Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  Fanny burst into tears.

  “Good heavens!” George cried. “I was only teasing. I didn’t mean——”

  “Let me alone,” she said lifelessly; and, continuing to weep, rose and began to clear away the dishes.

  “Please, Aunt Fanny——”

  “Just let me alone.”

  George was distressed. “I didn’t mean anything, Aunt Fanny! I didn’t know you’d got so sensitive as all that.”

  “You’d better go up to bed,” she said desolately, going on with her work and her weeping.

  “Anyhow,” he insisted, “do let these things wait. Let the servants ’tend to the table in the morning.”

  “No.”

  “But, why not?”

  “Just let me alone.”

  “Oh, Lord!” George groaned, going to the door. There he turned. “See here, Aunt Fanny, there’s not a bit of use your bothering about those dishes to-night. What’s the use of a butler and three maids if——”

  “Just let me alone.”

  He obeyed, and could still hear a pathetic sniffing from the dining room as he went up the stairs.

  “By George!” he grunted, as he reached his own room; and his thought was that living with a person so sensitive to kindly raillery might prove lugubrious. He whistled, long and low, then went to the window and looked through the darkness to the great silhouette of his grandfather’s house. Lights were burning over there, upstairs; probably his newly arrived uncle was engaged in talk with the Major.

  George’s glance lowered, resting casually upon the indistinct ground, and he beheld some vague shapes, unfamiliar to him. Formless heaps, they seemed; but, without much curiosity, he supposed that sewer connections or water pipes might be out of order, making necessary some excavations. He hoped the work would not take long; he hated to see that sweep of lawn made unsightly by trenches and lines of dirt, even temporarily. Not greatly disturbed, however, he pulled down the shade, yawned, and began to undress, leaving further investigation for the morning.

  But in the morning he had forgotten all about it, and raised his shade, to let in the light, without even glancing toward the ground. Not until he had finished dressing did he look forth from his window, and then his glance was casual. The next instant his attitude became electric, and he gave utterance to a bellow of dismay. He ran from his room, plunged down the stairs, out of the front door, and, upon a nearer view of the destroyed lawn, began to release profanity upon the breezeless summer air, which remained unaffected. Between his mother’s house and his grandfather’s, excavations for the cellars of five new houses were in process, each within a few feet of its neighbour. Foundations of brick were being laid; everywhere were piles of brick and stacked lumber, and sand heaps and mortar beds.

  It was Sunday, and so the workmen implicated in these defacings were denied what unquestionably they would have considered a treat; but as the fanatic orator continued the monologue, a gentleman in flannels emerged upward from one of the excavations, and regarded him contemplatively.

  “Obtaining any relief, nephew?” he inquired with some interest. “You must have learned quite a number of those expressions in childhood—it’s so long since I’d heard them I fancied they were obsolete.”

  “Who wouldn’t swear?” George demanded hotly. “In the name of God, what does grandfather mean, doing such things?”

  “My private opinion is,” said Amberson gravely, “he desires to increase his income by building these houses to rent.”

  “Well, in the name of God, can’t he increase his income any other way but this?”

  “In the name of God, it would appear he couldn’t.”

  “It’s beastly! It’s a damn degradation! It’s a crime!”

  “I don’t know about its being a crime,” said his uncle, stepping over some planks to join him. “It might be a mistake, though. Your mother said not to tell you until we got home, so as not to spoil commencement for you. She rather feared you’d be upset.”

  “Upset! Oh, my Lord, I should think I would be upset! He’s in his second childhood. What did you let him do it for, in the name of——”

  “Make it in the name of heaven this time, George; it’s Sunday. Well, I thought, myself, it was a mistake.”

  “I should say so!”

  “Yes,” said Amberson. “I wanted him to put up an apartment building instead of these houses.”

  “An apartment building! Here?”

  “Yes; that was my idea.”

  George struck his hands together despairingly. “An apartment house! Oh, my Lord!”

  “Don’t worry! Your grandfather wouldn’t listen to me, but he’ll wish he had, some day. He says that people aren’t going to live in miserable little flats when they can get a whole house with some grass in front and plenty of backyard behind. He sticks it out that apartment houses will never do in a town of this type, and when I pointed out to him that a dozen or so of ’em already are doing, he claimed it was just the novelty, and that they’d all be empty as soon as people got used to ’em. So he’s putting up these houses.”

  “Is he getting miserly in his old age?”

  “Hardly! Look what he gave Sydney and Amelia!”

  “I don’t mean he’s a miser, of course,” said George. “Heaven knows he’s liberal enough with mother and me; but why on earth didn’t he sell something or other rather than do a thing like this?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Amberson returned coolly, “I believe he has sold something or other, from time to time.”

  “Well, in heaven’s name,” George cried, “what did he do it for?”

  “To get money,” his uncle mildly replied. “That’s my deduction.”

  “I suppose you’re joking—or trying to!”

  “That’s the best way to look at it,” Amberson said amiably. “Take the whole thing as a joke—and in the meantime, if you haven’t had your breakfast——”

  “I haven’t!”

