Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the cemetery, three
days later, Bibbs unwillingly let an old, old thought become definite
in his mind: the sickly brother had buried the strong brother, and Bibbs
wondered how many million times that had happened since men first made a
word to name the sons of one mother. Almost literally he had buried his
strong brother, for Sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead
son. He had nothing to help him meet the shock, neither definite
religion nor “philosophy” definite or indefinite. He could only beat his
forehead and beg, over and over, to be killed with an ax, while his wife
was helpless except to entreat him not to “take on,” herself adding a
continuous lamentation. Edith, weeping, made truce with Sibyl and saw to
it that the mourning garments were beyond criticism. Roscoe was dazed,
and he shirked, justifying himself curiously by saying he “never had
any experience in such matters.” So it was Bibbs, the shy outsider, who
became, during this dreadful little time, the master of the house; for
as strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death. He
met the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time
for the funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and
he selected Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other
things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the
rites with a picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs
wished to avoid this, but upon reflection he offered no objection--he
divined that the Knights and their service would be not precisely a
consolation, but a satisfaction to his father. So the Knights led the
procession, with their band playing a dirge part of the long way to the
cemetery; and then turned back, after forming in two lines, plumed
hats sympathetically in hand, to let the hearse and the carriages pass
between.
“Mighty fine-lookin' men,” said Sheridan, brokenly. “They all--all liked
him. He was--” His breath caught in a sob and choked him. “He was--a
Grand Supreme Herald.”
Bibbs had divined aright.
“Dust to dust,” said the minister, under the gaunt trees; and at that
Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot. All of the black group
shivered, except Bibbs, when it came to “Dust to dust.” Bibbs stood
passive, for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a
familiar neighbor; he had been close upon dust himself for a long, long
time, and even now he could prophesy no protracted separation between
himself and dust. The machine-shop had brought him very close, and if
he had to go back it would probably bring him closer still; so close--as
Dr. Gurney predicted--that no one would be able to tell the difference
between dust and himself. And Sheridan, if Bibbs read him truly, would
be all the more determined to “make a man” of him, now that there was
a man less in the family. To Bibbs's knowledge, no one and nothing had
ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans, once he had
determined upon them; and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any
plan of his would not work out according to his calculations. His nature
unfitted him to accept failure. He had the gift of terrible persistence,
and with unflecked confidence that his way was the only way he would
hold to that way of “making a man” of Bibbs, who understood very well,
in his passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a way which might
make, not a man, but dust of him. But he had no shudder for the thought.
He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought. The
truth about Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so
thoroughly formed the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that
no doubt he had forgotten--by this time--where he had put some of them,
especially those which concerned himself. But he had not hidden his
feelings about his father where they could not be found. He was strange
to his father, but his father was not strange to him. He knew that
Sheridan's plans were conceived in the stubborn belief that they would
bring about a good thing for Bibbs himself; and whatever the result was
to be, the son had no bitterness. Far otherwise, for as he looked at the
big, woeful figure, shaking and tortured, an almost unbearable pity laid
hands upon Bibbs's throat. Roscoe stood blinking, his lip quivering;
Edith wept audibly; Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half collapse against her
husband; but Bibbs knew that his father was the one who cared.
It was over. Men in overalls stepped forward with their shovels, and
Bibbs nodded quickly to Roscoe, making a slight gesture toward the line
of waiting carriages. Roscoe understood--Bibbs would stay and see the
grave filled; the rest were to go. The groups began to move away over
the turf; wheels creaked on the graveled drive; and one by one the
carriages filled and departed, the horses setting off at a walk. Bibbs
gazed steadfastly at the workmen; he knew that his father kept looking
back as he went toward the carriage, and that was a thing he did not
want to see. But after a little while there were no sounds of wheels
or hoofs on the gravel, and Bibbs, glancing up, saw that every one had
gone. A coupe had been left for him, the driver dozing patiently.
The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about
it, and Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood
looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming
hillock beneath the darkening November sky. “It's too bad!” he half
whispered, his lips forming the words--and his meaning was that it was
too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go. For this was
his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertrees
standing, all alone, on the other side of the drive.
