The Turmoil · Chapter 21 (2/2)

Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously, fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled and rose and cracked⁠—they screeched. They could be heard over the noise of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.

“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to Edith’s. “You told my husband! This man put that in your hands to strike me with! He did!”

“I’ll tell your husband again! I’ll tell him everything I know! It’s time your husband⁠—”

They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors in?” Sheridan thundered.

There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily, his eyes on the ground.

“Now then!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.

The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs. Sheridan. They fled lightly.

“Papa, papa!” wailed Mrs. Sheridan. “Look at your hand! You’d oughtn’t to been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder. Look!”

There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips of the fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling. “Now then!” he repeated. “You goin’ to leave my house?”

“He will not!” sobbed Edith. “Don’t you dare order him out!”

“Don’t you bother, dear,” said Lamhorn, quietly. “He doesn’t understand. You mustn’t be troubled.” Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very handsome, and as he left the room he seemed in the girl’s distraught eyes a persecuted noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his heels⁠—the rabble being enacted by her father.

“Don’t come back, either!” said, Sheridan, realistic in this impersonation. “Keep off the premises!” he called savagely into the hall. “This family’s through with you!”

“It is not!” Edith cried, breaking from her mother. “You’ll see about that! You’ll find out! You’ll find out what’ll happen! What’s he done? I guess if I can stand it, it’s none of your business, is it? What’s he done, I’d like to know? You don’t know anything about it. Don’t you s’pose he told me? She was crazy about him soon as he began going there, and he flirted with her a little. That’s everything he did, and it was before he met me! After that he wouldn’t, and it wasn’t anything, anyway⁠—he never was serious a minute about it. She wanted it to be serious, and she was bound she wouldn’t give him up. He told her long ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and⁠—”

“Yes,” said Sheridan, sternly; “that’s his side of it! That’ll do! He doesn’t come in this house again!”

“You look out!” Edith cried.

“Yes, I’ll look out! I’d ’a’ told you today he wasn’t to be allowed on the premises, but I had other things on my mind. I had Abercrombie look up this young man privately, and he’s no ’count. He’s no ’count on earth! He’s no good! He’s nothin’! But it wouldn’t matter if he was George Washington, after what’s happened and what I’ve heard tonight!”

“But, papa,” Mrs. Sheridan began, “if Edie says it was all Sibyl’s fault, makin’ up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor⁠—”

“ ’S enough!” he roared. “He keeps off these premises! And if any of you so much as ever speak his name to me again⁠—”

But Edith screamed, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the sound of his voice, and ran upstairs, sobbing loudly, followed by her mother. However, Mrs. Sheridan descended a few minutes later and joined her husband in the library. Bibbs, still sitting in his gold chair, saw her pass, roused himself from reverie, and strolled in after her.

“She locked her door,” said Mrs. Sheridan, shaking her head woefully. “She wouldn’t even answer me. There wasn’t a sound from her room.”

“Well,” said her husband, “she can settle her mind to it. She never speaks to that fellow again, and if he tries to telephone her tomorrow⁠—Here! You tell the help if he calls up to ring off and say it’s my orders. No, you needn’t. I’ll tell ’em myself.”

“Better not,” said Bibbs, gently.

His father glared at him.

“It’s no good,” said Bibbs. “Mother, when you were in love with father⁠—”

“My goodness!” she cried. “You ain’t a-goin’ to compare your father to that⁠—”

“Edith feels about him just what you did about father,” said Bibbs. “And if your father had told you⁠—”

“I won’t listen to such silly talk!” she declared, angrily.

“So you’re handin’ out your advice, are you, Bibbs?” said Sheridan. “What is it?”

“Let her see him all she wants.”

“You’re a⁠—” Sheridan gave it up. “I don’t know what to call you!”

“Let her see him all she wants,” Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully. “You’re up against something too strong for you. If Edith were a weakling you’d have a chance this way, but she isn’t. She’s got a lot of your determination, father, and with what’s going on inside of her she’ll beat you. You can’t keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about him the way she does now. You can’t make her think less of him, either. Nobody can. Your only chance is that she’ll do it for herself, and if you give her time and go easy she probably will. Marriage would do it for her quickest, but that’s just what you don’t want, and as you don’t want it, you’d better⁠—”

“I can’t stand any more!” Sheridan burst out. “If it’s come to Bibbs advisin’ me how to run this house I better resign. Mamma, where’s that nigger George? Maybe he’s got some plan how I better manage my family. Bibbs, for God’s sake go and lay down! ‘Let her see him all she wants’! Oh, Lord! here’s wisdom; here’s⁠—”

“Bibbs,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “if you haven’t got anything to do, you might step over and take Sibyl’s wraps home⁠—she left ’em in the hall. I don’t think you seem to quiet your poor father very much just now.”

“All right.” And Bibbs bore Sibyl’s wraps across the street and delivered them to Roscoe, who met him at the door. Bibbs said only, “Forgot these,” and, “Good night, Roscoe,” cordially and cheerfully, and returned to the New House. His mother and father were still talking in the library, but with discretion he passed rapidly on and upward to his own room, and there he proceeded to write in his notebook.