  “Then if I were you I’d go in and get some. And”—he paused, becoming serious—“and if I were you I wouldn’t say anything to your grandfather about this.”

  “I don’t think I could trust myself to speak to him about it,” said George. “I want to treat him respectfully, because he is my grandfather, but I don’t believe I could if I talked to him about such a thing as this!”

  And with a gesture of despair, plainly signifying that all too soon after leaving bright college years behind him he had entered into the full tragedy of life, George turned bitterly upon his heel and went into the house for his breakfast.

  His uncle, with his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after him not altogether unsympathetically, then descended again into the excavation whence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he took in the old carriage with the Major, when George was encountered upon the highway, flashing along in his runabout with Lucy beside him and Pendennis doing better than three minutes.

  “He seems to have recovered,” Amberson remarked: “Looks in the highest good spirits.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your grandson,” Amberson explained. “He was inclined to melancholy this morning, but seemed jolly enough just now when they passed us.”

  “What was he melancholy about? Not getting remorseful about all the money he’s spent at college, was he?” The Major chuckled feebly, but with sufficient grimness. “I wonder what he thinks I’m made of,” he concluded querulously.

  “Gold,” his son suggested, adding gently, “And he’s right about part of you, father.”

  “What part?”

  “Your heart.”

  The Major laughed ruefully. “I suppose that may account for how heavy it feels, sometimes, nowadays. This town seems to be rolling right over that old heart you mentioned, George—rolling over it
and burying it under! When I think of those devilish workmen digging up my lawn, yelling around my house——”

  “Never mind, father. Don’t think of it. When things are a nuisance it’s a good idea not to keep remembering ’em.”

  “I try not to,” the old gentleman murmured. “I try to keep remembering that I won’t be remembering anything very long.” And, somehow convinced that this thought was a mirthful one, he laughed loudly, and slapped his knee. “Not so very long now, my boy!” he chuckled, continuing to echo his own amusement. “Not so very long. Not so very long!”

  Chapter XVII

  * * *

  YOUNG GEORGE paid his respects to his grandfather the following morning, having been occupied with various affairs and engagements on Sunday until after the Major’s bedtime; and topics concerned with building or excavations were not introduced into the conversation, which was a cheerful one until George lightly mentioned some new plans of his. He was a skillful driver, as the Major knew, and he spoke of his desire to extend his proficiency in this art: in fact, he entertained the ambition to drive a four-in-hand. However, as the Major said nothing, and merely sat still, looking surprised, George went on to say that he did not propose to “go in for coaching just at the start”; he thought it would be better to begin with a tandem. He was sure Pendennis could be trained to work as a leader; and all that one needed to buy at present, he said, would be “comparatively inexpensive—a new trap, and the harness, of course, and a good bay to match Pendennis.” He did not care for a special groom; one of the stablemen would do.

  At this point the Major decided to speak. “You say one of the stablemen would do?” he inquired, his widened eyes remaining fixed upon his grandson. “That’s lucky, because one’s all there is, just at present, George. Old fat Tom does it all. Didn’t you notice, when you took Pendennis out, yesterday?”

  “Oh, that will be all right, sir. My mother can lend me her man.”

  “Can she?” The old gentleman smiled faintly. “I wonder——” He paused.

  “What, sir?”

  “Whether you mightn’t care to go to law-school somewhere perhaps. I’d be glad to set aside a sum that would see you through.”

  This senile divergence from the topic in hand surprised George painfully. “I have no interest whatever in the law,” he said. “I don’t care for it, and the idea of being a professional man has never appealed to me. None of the family has ever gone in for that sort of thing, to my knowledge, and I don’t care to be the first. I was speaking of driving a tandem——”

  “I know you were,” the Major said quietly.

  George looked hurt. “I beg your pardon. Of course if the idea doesn’t appeal to you——” And he rose to go.

  The Major ran a tremulous hand through his hair, sighing deeply. “I—I don’t like to refuse you anything, Georgie,” he said. “I don’t know that I often have refused you whatever you wanted—in reason——”

  “You’ve always been more than generous, sir,” George interrupted quickly. “And if the idea of a tandem doesn’t appeal to you, why—of course——” And he waved his hand, heroically dismissing the tandem.

  The Major’s distress became obvious. “Georgie, I’d like to, but—but I’ve an idea tandems are dangerous to drive, and your mother might be anxious. She——”

  “No, sir; I think not. She felt it would be rather a good thing—help to keep me out in the open air. But if perhaps your finances——”

  “Oh, it isn’t that so much,” the old gentleman said hurriedly. “I wasn’t thinking of that altogether.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I guess we could still afford a new horse or two, if need be——”

  “I thought you said——”

  The Major waved his hand airily. “Oh, a few retrenchments where things were useless: nothing gained by a raft of idle darkies in the stable—nor by a lot of extra land that might as well be put to work for us in rentals. And if you want this thing so very much——”

  “It’s not important enough to bother about, really, of course.”

  “Well, let’s wait till autumn then,” said the Major in a tone of relief. “We’ll see about it in the autumn, if you’re still in the mind for it then. That will be a great deal better. You remind me of it, along in September—or October. We’ll see what can be done.” He rubbed his hands cheerfully. “We’ll see what can be done about it then, Georgie. We’ll see.”