She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a
slope where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude of the
barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards:
urn-crowned columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-carved angels and
shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts, all lifting--in
unthought pathos--their blind stoniness toward the sky. Against such
a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so
long and slender, and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the
undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the
box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without
hope and without regret. But for Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque
setting--she was a vivid, living creature of a beautiful world. And a
graveyard is not the place for people to look charming.
She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and
confused than Bibbs. In “Edith's” poem he had declared his intention of
hiding his heart “among the stars”; and in his boyhood one day he had
successfully hidden his body in the coal-pile. He had been no comrade
of other boys or of girls, and his acquaintances of a recent period were
only a few fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood Sanitarium. All
his life Bibbs had kept himself to himself--he was but a shy onlooker in
the world. Nevertheless, the startled gaze he bent upon the
unexpected lady before him had causes other than his shyness and her
unexpectedness. For Mary Vertrees had been a shining figure in the
little world of late given to the view of this humble and elusive
outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts beating faster than
those of the actors in the spectacle. Thus with Bibbs now. He started
and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness, his fingers
fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim.
“Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, “I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with
you. I--” She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own.
“Why--why--yes,” Bibbs stammered. “I'll--I'll be de--Won't you get in?”
In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words. Then
Mary without more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed, closing
the door.
“You're very kind,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “I should have had
to walk, and it's beginning to get dark. It's three miles, I think.”
“Yes,” said Bibbs. “It--it is beginning to get dark. I--I noticed that.”
“I ought to tell you--I--” Mary began, confusedly. She bit her lip, sat
silent a moment, then spoke with composure. “It must seem odd, my--”
“No, no!” Bibbs protested, earnestly. “Not in the--in the least.”
“It does, though,” said Mary. “I had not intended to come to the
cemetery, Mr. Sheridan, but one of the men in charge at the house came
and whispered to me that 'the family wished me to'--I think your sister
sent him. So I came. But when we reached here I--oh, I felt that perhaps
I--”
Bibbs nodded gravely. “Yes, yes,” he murmured.
“I got out on the opposite side of the carriage,” she continued. “I mean
opposite from--from where all of you were. And I wandered off over in
the other direction; and I didn't realize how little time it takes.
From where I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving--at least I didn't
notice them. So when I got back, just now, you were the only one here.
I didn't know the other people in the carriage I came in, and of course
they didn't think to wait for me. That's why--”
“Yes,” said Bibbs, “I--” And that seemed all he had to say just then.
Mary looked out through the dusty window. “I think we'd better be going
home, if you please,” she said.
“Yes,” Bibbs agreed, not moving. “It will be dark before we get there.”
She gave him a quick little glance. “I think you must be very tired,
Mr. Sheridan; and I know you have reason to be,” she said, gently. “If
you'll let me, I'll--” And without explaining her purpose she opened the
door on her side of the coupe and leaned out.
Bibbs started in blank perplexity, not knowing what she meant to do.
“Driver!” she called, in her clear voice, loudly. “Driver! We'd like to
start, please! Driver! Stop at the house just north of Mr. Sheridan's,
please.” The wheels began to move, and she leaned back beside Bibbs
once more. “I noticed that he was asleep when we got in,” she said. “I
suppose they have a great deal of night work.”
Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.
“I've never been able to apologize quickly,” he said, with his
accustomed slowness, “because if I try to I stammer. My brother Roscoe
whipped me once, when we were boys, for stepping on his slate-pencil.
It took me so long to tell him it was an accident, he finished before I
did.”
Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling, gentle
voice or the odd implication that his not noticing the motionless state
of their vehicle was an “accident.” She had formed a casual impression
of him, not without sympathy, but at once she discovered that he was
unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings of him. And suddenly she
saw a picture he had not intended to paint for sympathy: a sturdy boy
hammering a smaller, sickly boy, and the sickly boy unresentful. Not
that picture alone; others flashed before her. Instantaneously she had a
glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his life. She had a queer feeling, new
to her experience, of knowing him instantly. It startled her a little;
and then, with some surprise, she realized that she was glad he had sat
so long, after getting into the coupe, before he noticed that it had
not started. What she did not realize, however, was that she had made
no response to his apology, and they passed out of the cemetery gates,
neither having spoken again.
Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was
silence. The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled with a
rich presence for him; and presently it was so dark that neither of the
two could see the other, nor did even their garments touch. But neither
had any sense of being alone. The wheels creaked steadily, rumbling
presently on paved streets; there were the sounds, as from a distance,
of the plod-plod of the horses; and sometimes the driver became audible,
coughing asthmatically, or saying, “You, JOE!” with a spiritless flap of
the whip upon an unresponsive back. Oblongs of light from the lamps
at street-corners came swimming into the interior of the coupe and,
thinning rapidly to lances, passed utterly, leaving greater darkness.
And yet neither of these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral
broke the silence.
It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late. Abruptly she
realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of her
companion and not talking to him. “Mr. Sheridan,” she began, not knowing
what she was going to say, but impelled to say anything, as she realized
the queerness of this drive--“Mr. Sheridan, I--”
The coupe stopped. “You, JOE!” said the driver, reproachfully, and
climbed down and opened the door.
“What's the trouble?” Bibbs inquired.
“Lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan's, sir.”
Mary was incredulous; she felt that it couldn't be true and that it
mustn't be true that they had driven all the way without speaking.
“What?” Bibbs demanded.
“We're there, sir,” said the driver, sympathetically. “Next house north
of Mr. Sheridan's.”
Bibbs descended to the curb. “Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, you seem to
be right.” And while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front
windows of Mr. Vertrees's house Mary got out, unassisted.
“Let me help you,” said Bibbs, stepping toward her mechanically; and she
was several feet from the coupe when he spoke.
“Oh no,” she murmured. “I think I can--” She meant that she could get
out of the coupe without help, but, perceiving that she had already
accomplished this feat, she decided not to complete the sentence.
“You, JOE!” cried the driver, angrily, climbing to his box. And he
rumbled away at his team's best pace--a snail's.
“Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, stiffly. She
did not offer her hand. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked
beside her to the door. Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.
Realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her,
beginning to shock her; she stepped aside from the light that fell
through the glass panels of the door and withheld her hand as it touched
the old-fashioned bell-handle.
“I'm quite safe, thank you,” she said, with a little emphasis. “Good
night.”
“Good night,” said Bibbs, and went obediently. When he reached the
street he looked back, but she had vanished within the house.
Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out
from the pavement to cross the street. They were Roscoe and his wife.
“Where are your eyes, Bibbs?” demanded Roscoe. “Sleep-walking, as
usual?”
But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm. “Come over to our house for a
little while, Bibbs,” she urged. “I want to--”
“No, I'd better--”
“Yes. I want you to. Your father's gone to bed, and they're all quiet
over there--all worn out. Just come for a minute.”
He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with
real feeling: “'All worn out!' Well, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs! And
I don't wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it. You mustn't get
down sick again. I'm going to make you take a little brandy.”
He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and
was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the
decanters on the sideboard. Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much
heavier libation in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl
leaned against the sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and
recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths. She pressed
Bibbs to remain longer when he rose to go, and then, as he persisted,
she went with him to the front door. He opened it, and she said:
“Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses' house when we met you.
How did you happen to be there?”
“I had only been to the door,” he said. “Good night, Sibyl.”
“Wait,” she insisted. “We saw you coming out.”
“I wasn't,” he explained, moving to depart. “I'd just brought Miss
Vertrees home.”
“What?” she cried.
“Yes,” he said, and stepped out upon the porch, “that was it. Good
night, Sibyl.”
“Wait!” she said, following him across the threshold. “How did that
happen? I thought you were going to wait while those men filled
the--the--” She paused, but moved nearer him insistently.
“I did wait. Miss Vertrees was there,” he said, reluctantly. “She
had walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were
leaving. When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one
left.”
Sibyl regarded him with dilating eyes. She spoke with a slow
breathlessness. “And she drove home from Jim's funeral--with you!”
Without warning she burst into laughter, clapped her hand ineffectually
over her mouth, and ran back uproariously into the house, hurling the
door shut behind her.