The Turnbulls

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Then she took her mother by the arms and shook her furiously. “Mama, I’ll bring help. Go to Papa. Now. Tell him to wait. Just an hour. Just half an hour. I’ll bring some one here who will convince him, help him!”

  Lilybelle stared at her, overcome with terror. But she did not move. Her loving instinct screamed aloud in her heart. Her great round eyes glittered affrightedly in the feeble light of the single lamp on a distant table. She caught Adelaide’s hands.

  “Lovey, you can’t go out of this house. Not tonight. You must go to bed, and your Mama will undress you and send for the doctor.” Her voice was broken, wheedling, as she attempted to push the girl back into the room. “Come to your Mama, my little lamb. Mama will take care of you. Tomorrow, when you’re better, we’ll both talk to your Papa.”

  But Adelaide had become a thin shaft of steel in her hands. The girl spoke softly and inflexibly: “Mama, you don’t understand. Tomorrow will be too late. I’ve got to go now.” The light from the corridor shone on her face, and fresh terror overwhelmed Lilybelle, fresh and paralysing alarm.

  Adelaide’s eyes darted beyond Lilybelle. They were away from the threshold now. With a swift and sinuous movement, Adelaide twisted under her mother’s arm, and then bounded from the room. Lilybelle, after one despairing cry, listened to the girl’s light and racing footsteps retreating down the stairway.

  She tried to follow, shouting aloud. But she had hardly reached the second landing with her lumbering and trembling tread, than she heard the great heavy street door open and shut with a loud crash.

  Now all her strength left her. She was compelled to lower her massive body on the stairs. She shivered over and over. She wrapped her arms about her knees, and a vast sickness flowed over her. She saw below her the wide hall, brightly lighted, the oak and crimson chairs lined against the walls, the paintings in their gilt frames, the lighter crimson of the carpet. There was no sound. Now the immense and lighted emptiness took on a strange and awful quality to her, static and breathless. Every object, every chair, every edge of gilt on the paintings, every lamp on long oaken tables between the chairs, every downward sweep of the stairway below her, acquired a dreadful and waiting life of its own.

  Now she heard the poignant ticking of the great grandfather’s clock under the angle of the stairway below her. It was a mechanical and gloating voice, indifferent, merciless and savage. She heard it as the bereaved hear it, and each tick struck upon her heart like a lash. She put her hands to her ears and moaned. She rolled her head from side to side. Her enormous body was a million porous openings from which suffering and anguish poured forth, and voiceless grief.

  She saw the carved molding of the door through which Adelaide had fled, and it was like the door through which a beloved corpse had been carried, never to be seen again. She had all the sensatory powers of those to whom thought is a stranger, and the door, as she gazed at it, took on the aspect of finality, the aspect of a stone covering the opening of a sepulcher. Her heart seemed to stream from a thousand wounds, draining the life from her.

  She did not know she was weeping. But the bodice of her brown dress was dark with a slowly spreading moisture. She wept as the bereaved weep, hopelessly, unknowingly, the salt of her tears carrying with it the final resignation of those who can endure no more.

  She thought only in symbols, in impressions and emotions. Now it appeared to her that all her life had been focussed towards this moment of loss and desolation, of agony and giving-up. It had been turned to this moment when the dear thing she had loved was gone through an impassable door into darkness, and beyond recall. There had been no meaning to her life but sorrow. That one fact was like a shining sword held before her in complete emptiness. All the years had gone into the formation of this sword which had finally entered into her heart and had transfixed it forever.

  She did not know how long she sat there, enduring and motionless. But all at once she heard the distant pealing of a bell, and then the soft quick tread of a servant approaching the street door below. She saw it open. A little wizened man briskly entered, carrying a dispatch case. She watched, with distended eyes, as the servant took cane, coat and hat, heard, as one hears an echo, the quick exchange of greetings and directions.

  The servant disappeared. The little man, with the weasel face of the astute and the slyly ruthless, began to ascend the stairway. He did not see Lilybelle until he was actually upon her. Then he started quite violently.

  For she was a very strange sight indeed, this big fat woman with the bodice of her gown wet as if soaked in water, her faded mass of auburn hair dishevelled about her great livid face, her eyes streaming. Cold and withered though he was, he saw and felt the tragedy in her posture, her aspect. He saw strange bright eyes fixed upon him, flaccid lips, crouching attitude.

