Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  Having turned about, he kept his horse to a walk, and at this gait the sleighbells tinkled but intermittently. Gleaming wanly through the whitish vapour that kept rising from the trotter’s body and flanks, they were like tiny fog-bells, and made the only sounds in a great winter silence. The white road ran between lonesome rail fences; and frozen barnyards beyond the fences showed sometimes a harrow left to rust, with its iron seat half filled with stiffened snow, and sometimes an old dead buggy, its wheels forever set, it seemed, in the solid ice of deep ruts. Chickens scratched the metallic earth with an air of protest, and a masterless ragged colt looked up in sudden horror at the mild tinkle of the passing bells, then blew fierce clouds of steam at the sleigh. The snow no longer fell, and far ahead, in a grayish cloud that lay upon the land, was the town.

  Lucy looked at this distant thickening reflection. “When we get this far out we can see there must be quite a little smoke hanging over the town,” she said. “I suppose that’s because it’s growing. As it grows bigger it seems to get ashamed of itself, so it makes this cloud and hides in it. Papa says it used to be a bit nicer when he lived here: he always speaks of it differently — he always has a gentle look, a particular tone of voice, I’ve noticed. He must have been very fond of it. It must have been a lovely place: everybody must have been so jolly. From the way he talks, you’d think life here then was just one long midsummer serenade. He declares it was always sunshine, that the air wasn’t like the air anywhere else — that, as he remembers it, there always seemed to be gold-dust in the air. I doubt it! I think it doesn’t seem to be duller air to him now just on account of having a little soot in it sometimes, but probably because he was twenty years younger then. It seems to me the gold-dust he thinks was here is just his being young that he remembers. I think it was just youth. It is pretty pleasant to be young, isn’t it?” She laughed absently, then appeared to become wistful. “I wonder if we really do enjoy it as much as we’ll look back and think we did! I don’t suppose so. Anyhow, for my part I feel as if I must be missing something about it, somehow, because I don’t ever seem to be thinking about what’s happening at the present moment; I’m always looking forward to something — thinking about things that will happen when I’m older.”

  “You’re a funny girl,” George said gently. “But your voice sounds pretty nice when you think and talk along together like that!”

  The horse shook himself all over, and the impatient sleighbells made his wish audible. Accordingly, George tightened the reins, and the cutter was off again at a three-minute trot, no despicable rate of speed. It was not long before they were again passing Lucy’s Beautiful House, and here George thought fit to put an appendix to his remark. “You’re a funny girl, and you know a lot — but I don’t believe you know much about architecture!”

  Coming toward them, black against the snowy road, was a strange silhouette. It approached moderately and without visible means of progression, so the matter seemed from a distance; but as the cutter shortened the distance, the silhouette was revealed to be Mr. Morgan’s horseless carriage, conveying four people atop: Mr. Morgan with George’s mother beside him, and, in the rear seat, Miss Fanny Minafer and the Honourable George Amberson. All four seemed to be in the liveliest humour, like high-spirited people upon a new adventure; and Isabel waved her handkerchief dashingly as the cutter flashed by them.

  “For the Lord’s sake!” George gasped.

  “Your mother’s a dear,” said Lucy. “And she does wear the most bewitching things! She looked like a Russian princess, though I doubt if they’re that handsome.”

  George said nothing; he drove on till they had crossed Amberson Addition and reached the stone pillars at the head of National Avenue. There he turned.

  “Let’s go back and take another look at that old sewing-machine,” he said. “It certainly is the weirdest, craziest—”

  He left the sentence unfinished, and presently they were again in sight of the old sewing-machine. George shouted mockingly.

  Alas! three figures stood in the road, and a pair of legs, with the toes turned up, indicated that a fourth figure lay upon its back in the snow, beneath a horseless carriage that had decided to need a horse.

  George became vociferous with laughter, and coming up at his trotter’s best gait, snow spraying from runners and every hoof, swerved to the side of the road and shot by, shouting, “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss!”

  Three hundred yards away he turned and came back, racing; leaning out as he passed, to wave jeeringly at the group about the disabled machine: “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a—”

  The trotter had broken into a gallop, and Lucy cried a warning: “Be careful!” she said. “Look where you’re driving! There’s a ditch on that side. Look—”

  George turned too late; the cutter’s right runner went into the ditch and snapped off; the little sleigh upset, and, after dragging its occupants some fifteen yards, left them lying together in a bank of snow. Then the vigorous young horse kicked himself free of all annoyances, and disappeared down the road, galloping cheerfully.

  Chapter VIII

  WHEN GEORGE REGAINED some measure of his presence of mind, Miss Lucy Morgan’s cheek, snowy and cold, was pressing his nose slightly to one side; his right arm was firmly about her neck; and a monstrous amount of her fur boa seemed to mingle with an equally unplausible quantity of snow in his mouth. He was confused, but conscious of no objection to any of these juxtapositions. She was apparently uninjured, for she sat up, hatless, her hair down, and said mildly:

  “Good heavens!”

