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

went to the front door with him; she always went that far. They had formed a little code of leave-taking, by habit, neither of them ever speaking of it; but it was always the same. She always stood in the doorway until he reached the sidewalk, and there he always turned and looked back, and she waved her hand to him. Then he went on, halfway to the New House, and looked back again, and Mary was not in the doorway, but the door was open and the light shone. It was as if she meant to tell him that she would never shut him out; he could always see that friendly light of the open doorway⁠—as if it were open for him to come back, if he would. He could see it until a wing of the New House came between, when he went up the path. The open doorway seemed to him the beautiful symbol of her friendship⁠—of her thought of him; a symbol of herself and of her ineffable kindness.

And she kept the door open⁠—even tonight, though the sleet and fine snow swept in upon her bare throat and arms, and her brown hair was strewn with tiny white stars. His heart leaped as he turned and saw that she was there, waving her hand to him, as if she did not know that the storm touched her. When he had gone on, Mary did as she always did⁠—she went into an unlit room across the hall from that in which they had spent the evening, and, looking from the window, watched him until he was out of sight. The storm made that difficult tonight, but she caught a glimpse of him under the street-lamp that stood between the two houses, and saw that he turned to look back again. Then, and not before, she looked at the upper windows of Roscoe’s house across the street. They were dark. Mary waited, but after a little while she closed the front door and returned to her window. A moment later two of the upper windows of Roscoe’s house flashed into light and a hand lowered the shade of one of them. Mary felt the cold then⁠—it was the third night she had seen those windows lighted and the shade lowered, just after Bibbs had gone.

But Bibbs had no glance to spare for Roscoe’s windows. He stopped for his last look back at the open door, and, with a thin mantle of white already upon his shoulders, made his way, gasping in the wind, to the lee of the sheltering wing of the New House.

A stricken George, muttering hoarsely, admitted him, and Bibbs became aware of a paroxysm within the house. Terrible sounds came from the library: Sheridan cursing as never before; his wife sobbing, her voice rising to an agonized squeal of protest upon each of a series of muffled detonations⁠—the outrageous thumping of a bandaged hand upon wood; then Gurney, sharply imperious, “Keep your hand in that sling! Keep your hand in that sling, I say!”

“Look!” George gasped, delighted to play herald for so important a tragedy; and he renewed upon his face the ghastly expression with which he had first beheld the ruins his calamitous gesture laid before the eyes of Bibbs. “Look at ’at lamidal statue!”

Gazing down the hall, Bibbs saw heroic wreckage, seemingly Byzantine⁠—painted colossal fragments of the shattered torso, appallingly human; and gilded and silvered heaps of magnificence strewn among ruinous palms like the spoil of a barbarians’ battle. There had been a massacre in the oasis⁠—the Moor had been hurled headlong from his pedestal.

“He hit ’at ole lamidal statue,” said George. “Pow!”

“My father?”

“Yessuh! Pow! he hit ’er! An’ you’ ma run tell me git doctuh quick ’s I kin telefoam⁠—she sho’ you’ pa goin’ bus’ a blood-vessel. He ain’t takin’ on ’tall now. He ain’t nothin’ ’tall to what he was ’while ago. You done miss’ it, Mist’ Bibbs. Doctuh got him all quiet’ down, to what he was. Pow! he hit’er! Yessuh!” He took Bibbs’s coat and proffered a crumpled telegraph form. “Here what come,” he said. “I pick ’er up when he done stompin’ on ’er. You read ’er, Mist’ Bibbs⁠—you’ ma tell me tuhn ’er ovuh to you soon’s you come in.”

Bibbs read the telegram quickly. It was from New York and addressed to Mrs. Sheridan.

Sure you will all approve step have taken as was so wretched my health would probably suffered severely Robert and I were married this afternoon thought best have quiet wedding absolutely sure you will understand wisdom of step when you know Robert better am happiest woman in world are leaving for Florida will wire address when settled will remain till spring love to all father will like him too when knows him like I do he is just ideal.

Edith Lamhorn.

XXVI

George departed, and Bibbs was left gazing upon chaos and listening to thunder. He could not reach the stairway without passing the open doors of the library, and he was convinced that the mere glimpse of him, just then, would prove nothing less than insufferable for his father. For that reason he was about to make his escape into the gold-and-brocade room, intending to keep out of sight, when he heard Sheridan vociferously demanding his presence.

“Tell him to come in here! He’s out there. I heard George just let him in. Now you’ll see!” And tear-stained Mrs. Sheridan, looking out into the hall, beckoned to her son.

Bibbs went as far as the doorway. Gurney sat winding a strip of white cotton, his black bag open upon a chair near by; and Sheridan was striding up and down, his hand so heavily wrapped in fresh bandages that he seemed to be wearing a small boxing-glove. His eyes were bloodshot; his forehead was heavily bedewed; one side of his collar had broken loose, and there were bloodstains upon his right cuff.

“There’s our little sunshine!” he cried, as Bibbs appeared. “There’s the