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

Bibbs is older and harder’n what he was when he broke down that time, and besides, he ain’t the kind o’ dreamy way he was then⁠—and I should say he ain’t! I’d like ’em to show me anybody his age that’s any wider awake! But he says Bibbs’s health never need bother us again if⁠—”

Mrs. Sheridan shook her head. “I don’t see any help that way. You know yourself she wouldn’t have Jim.”

“Who’s talkin’ about her havin’ anybody? But, my Lord! she might let him look at her! She needn’t ’a’ got so mad, just because he asked her, that she won’t let him come in the house any more. He’s a mighty funny boy, and some ways I reckon he’s pretty near as hard to understand as the Bible, but Gurney kind o’ got me in the way o’ thinkin’ that if she’d let him come back and set around with her an evening or two sometimes⁠—not reg’lar, I don’t mean⁠—why⁠—Well, I just thought I’d see what you’d think of it. There ain’t any way to talk about it to Bibbs himself⁠—I don’t suppose he’d let you, anyhow⁠—but I thought maybe you could kind o’ slip over there some day, and sort o’ fix up to have a little talk with her, and kind o’ hint around till you see how the land lays, and ask her⁠—”

“Me!” Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. “No.” She shook her head decidedly. “It wouldn’t do any good.”

“You won’t try it?”

“I won’t risk her turnin’ me out o’ the house. Some way, that’s what I believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I can’t⁠—and, what’s more, it’d only make things worse. If people find out you’re runnin’ after ’em they think you’re cheap, and then they won’t do as much for you as if you let ’em alone. I don’t believe it’s any use, and I couldn’t do it if it was.”

He sighed with resignation. “All right, mamma. That’s all.” Then, in a livelier tone, he said: “Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this morning. All healed up. Says I don’t need ’em any more.”

“Why, that’s splendid, papa!” she cried, beaming. “I was afraid⁠—Let’s see.”

She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket. “Wait a minute,” he said, smiling. “Now it may give you just a teeny bit of a shock, but the fact is⁠—well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl came over here and made all that fuss about nothin’⁠—it was the day after I got tired o’ that statue when Edith’s telegram came⁠—”

“Let me see your hand!” she cried.

“Now wait!” he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand. “The truth is, mamma, that I kind o’ slipped out on you that morning, when you wasn’t lookin’, and went down to ole Gurney’s office⁠—he’d told me to, you see⁠—and, well, it doesn’t amount to anything.” And he held out, for her inspection, the mutilated hand. “You see, these days when it’s all dictatin’, anyhow, nobody’d mind just a couple o’⁠—”

He had to jump for her⁠—she went over backward. For the second time in her life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.

XXXII

It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own room, still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat that the fuss she was making irked him far more than his physical loss. He permitted her to think that he meant to return directly to his office, but when he came out to the open air he told the chauffeur in attendance to await him in front of Mr. Vertrees’s house, whither he himself proceeded on foot.

Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as manna in the wilderness; it came from heaven⁠—by what agency he did not particularly question. The broker informed him that “parties were interested in getting hold of the stock,” and that later there might be a possible increase in the value of the large amount retained by his client. It might go “quite a ways up” within a year or so, he said, and he advised “sitting tight” with it. Mr. Vertrees went home and prayed.

He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own again. It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and his wife shared his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her piano, and as for furs⁠—spring was on the way, she said. But they paid the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook once more. It was this servitress who opened the door for Sheridan and presently assured him that Miss Vertrees would “be down.”

He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed and beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the cook. She had a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second, but it vanished at the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes by a soft brilliance, while color rushed in her cheeks.

“Don’t be surprised,” he said. “Truth is, in a way it’s sort of on business I looked in here. It’ll only take a minute, I expect.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mary. “I hoped you’d come because we’re neighbors.”

He chuckled. “Neighbors! Sometimes people don’t see so much o’ their neighbors as they used to. That is, I hear so⁠—lately.”

“You’ll stay long enough to sit down, won’t you?”

“I guess I could manage that much.” And they sat down, facing each other and not far apart.

“Of course, it couldn’t be called business, exactly,” he said, more gravely. “Not at all, I expect. But there’s something o’ yours it seemed to me I ought to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain how I happened to have it. It’s this⁠—this letter you wrote my boy.” He extended the letter to her