  Though her father had been under his machine when they passed, he was the first to reach them. He threw himself on his knees beside his daughter, but found her already laughing, and was reassured. “They’re all right,” he called to Isabel, who was running toward them, ahead of her brother and Fanny Minafer. “This snowbank’s a feather bed — nothing the matter with them at all. Don’t look so pale!”

  “Georgie!” she gasped. “Georgie!”

  Georgie was on his feet, snow all over him.

  “Don’t make a fuss, mother! Nothing’s the matter. That darned silly horse—”

  Sudden tears stood in Isabel’s eyes. “To see you down underneath — dragging — oh—” Then with shaking hands she began to brush the snow from him.

  “Let me alone,” he protested. “You’ll ruin your gloves. You’re getting snow all over you, and—”

  “No, no!” she cried. “You’ll catch cold; you mustn’t catch cold!” And she continued to brush him.

  Amberson had brought Lucy’s hat; Miss Fanny acted as lady’s-maid; and both victims of the accident were presently restored to about their usual appearance and condition of apparel. In fact, encouraged by the two older gentlemen, the entire party, with one exception, decided that the episode was after all a merry one, and began to laugh about it. But George was glummer than the December twilight now swiftly closing in.

  “That darned horse!” he said.

  “I wouldn’t bother about Pendennis, Georgie,” said his uncle. “You can send a man out for what’s left of the cutter tomorrow, and Pendennis will gallop straight home to his stable: he’ll be there a long while before we will, because all we’ve got to depend on to get us home is Gene Morgan’s broken-down chafing-dish yonder.”

  They were approaching the machine as he spoke, and his friend, again underneath it, heard him. He emerged, smiling. “She’ll go,” he said.

  “What!”

  “All aboard!”

  He offered his hand to Isabel. She was smiling but still pale, and her eyes, in spite of the smile, kept upon George in a shocked anxiety. Miss Fanny had already mounted to the rear seat, and George, after helping Lucy Morgan to climb up beside his aunt, was following. Isabel saw that his shoes were light things of patent leather, and that snow was clinging to them. She made a little rush toward him, and, as one of his feet rested on the iron step of the machine, in mounting, she began to clean the snow from his sh
oe with her almost aerial lace handkerchief. “You mustn’t catch cold!” she cried.

  “Stop that!” George shouted, and furiously withdrew his foot.

  “Then stamp the snow off,” she begged. “You mustn’t ride with wet feet.”

  “They’re not!” George roared, thoroughly outraged. “For heaven’s sake get in! You’re standing in the snow yourself. Get in!”

  Isabel consented, turning to Morgan, whose habitual expression of apprehensiveness was somewhat accentuated. He climbed up after her, George Amberson having gone to the other side. “You’re the same Isabel I used to know!” he said in a low voice. “You’re a divinely ridiculous woman.”

  “Am I, Eugene?” she said, not displeased. “‘Divinely’ and ‘ridiculous’ just counterbalance each other, don’t they? Plus one and minus one equal nothing; so you mean I’m nothing in particular?”

  “No,” he answered, tugging at a lever. “That doesn’t seem to be precisely what I meant. There!” This exclamation referred to the subterranean machinery, for dismaying sounds came from beneath the floor, and the vehicle plunged, then rolled noisily forward.

  “Behold!” George Amberson exclaimed. “She does move! It must be another accident.”

  “Accident?” Morgan shouted over the din. “No! She breathes, she stirs; she seems to feel a thrill of life along her keel!” And he began to sing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

  Amberson joined him lustily, and sang on when Morgan stopped. The twilight sky cleared, discovering a round moon already risen; and the musical congressman hailed this bright presence with the complete text and melody of “The Danube River.”

  His nephew, behind, was gloomy. He had overheard his mother’s conversation with the inventor: it seemed curious to him that this Morgan, of whom he had never heard until last night, should be using the name “Isabel” so easily; and George felt that it was not just the thing for his mother to call Morgan “Eugene;” the resentment of the previous night came upon George again. Meanwhile, his mother and Morgan continued their talk; but he could no longer hear what they said; the noise of the car and his uncle’s songful mood prevented. He marked how animated Isabel seemed; it was not strange to see his mother so gay, but it was strange that a man not of the family should be the cause of her gaiety. And George sat frowning.

  Fanny Minafer had begun to talk to Lucy. “Your father wanted to prove that his horseless carriage would run, even in the snow,” she said. “It really does, too.”

  “Of course!”

  “It’s so interesting! He’s been telling us how he’s going to change it. He says he’s going to have wheels all made of rubber and blown up with air. I don’t understand what he means at all; I should think they’d explode — but Eugene seems to be very confident. He always was confident, though. It seems so like old times to hear him talk!”

  She became thoughtful, and Lucy turned to George. “You tried to swing underneath me and break the fall for me when we went over,” she said. “I knew you were doing that, and — it was nice of you.”

  “Wasn’t any fall to speak of,” he returned brusquely. “Couldn’t have hurt either of us.”

  “Still it was friendly of you — and awfully quick, too. I’ll not — I’ll not forget it!”

