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

Mary. “And I got along so fast⁠—” She broke off to laugh; continuing then, “But that’s the way I went at it, of course. We are in a hurry, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Vertrees insisted, shaking her head plaintively.

“Yes,” said Mary, “I’m going out in his car with him tomorrow afternoon, and to the theater the next night⁠—but I stopped it there. You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while you pretend to run away!”

“My dear, I don’t know what to⁠—”

“What to make of anything!” Mary finished for her. “So that’s all right! Now I’ll tell you all about it. It was gorgeous and deafening and teetotal. We could have lived a year on it. I’m not good at figures, but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned and the station-wagon and the Victoria, we could manage at least twice as long on the cost of the housewarming. I think the orchids alone would have lasted us a couple of months. There they were, before me, but I couldn’t steal ’em and sell ’em, and so⁠—well, so I did what I could!”

She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother. “It seemed to be a success⁠—what I could,” she said, clasping her hands behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic accompaniment to her narrative. “The girl Edith and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were too anxious about the effect of things on me. The father’s worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it. He’s what he is. I like him.” She paused reflectively, continuing, “Edith’s ‘interested’ in that Lamhorn boy; he’s good-looking and not stupid, but I think he’s⁠—” She interrupted herself with a cheery outcry: “Oh! I mustn’t be calling him names! If he’s trying to make Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague.”

“I don’t understand a thing you’re talking about,” Mrs. Vertrees complained.

“All the better! Well, he’s a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody’s always known that, but the Sheridans don’t know the everybodies that know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. She’s like those people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we went⁠—dressed in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels somewhere! She flatters the father, and so did I, for that matter⁠—but not that way. I treated him outrageously!”

“Mary!”

“That’s what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment of us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide on the Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b’ilin’ of ’em listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present of the house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay of Naples panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing⁠—bathrooms and everywhere else⁠—and then he made us look at the Bay of Naples. He said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think it’s more. And he led us all into the ready-made library to see a poem Edith had taken a prize with at school. They’d had it printed in gold letters and framed in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself was rather simple and wistful and nice⁠—he read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him. She was modest about it, and said she’d never written anything else. And then, after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street to her house with them⁠—her husband and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim Sheridan⁠—”

Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. “ ‘Jim’!” she exclaimed. “Mary, please⁠—”

“Of course,” said Mary. “I’ll make it as easy for you as I can, mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe explained that ‘the men were all dying for a drink,’ though I noticed that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near death’s door on that account. Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I’d been bored at the dinner. They were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed to think now we were going to have a ‘good time’ to make up for it. But I hadn’t been bored at the dinner, I’d been amused; and the ‘good time’ at Mrs. Roscoe’s was horribly, horribly stupid.”

“But, Mary,” her mother began, “is⁠—is⁠—” And she seemed unable to complete the question.

“Never mind, mamma. I’ll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid? I’m sure he’s not at all stupid about business. Otherwise⁠—Oh, what right have I to be calling people ‘stupid’ because they’re not exactly my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the Sheridan Building⁠—”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Vertrees cried. “Surely not!”

“Yes, and two other things of that kind⁠—I don’t know what. But, after all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I’d been at a dinner at a palace in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I shouldn’t have felt superior; I’d have thought it picturesque and stately⁠—I’d have been impressed. And what’s the real difference? The icing is temporary, and that’s much more modest, isn’t it? And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of something you’ve done yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides, if we go back a few generations, we’ve all got such hundreds of ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn’t see anything out of place in the Sheridan Building in sugar.”

Mrs. Vertrees’s expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head gravely. “My dear, dear child,” she said, “it seems to me⁠—It looks⁠—I’m afraid⁠—”

“Say as much of it as you can, mamma,” said Mary, encouragingly. “I can get it,