe; he’s the one that owns the new house across the street, where that young black-sheep of the Lamhorns, Robert, goes so often. I saw a short, dark young man standing on the porch with Robert Lamhorn there the other day, so I suppose that was Roscoe. ‘Jim’ still lurks in the mists, but I shall meet him tonight. Papa⁠—” She stepped nearer to him so that he had to face her, and his eyes were troubled as he did. There may have been a trouble deep within her own, but she kept their surface merry with laughter. “Papa, Bibbs is the youngest one’s name, and Bibbs⁠—to the best of our information⁠—is a lunatic. Roscoe is married. Papa, does it have to be Jim?”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees cried, sharply. “You’re outrageous! That’s a perfectly horrible way of talking!”

“Well, I’m close to twenty-four,” said Mary, turning to her. “I haven’t been able to like anybody yet that’s asked me to marry him, and maybe I never shall. Until a year or so ago I’ve had everything I ever wanted in my life⁠—you and papa gave it all to me⁠—and it’s about time I began to pay back. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do anything⁠—but something’s got to be done.”

“But you needn’t talk of it like that!” insisted the mother, plaintively. “It’s not⁠—it’s not⁠—”

“No, it’s not,” said Mary. “I know that!”

“How did they happen to ask you to dinner?” Mr. Vertrees inquired, uneasily. “ ’Stextrawdn’ry thing!”

“Climbers’ hospitality,” Mary defined it. “We were so very cordial and easy! I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as any kind old woman on a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss Sheridan who did it. She played around it awhile; you could see she wanted to⁠—she’s in a dreadful hurry to get into things⁠—and I fancied she had an idea it might impress that Lamhorn boy to find us there tonight. It’s a sort of housewarming dinner, and they talked about it and talked about it⁠—and then the girl got her courage up and blurted out the invitation. And mamma⁠—” Here Mary was once more a victim to incorrigible merriment. “Mamma tried to say yes, and couldn’t! She swallowed and squealed⁠—I mean you coughed, dear! And then, papa, she said that you and she had promised to go to a lecture at the Emerson Club tonight, but that her daughter would be delighted to come to the