Bibbs went home pondering. He did not understand why Sibyl had laughed.
The laughter itself had been spontaneous and beyond suspicion, but it
seemed to him that she had only affected the effort to suppress it and
that she wished it to be significant. Significant of what? And why had
she wished to impress upon him the fact of her overwhelming amusement?
He found no answer, but she had succeeded in disturbing him, and he
wished that he had not encountered her.
At home, uncles, aunts, and cousins from out of town were wandering
about the house, several mournfully admiring the “Bay of Naples,” and
others occupied with the Moor and the plumbing, while they waited for
trains. Edith and her mother had retired to some upper fastness, but
Bibbs interviewed Jackson and had the various groups of relatives
summoned to the dining-room for food. One great-uncle, old Gideon
Sheridan from Boonville, could not be found, and Bibbs went in search of
him. He ransacked the house, discovering the missing antique at last
by accident. Passing his father's closed door on tiptoe, Bibbs heard
a murmurous sound, and paused to listen. The sound proved to be a
quavering and rickety voice, monotonously bleating:
“The Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord takuth away! We got to remember that;
we got to remember that! I'm a-gittin' along, James; I'm a-gittin'
along, and I've seen a-many of 'em go--two daughters and a son the Lord
give me, and He has taken all away. For the Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord
takuth away! Remember the words of Bildad the Shuhite, James. Bildad the
Shuhite says, 'He shall have neither son nor nephew among his people,
nor any remaining in his dwellings.' Bildad the Shuhite--”
Bibbs opened the door softly. His father was lying upon the bed, in
his underclothes, face downward, and Uncle Gideon sat near by, swinging
backward and forward in a rocking-chair, stroking his long white beard
and gazing at the ceiling as he talked. Bibbs beckoned him urgently, but
Uncle Gideon paid no attention.
“Bildad the Shuhite spake and he says, 'If thy children have sinned
against Him and He have cast them away--'”
There was a muffled explosion beneath the floor, and the windows
rattled. The figure lying face downward on the bed did not move, but
Uncle Gideon leaped from his chair. “My God!” he cried. “What's that?”
There came a second explosion, and Uncle Gideon ran out into the hall.
Bibbs went to the head of the great staircase, and, looking down,
discovered the source of the disturbance. Gideon's grandson, a boy
of fourteen, had brought his camera to the funeral and was taking
“flash-lights” of the Moor. Uncle Gideon, reassured by Bibbs's
explanation, would have returned to finish his quotation from Bildad the
Shuhite, but Bibbs detained him, and after a little argument persuaded
him to descend to the dining-room whither Bibbs followed, after closing
the door of his father's room.
He kept his eye on Gideon after dinner, diplomatically preventing
several attempts on the part of that comforter to reascend the stairs;
and it was a relief to Bibbs when George announced that an automobile
was waiting to convey the ancient man and his grandson to their train.
They were the last to leave, and when they had gone Bibbs went sighing
to his own room.
He stretched himself wearily upon the bed, but presently rose, went to
the window, and looked for a long time at the darkened house where
Mary Vertrees lived. Then he opened his trunk, took therefrom a small
note-book half filled with fragmentary scribblings, and began to write:
Laughter after a funeral. In this reaction people will laugh at
anything and at nothing. The band plays a dirge on the way to the
cemetery, but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are
out of hearing, it strikes up, “Darktown is Out To-night.” That
is natural--but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring
of whips. Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil
something hidden away from the laughers? If they do not know of
it, and have never seen it, how can their laughter hurt it? Yet it
does. Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones. It is not
out of place anywhere. But a woman who has been betrothed to a
man would not look beautiful at his funeral. A woman might look
beautiful, though, at the funeral of a man whom she had known and
liked. And in that case, too, she would probably not want to talk
if she drove home from the cemetery with his brother: nor would
she want the brother to talk. Silence is usually either stupid or
timid. But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and
drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to
listen to him, silence is advisable. Nevertheless, too much silence
is open to suspicion. It may be reticence, or it may be a vacuum.
It may be dignity, or it may be false teeth.