  He fell back a step. “Mrs. Turnbull!” he exclaimed, and he glanced behind him with a curious alarm.

  She moved then, and all her movements were implicit with a mortal weariness. Her voice came to him, without resonance, dull and heavy. “Mr. Blakely.”

  He stood and stared at her, overcome with the oddness of all this. He had seen her but seldom, and had taken little heed of her. To him, she was a dull and stupid woman, aging and useless, not quite the wife for Mr. John Turnbull. His brows knitted. What was he to do? She blocked his way with her solid sprawling limbs and body. It was absurd. Then he had a thought. Was Turnbull ill, dying, that he had been sent for with such urgency? Some changes in the will, perhaps? No doubt this was correct. This enormous bloated woman, this figure of stupid and shapeless tragedy, was a creature about to be widowed. But why was there no one about to guide him, no sound, nothing but this woman staring at him out of some blackness of her own?

  He composed his features, cleared his throat. “Mr. Turnbull?” he said, delicately, in a thin sad tone. “It is not so very bad, is it?”

  She did not answer. She only looked at him. And then it appeared to him that within those swollen and streaming eyes a bright spark of light began to glitter. She stretched up her large arm to him and caught his wrist. He felt her sudden and frantic strength. She glanced up and behind her, with a hunted expression, which, as it returned to him, had a slyness and secrecy about it.

  She began to whisper, and he had to bend his head to hear the fumbling and hissing words that came through her shaking lips.

  “Go away, Mr. Blakely. Mr. T. doesn’t want you. He wants you to go away. I—I’ve waited for you. It’s all done, Mr. Blakely.”

  She heaved herself to her feet, and swayed. He had an instant’s fright that that immense bulk would fall upon him and he tried to step aside. But she retained her grip on his bony wrist, and looked down upon him. Now she was urgent, frenzied, hurried.

  “Good night, Mr. Blakely,” she said, and she pushed downwards upon him, so that he fell back, and had to grip the balustrade to keep from falling. He looked up at her, and she appeared even larger to him than she was, menacing, frightful, and even her fatness had in it a sinister meaning and mountainous power.

  But he had a courage of his own. He stood his ground. “Mrs. Turnbull, ma’am, Mr. Turnbull sent for me less than an hour ago. It was very urgent. I must come at once. I will see him for just a moment—”

  “Good night, Mr. Blakely,” she repeated, as if she had not heard. She smiled. There was something terrible to him in that smile. Something more than a little mad, and frenetic. Confusedly he wondered if he should shout, bring help. He was being pushed downwards on the steps, and she was following him, holding his wrist so firmly that he heard the bones creaking in her hand. In a moment he would be on the last step. He felt there was something nightmarish, inexplicable, in all this.

  The whole damned house was so silent, so still. He heard the ticking of the clock. He saw the lighted hall just below him. He saw the shadows of the light on the towering wall to his left, the shimmering gilt of the balustrade which he was gripping with his free hand. And above him, this horrible, this swelling and gigantic w
oman, pushing him down.

  Then, blessedly, he heard a door open on the upper hall, saw a gush of light, heard an impatient masculine voice. John’s voice. Mr. Blakely was so relieved that he burst into hot sweat.

  “Mr. Turnbull!” he shouted. “It’s me, Blakely! I’ll be up directly!”

  He felt the grip on his wrist slackening. He looked up at Lilybelle. She appeared to be dissolving. She shrank back, as if lashed. She thrust her body against the wall. Mr. Blakely, with one bound, was past her. He rushed up the stairs as if all hell was at his heels. Only at the top did he pause.

  Lilybelle’s body was in shadow. Her face was only a large shapeless form. But her eyes glowed, incandescent, as if lighted with a fire of their own, as they stared up after him. And even he saw their terror, their despair, their hopelessness.

  Shrugging, shivering a little, her raced down the hallway to John’s room.

