The Turmoil Part 43

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 a.s.sured 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 solemnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently from him. "It was in his mail, after he was hurt.

You knew he never got it, I expect."

"Yes," she said, in a low voice.

He sighed. "I'm glad he didn't. Not," he added, quickly--"not but what you did just right to send it. You did. You couldn't acted any other way when it came right down TO it. There ain't any blame comin' to you--you were above-board all through."

Mary said, "Thank you," almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

"You'll have to excuse me for readin' it. I had to take charge of all his mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it all--once I got started."

"I'm glad you did."

"Well"--he leaned forward as if to rise--"I guess that's about all. I just thought you ought to have it."

"Thank you for bringing it."

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

"Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office," he said, rising desperately. "I told--I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock, and I guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind time. I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days--with THAT fellow keepin' tabs on me!"

Mary rose with him. "I've always heard YOU were the hard driver."

He guffawed derisively. "Me? I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine. You couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o' the job. I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some day, and run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is--once he goes AT a thing!"

"No," she smiled. "I didn't know you had a partner. I'd always heard--"

He laughed, looking away from her. "It's just my way o' speakin' o' that boy o' mine, Bibbs."

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, "How IS Bibbs?" but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became embarra.s.sing.

"Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there," he said, at last. "He might worry."

"Good-by--and thank you," said Mary.

"For what?"

"For the letter."

"Oh," he said, blankly. "You're welcome. Good-by."

Mary put out her hand. "Good-by."

"You'll have to excuse my left hand," he said. "I had a little accident to the other one."

She gave a pitying cry as she saw. "Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!"

"Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow." He laughed jovially. "Did anybody tell you how it happened?"

"I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how."

"It was this way," he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again. "You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o' my boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim--that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o'

these days--if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o'

sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc Gurney--I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy--"

"Yes."

"Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I wouldn't listen, and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and I didn't. Made me so mad I just wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o' radical measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too. Don't you think so, Miss Vertrees?"

"Yes."

"Yes, he is so!" Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and gossip with all day on his hands. "Take him on Bibbs's case. I was talkin' about Bibbs's case with him this morning. Well, you'd laugh to hear the way ole Gurney talks about THAT! 'Course he IS just as much a friend as he is doctor--and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if--well, this is what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there, Miss Vertrees--honest it would!" He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and--visibly--she was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only a joke he shared with her. "Yes, sir, you certainly would 'a' laughed!

Why, that ole man thinks YOU got something to do with it. You'll have to blame it on him, young lady, if it makes you feel like startin' out to whip somebody! He's actually got THIS theory: he says Bibbs got to gettin' better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept him cheered up and feelin' good. And he says if you could manage to just stand him hangin' around a little--maybe not much, but just SOMEtimes--again, he believed it'd do Bibbs a mighty lot o' good.

'Course, that's only what the doctor said. Me, I don't know anything about that; but I can say this much--I never saw any such a MENTAL improvement in anybody in my life as I have lately in Bibbs. I expect you'd find him a good deal more entertaining than what he used to be--and I know it's a kind of embarra.s.sing thing to suggest after the way he piled in over here that day to ask you to stand up before the preacher with him, but accordin' to ole Doc GURNEY, he's got you on his brain so bad--"

Mary jumped. "Mr. Sheridan!" she exclaimed.

He sighed profoundly. "There! I noticed you were gettin' mad. I didn't--"

"No, no, no!" she cried. "But I don't understand--and I think you don't.

What is it you want me to do?"

He sighed again, but this time with relief. "Well, well!" he said.

"You're right. It'll be easier to talk plain. I ought to known I could with you, all the time. I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you sometimes, once more. Could you?"

"You don't understand." She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful gesture. "Yes, we must talk plain. Bibbs heard that I'd tried to make your oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came and asked me to marry him--because he was sorry for me. And I CAN'T see him any more," she cried in distress. "I CAN'T!"

Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You mean because he thought that about you?"

"No, no! What he thought was TRUE!"

"Well--you mean he was so much in--you mean he thought so much of you--"

The words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue; he seemed to be in doubt even about p.r.o.nouncing them, but after a ghastly pause he bravely repeated them. "You mean he thought so much of you that you just couldn't stand him around?"