Sometimes an imperceptible odor will become perceptible in a small
inclosure, such as a closed carriage. The ghost of gasoline rising
from a lady's glove might be sweeter to the man riding beside her
than all the scents of Arcady in spring. It depends on the lady--
but there ARE! Three miles may be three hundred miles, or it may
be three feet. When it is three feet you have not time to say a
great deal before you reach the end of it. Still, it may be that
one should begin to speak.
No one could help wishing to stay in a world that holds some of
the people that are in this world. There are some so wonderful
you do not understand how the dead COULD die. How could they let
themselves? A falling building does not care who falls with it.
It does not choose who shall be upon its roof and who shall not.
Silence CAN be golden? Yes. But perhaps if a woman of the world
should find herself by accident sitting beside a man for the length
of time it must necessarily take two slow old horses to jog three
miles, she might expect that man to say something of some sort!
Even if she thought him a feeble hypochondriac, even if she had
heard from others that he was a disappointment to his own people,
even if she had seen for herself that he was a useless and
irritating encumbrance everywhere, she might expect him at least
to speak--she might expect him to open his mouth and try to make
sounds, if he only barked. If he did not even try, but sat every
step of the way as dumb as a frozen fish, she might THINK him a
frozen fish. And she might be right. She might be right if she
thought him about as pleasant a companion as--as Bildad the Shuhite!
Bibbs closed his note-book, replacing it in his trunk. Then, after a
period of melancholy contemplation, he undressed, put on a dressing-gown
and slippers, and went softly out into the hall--to his father's door.
Upon the floor was a tray which Bibbs had sent George, earlier in the
evening, to place upon a table in Sheridan's room--but the food was
untouched. Bibbs stood listening outside the door for several minutes.
There came no sound from within, and he went back to his own room and to
bed.
In the morning he woke to a state of being hitherto unknown in his
experience. Sometimes in the process of waking there is a little
pause--sleep has gone, but coherent thought has not begun. It is
a curious half-void, a glimpse of aphasia; and although the person
experiencing it may not know for that instant his own name or age or
sex, he may be acutely conscious of depression or elation. It is the
moment, as we say, before we “remember”; and for the first time in
Bibbs's life it came to him bringing a vague happiness. He woke to a
sense of new riches; he had the feeling of a boy waking to a birthday.
But when the next moment brought him his memory, he found nothing that
could explain his exhilaration. On the contrary, under the circumstances
it seemed grotesquely unwarranted. However, it was a brief visitation
and was gone before he had finished dressing. It left a little trail,
the pleased recollection of it and the puzzle of it, which remained
unsolved. And, in fact, waking happily in the morning is not usually
the result of a drive home from a funeral. No wonder the sequence evaded
Bibbs Sheridan!
His father had gone when he came down-stairs. “Went on down to 's
office, jes' same,” Jackson informed him. “Came sat breakfas'-table, all
by 'mself; eat nothin'. George bring nice breakfas', but he di'n' eat
a thing. Yessuh, went on down-town, jes' same he yoosta do. Yessuh, I
reckon putty much ev'y-thing goin' go on same as it yoosta do.”
It struck Bibbs that Jackson was right. The day passed as other days had
passed. Mrs. Sheridan and Edith were in black, and Mrs. Sheridan cried
a little, now and then, but no other external difference was to be
seen. Edith was quiet, but not noticeably depressed, and at lunch proved
herself able to argue with her mother upon the propriety of receiving
calls in the earliest stages of “mourning.” Lunch was as usual--for Jim
and his father had always lunched down-town--and the afternoon was as
usual. Bibbs went for his drive, and his mother went with him, as she
sometimes did when the weather was pleasant. Altogether, the usualness
of things was rather startling to Bibbs.
During the drive Mrs. Sheridan talked fragmentarily of Jim's childhood.
“But you wouldn't remember about that,” she said, after narrating an
episode. “You were too little. He was always a good boy, just like that.
And he'd save whatever papa gave him, and put it in the bank. I reckon
it'll just about kill your father to put somebody in his place as
president of the Realty Company, Bibbs. I know he can't move Roscoe
over; he told me last week he'd already put as much on Roscoe as any
one man could handle and not go crazy. Oh, it's a pity--” She stopped
to wipe her eyes. “It's a pity you didn't run more with Jim, Bibbs, and
kind o' pick up his ways. Think what it'd meant to papa now! You never
did run with either Roscoe or Jim any, even before you got sick. Of
course, you were younger; but it always DID seem queer--and you three
bein' brothers like that. I don't believe I ever saw you and Jim sit
down together for a good talk in my life.”