  CHAPTER 51

  Mr. Hiram Blakely was convinced that there was something extremely peculiar in the whole situation. However, his advice was not requested. It seemed to him somewhat indiscreet that John Turnbull should so lavishly grant power of attorney to his daughters’ husbands, and with such haste and lack of careful thought. Had he been able to attain John’s ear, he would have murmured a suggestion that these new powers be bestowed only until such time as he returned to his business, and that they were to terminate on that very instant. But there was an air of disorder and chaos in John’s apartments tonight, of noise and confusion. Mr. Blakely shook his head slowly, and pursed his lips. He did not like the crackling atmosphere about the two young gentlemen. No doubt they were estimable and trustworthy—certainly. Otherwise, John Turnbull would never have allowed himself to sign such a paper without glancing at the contents. But it was unheard of that a man should be so hasty, so noisy, so boisterous, and blind to the possibility of quite a number of contingencies. Recklessness, to Mr. Blakely, was the supreme vice in business. Now, if he could have had John’s ear, he would have suggested a sober meeting in his law offices, among his associates, and a long discussion, hedged about by wherefores and whereases, all iron-clad, all safe and orderly. There was no common sense in putting all that power into another man’s hands, no matter how closely attached to one. Witnesses, foolscap paper, long documents, files and leather-bound briefs might all be tedious, but they had saved many a man from folly and ruin.

  But, within a very few moments the clever Mr. Blakely clearly saw that the young gentlemen had no intention of allowing him to gain John’s private ear. He felt conspiracy in the room. Each time that he lifted the ominous paper, cleared his throat, and with a gnarled finger was about to point out to the loud and riotous John some sinister implication in a phrase, the young gentlemen would “surge” about the little lawyer, and talk very rapidly and confusingly, appealing to John about the most irrelevant things, laughing, filling his glass (which had been filled too often and too significantly in Mr. Blakely’s opinion), and slapping his back with the utmost affection. They did not trust Mr. Blakely, it was very evident.

  This was all very improper, even alarming. He recalled Lilybelle waiting on the stairs, and frowned. He cleared his throat again, then met Rufus’ slit of a green eye. There was some warning, there, but fellowship and promise, also. Mr. Blakely tapped on the shining table before him, frowned again.

  He had thought he had come to make some changes in the will of a sick or dying man. Well, it was very evident that Mr. Turnbull was ill, perhaps mortally so. Mr. Blakely had never cared for Mr. Turnbull, personally. A reckless, heedless, violent chap, with business genius, perhaps, but no business head. The kind of feller that was dangerous. Business, like the mills of the gods, should grind slowly and ponderously, but grind exceeding small. John never ground. He exploded in the mills, set all the wheels to whirling rapidly and with tremendous row, his vitality infusing a kind of delirium into all proceedings. Not proper in the least. It showed a serious lack of respect for the machinery of business. Mr. Blakely did not like buccaneers. They generally resembled Roman rockets, spraying the air all about them with sparks, fire and detonations. Then they fizzled out into blackness, or worse, ignited more sober structures and blew them up in the general ruin.

  Well, Mr. Blakely had heard whispers, of course. Winds of rumour and conjecture blew all up and down Wall Street. He had heard that Jay Regan (whom Mr. Blakely revered as he had never revered God) was seriously concerned with Mr. Turnbull’s wildness, lack of forethought, and the probable collapse of his enterprises. Rumour said that Mr. Turnbull was very ill, that he was mad, that he no longer appeared to know what he was doing, that he had become excessively violent and explosive, and then had habits of sinking into black despondencies and silences during which he seemed drugged or stupefied. Mr. Blakely had a theory that Mr. Turnbull drank too much. Men who drank should not be allowed to build the business structure of a nation. Pioneering, buccaneering, vividness and recklessness were no longer necessary in America. The dynamite had blown out the holes for the foundations, but now sober bricklayers and carpenters were needed to erect the solid buildings where commerce and trade and finance could be carried on reasonably and with respectability, and by men in quiet garments and watch-chains, with beards and noble paunches.

  He studied John, who was signing the papers with a hand visibly trembling. A sick man; a terribly sick man. A mad man. Yes, there was no doubt he had become mad, in a riotous, noisy, incoherent kind of way. Those sunken delirious eyes, that congested colour, that twitching mouth, the eyelids jerking, veins beating in the dark forehead under the streaked black curls: all these were the signs of a man on the edge of collapse, of raving, of delirium.

  Mr. Blakely, who was a stern teetotaler, was convinced that John owed all this to his excessive drinking. Who ever heard of a drunkard in business! The very idea was obscene to Mr. Blakely. John’s bouts of constant drinking were no news on Wall Street. He had become so quarrelsome, so unreasonable, so violent, that all avoided him who could.