  And George, in reporting this conversation to his mother, was ruefully humorous. “In fact, the old boy cheered up so much,” he told her, “you’d have thought he’d got a real load off his mind. He seemed to think he’d fixed me up perfectly, and that I was just as good as driving a tandem around his library right that minute! Of course I know he’s anything but miserly; still I can’t help thinking he must be salting a lot of money away. I know prices are higher than they used to be, but he doesn’t spend within thousands of what he used to, and we certainly can’t be spending more than we always have spent. Where does it all go to? Uncle George told me grandfather had sold some pieces of property, and it looks a little queer. If he’s really ‘property poor,’ of course we ought to be more saving than we are, and help him out. I don’t mind giving up a tandem if it seems a little too expensive just now. I’m perfectly willing to live quietly till he gets his bank balance where he wants it. But I have a faint suspicion, not that he’s getting miserly—not that at all—but that old age has begun to make him timid about money. There’s no doubt about it, he’s getting a little queer: he can’t keep his mind on a subject long. Right in the middle of talking about one thing he’ll wander off to something else; and I shouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be a lot better off than any of us guess. It’s entirely possible that whatever he’s sold just went into government bonds, or even his safety deposit box. There was a friend of mine in college had an old uncle like that: made the whole family think he was poor as dirt—and then left seven millions. People get terribly queer as they get old, sometimes, and grandfather certainly doesn’t act the way he used to. He seems to be a totally different man. For instance, he said he thought tandem driving might be dangerous——”

  “Did he?” Isabel asked quickly. “Then I’m glad he doesn’t want you to have one. I didn’t dream——”

  “But it’s not. There isn’t the slightest——”

  Isabel had a bright idea. “Georgie! Instead of a tandem wouldn’t it interest you to get one of Eugene’s automobiles?”

  “I don’t think so. They’re fast enough, of course. In fact, running one of those things is getting to be quite on the cards for sport, and people go all over the country in ’em. But they’re dirty things, and they keep getting out of order, so that you’re always lying down on your back in the mud, and——”

  “Oh, no,” she interrupted eagerly. “Haven’t you noticed? You don’t see nearly so many people doing that nowadays as you did two or three years ago, and, when you do, Eugene says it’s apt to be one of the older patterns. The way they make them now, you can get at most of the machinery from the top. I do think you’d be interested, dear.”

  George remained indifferent. “Possibly—but I hardly think so. I know a lot of good people are really taking them up, but still——”

  “‘But still’ what?” she said as he paused.

  “But still—well, I suppose I’m a little old-fashioned and fastidious, but I’m afraid being a sort of engine driver never will appeal to me, mother. It’s exciting, and I’d like that part of it, but still it doesn’t seem to me precisely the thing a gentleman ought to do. Too much overalls and monkey-wrenches and grease!”

  “But Eugene says people are hiring mechanics to do all that sort of thing for them. They’re beginning to have them just the way they have coachmen; and he says it’s developing into quite a profession.”

  “I know that, mother, of course; but I’ve seen some of these mechanics, and th
ey’re not very satisfactory. For one thing, most of them only pretend to understand the machinery and they let people break down a hundred miles from nowhere, so that about all these fellows are good for is to hunt up a farmer and hire a horse to pull the automobile. And friends of mine at college that’ve had a good deal of experience tell me the mechanics who do understand the engines have no training at all as servants. They’re awful! They say anything they like, and usually speak to members of the family as ‘Say!’ No, I believe I’d rather wait for September and a tandem, mother.”

  Nevertheless, George sometimes consented to sit in an automobile, while waiting for September, and he frequently went driving in one of Eugene’s cars with Lucy and her father. He even allowed himself to be escorted with his mother and Fanny through the growing factory, which was now, as the foreman of the paint shop informed the visitors, “turning out a car and a quarter a day.” George had seldom been more excessively bored, but his mother showed a lively interest in everything, wishing to have all the machinery explained to her. It was Lucy who did most of the explaining, while her father looked on and laughed at the mistakes she made, and Fanny remained in the background with George, exhibiting a bleakness that overmatched his boredom.

  From the factory Eugene took them to lunch at a new restaurant, just opened in the town, a place which surprised Isabel with its metropolitan air, and, though George made fun of it to her, in a whisper, she offered everything the tribute of pleased exclamations; and her gayety helped Eugene’s to make the little occasion almost a festive one.

  George’s ennui disappeared in spite of himself, and he laughed to see his mother in such spirits. “I didn’t know mineral waters could go to a person’s head,” he said. “Or perhaps it’s this place. It might pay to have a new restaurant opened somewhere in town every time you get the blues.”

  Fanny turned to him with a wan smile. “Oh, she doesn’t ‘get the blues,’ George!” Then she added, as if fearing her remark might be thought unpleasantly significant, “I never knew a person of a more even disposition. I wish I could be like that!” And though the tone of this afterthought was not so enthusiastic as she tried to make it, she succeeded in producing a fairly amiable effect.