“Mother, I've been away so long,” Bibbs returned, gently. “And since I
came home I--”
“Oh, I ain't reproachin' you, Bibbs,” she said. “Jim ain't been home
much of an evening since you got back--what with his work and callin'
and goin' to the theater and places, and often not even at the house for
dinner. Right the evening before he got hurt he had his dinner at some
miser'ble rest'rant down by the Pump Works, he was so set on overseein'
the night work and gettin' everything finished up right to the minute he
told papa he would. I reckon you might 'a' put in more time with Jim if
there'd been more opportunity, Bibbs. I expect you feel almost as if you
scarcely really knew him right well.”
“I suppose I really didn't, mother. He was busy, you see, and I hadn't
much to say about the things that interested him, because I don't know
much about them.”
“It's a pity! Oh, it's a pity!” she moaned. “And you'll have to learn to
know about 'em NOW, Bibbs! I haven't said much to you, because I felt it
was all between your father and you, but I honestly do believe it will
just kill him if he has to have any more trouble on top of all this!
You mustn't LET him, Bibbs--you mustn't! You don't know how he's grieved
over you, and now he can't stand any more--he just can't! Whatever he
says for you to do, you DO it, Bibbs, you DO it! I want you to promise
me you will.”
“I would if I could,” he said, sorrowfully.
“No, no! Why can't you?” she cried, clutching his arm. “He wants you to
go back to the machine-shop and--”
“And--'like it'!” said Bibbs.
“Yes, that's it--to go in a cheerful spirit. Dr. Gurney said it wouldn't
hurt you if you went in a cheerful spirit--the doctor said that himself,
Bibbs. So why can't you do it? Can't you do that much for your father?
You ought to think what he's done for YOU. You got a beautiful house
to live in; you got automobiles to ride in; you got fur coats and warm
clothes; you been taken care of all your life. And you don't KNOW how
he worked for the money to give all these things to you! You don't DREAM
what he had to go through and what he risked when we were startin' out
in life; and you never WILL know! And now this blow has fallen on him
out of a clear sky, and you make it out to be a hardship to do like he
wants you to! And all on earth he asks is for you to go back to the work
in a cheerful spirit, so it won't hurt you! That's all he asks. Look,
Bibbs, we're gettin' back near home, but before we get there I want you
to promise me that you'll do what he asks you to. Promise me!”
In her earnestness she cleared away her black veil that she might see
him better, and it blew out on the smoky wind. He readjusted it for her
before he spoke.
“I'll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother,” he said.
“There!” she exclaimed, satisfied. “That's a good boy! That's all I
wanted you to say.”
“Don't give me any credit,” he said, ruefully. “There isn't anything
else for me to do.”
“Now, don't begin talkin' THAT way!”
“No, no,” he soothed her. “We'll have to begin to make the spirit a
cheerful one. We may--” They were turning into their own driveway as
he spoke, and he glanced at the old house next door. Mary Vertrees was
visible in the twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the
door open behind her. She bowed gravely.
“'We may'--what?” asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.
“What is it, mother?”
“You said, 'We may,' and didn't finish what you were sayin'.”
“Did I?” said Bibbs, blankly. “Well, what WERE we saying?”
“Of all the queer boys!” she cried. “You always were. Always! You
haven't forgot what you just promised me, have you?”
“No,” he answered, as the car stopped. “No, the spirit will be as
cheerful as the flesh will let it, mother. It won't do to behave like--”
His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she
failed to hear his final words.
“Behave like who, Bibbs?”
“Nothing.”
But she was fretful in her grief. “You said it wouldn't do to behave
like SOMEBODY. Behave like WHO?”
“It was just nonsense,” he explained, turning to go in. “An obscure
person I don't think much of lately.”
“Behave like WHO?” she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant
insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell
Dr. Gurney about it.
“Like Bildad the Shuhite!” was what Bibbs said.