  Well, then, reflected Mr. Blakely, perhaps all this was for the best. He regarded Rufus acutely. Yes, this one would become the proper business man. Perhaps a trifle too elegant, too refined. But there was steel there, too, yes, indeed. A schemer and a liar, it was said, a vicious feller. But no fool. And, in Mr. Blakely’s opinion, a man who was not a fool was halfway to heaven. As for Mr. Brogan there, grinning, sipping at his glass, his little bright blue eyes darting everywhere restlessly as if something prevented them from focussing, Mr. Blakely did not trust him at all. But this distrust had nothing to do with personality. It was just that here was another man similar to Mr. Turnbull. Mr. Brogan was an Irishman, and every one knew that Irishmen could not be relied upon, that they were wild and unpredictable, untrustworthy and rascals, vivid and expedient. Mr. Blakely had nothing against expediency, but he preferred the colder and more thoughtful expediency of Mr. Hastings. The Irish expediency was delirious, also, and explosive. It was said that Mr. Turnbull was an Englishman by birth. But there was nothing English in that dark and mercurial face, those turbulent eyes, that air of haste and violence. Mr. Blakely darkly suspected that Mr. Turnbull was really Irish. Yes, that explained a great deal.

  And Mr. Blakely cleverly reflected that the coming race of giants were to be men of iron and ice, not such as Turnbull and Brogan. They would make a predictable world, these giants. The Turnbulls and the Brogans were finished. They were anachronisms. They were passing, as the dinosaurs had passed, because the climate was now one in which they would perish. They could not adapt themselves.

  Mr. Blakely, then, breathed a sigh of relief. He no longer desired to warn John. He glanced at Rufus, sitting near his father-in-law, languidly, elegantly, quietly at ease, and again he saw that amiable flash, that promise, in those green eyes. Mr. Blakely was suddenly quite abnormally excited.

  He looked again at Patrick, who was moving restlessly up and down the long and handsome room, pausing to stare absently at some ornament, some lamp, in which he
could not possibly be interested. Sometimes his eyebrows jerked, as if his thoughts were tempestuous and uneasy. A handsome big devil, like John Turnbull. Mr. Blakely did not like handsome big devils. They were not really gentlemen. They were actors. Actors in business! Mr. Blakely shook his head sombrely.

  He became aware that Rufus was studying him intently. He turned slowly and met the young man’s eyes again. In his mind he said to him: You know, of course, that I could have stopped all this? Rufus nodded almost imperceptibly, and smiled his thin spasmodic smile, very amiably. Yes, he replied to that silent question, I know you could have stopped it. I shall not forget it; I will talk with you soon. We are clever men, together.

  And then, as if struck, Mr. Blakely turned quickly and met Patrick’s eyes. They were pinpoints of blue fire, and his expression was sour and lowering, full of contempt and knowledge. Mr. Blakely was startled. He had not thought this big and flamboyant young Irishman possessed any subtlely at all. A pirate, but unsubtle. Now Mr. Blakely was not so sure. What was the matter with the feller? He had wanted this, had he not? He had conspired all this, most certainly, with Mr. Hastings? Why, then, this dangerous look, this twisted mouth, this nasty expression in the eyes? Mr. Blakely had never encountered a man with any conscience before. Surely this feller had no conscience, or he would not have begun this! Mr. Blakely was full of cool disdain. He despised men who began things and then halted irresolutely in the very midst of events to hate themselves and hate others. Weaklings. Feckless fools. Mr. Blakely smiled thinly. No doubt Mr. Hastings understood all this, however. No doubt he had his own plans.

  Mr. Blakely was suddenly alarmed and tense. Brogan had moved quickly behind John, was staring over his shoulder as the final sheet was being signed. His hand lifted. His expression was something quite ominous and hideous to see. All this happened in an instant, but it seemed hours to Mr. Blakely. He did not observe that Rufus had sprung silently to his feet, had dexterously swept up the papers, and was now extending them to Mr. Blakely. Mr. Blakely was very adequate. He literally snatched the papers, slid them swiftly into his dispatch case. Patrick stood there, blinking, his face crimson, his eyes flickering.