  Her voice had a sound of genuineness, very pleasant; and George began to forget his annoyance with her father. This annoyance of his had not been alleviated by the circumstance that neither of the seats of the old sewing-machine was designed for three people, but when his neighbour spoke thus gratefully, he no longer minded the crowding — in fact, it pleased him so much that he began to wish the old sewing-machine would go even slower. And she had spoken no word of blame for his letting that darned horse get the cutter into the ditch. George presently addressed her hurriedly, almost tremulously, speaking close to her ear:

  “I forgot to tell you something: you’re pretty nice! I thought so the first second I saw you last night. I’ll come for you tonight and take you to the Assembly at the Amberson Hotel. You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I’m going with papa and the Sharons. I’ll see you there.”

  “Looks to me as if you were awfully conventional,” George grumbled; and his disappointment was deeper than he was willing to let her see — though she probably did see. “Well, we’ll dance the cotillion together, anyhow.”

  “I’m afraid not. I promised Mr. Kinney.”

  “What!” George’s tone was shocked, as at incredible news. “Well, you could break that engagement, I guess, if you wanted to! Girls always can get out of things when they want to. Won’t you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I promised him. Several days ago.”

  George gulped, and lowered his pride, “I don’t — oh, look here! I only want to go to that thing tonight to get to see something of you; and if you don’t dance the cotillion with me, how can I? I’ll only be here two weeks, and the others have got all the rest of your visit to see you. Won’t you do it, please?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “See here!” said the stricken George. “If you’re going to decline to dance that cotillion with me simply because you’ve promised a — a — a miserable red-headed outsider like Fred Kinney, why we might as well quit!”

  “Quit what?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean,” he said huskily.

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, you ought to!”

  “But I don’t at all!”

  George, thoroughly hurt, and not a little embittered, expressed himself in a short outburst of laughter: “Well, I ought to have seen it!”

  “Seen what?”

  “That you might turn out to be a girl who’d like a fellow of the red-headed Kinney sort. I ought to have seen it from the first!”

  Lucy bore her disgrace lightly. “Oh, dancing a cotillion with a person doesn’t mean that you like him — but I don’t see anything in particular the matter with Mr. Kinney. What is?”

  “If you don’t see anything the matter with him for yourself,” George responded, icily, “I don’t think pointing it out would help you. You probably wouldn’t understand.”

  “You might try,” she suggested. “Of course I’m a stranger here, and if people have done anything wrong or have something unpleasant about them, I wouldn’t have any way of knowing it, just at first. If poor Mr. Kinney—”

  “I prefer not to discuss it,” said George curtly. “He’s an enemy of mine.”

  “Why?”

  “I prefer not to discuss it.”

  “Well, but—”

  “I prefer not to discuss it!”

  “Very well.” She began to hum the air of the song which Mr. George Amberson was now discoursing, “O moon of my delight that knows no wane” — and there was no further conversation on the back seat.

  They had entered Amberson Addition, and the moon of Mr. Amberson’s delight was overlaid by a slender Gothic filagree; the branches that sprang from the shade trees lining the street. Through the windows of many of the houses rosy lights were flickering; and silver tinsel and evergreen wreaths and brilliant little glass globes of silver and wine colour could be seen, and glimpses were caught of Christmas trees, with people decking them by firelight — reminders that this was Christmas Eve. The ride-stealers had disappeared from the highway, though now and then, over the gasping and howling of the horseless carriage, there came a shrill jeer from some young passer-by upon the sidewalk:

  “Mister, fer heaven’s sake go an’ git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss!”

  The contrivance stopped with a heart-shaking jerk before Isabel’s house. The gentlemen jumped down, helping Isabel and Fanny to descend; there were friendly leavetakings — and one that was not precisely friendly.

  “It’s ‘au revoir,’ till to-night, isn’t it?” Lucy asked, laughing.

  “Good afternoon!” said George, and he did not wait, as his relatives did, to see the old sewing ma
chine start briskly down the street, toward the Sharons’; its lighter load consisting now of only Mr. Morgan and his daughter. George went into the house at once.

  He found his father reading the evening paper in the library. “Where are your mother and your Aunt Fanny?” Mr. Minafer inquired, not looking up.

  “They’re coming,” said his son; and, casting himself heavily into a chair, stared at the fire.

  His prediction was verified a few moments later; the two ladies came in cheerfully, unfastening their fur cloaks. “It’s all right, Georgie,” said Isabel. “Your Uncle George called to us that Pendennis got home safely. Put your shoes close to the fire, dear, or else go and change them.” She went to her husband and patted him lightly on the shoulder, an action which George watched with sombre moodiness. “You might dress before long,” she suggested. “We’re all going to the Assembly, after dinner, aren’t we? Brother George said he’d go with us.”

  “Look here,” said George abruptly. “How about this man Morgan and his old sewing-machine? Doesn’t he want to get grandfather to put money into it? Isn’t he trying to work Uncle George for that? Isn’t that what he’s up to?”

  It was Miss Fanny who responded. “You little silly!” she cried, with surprising sharpness. “What on earth are you talking about? Eugene Morgan’s perfectly able to finance his own inventions these days.”

  “I’ll bet he borrows money of Uncle George,” the nephew insisted.

  Isabel looked at him in grave perplexity. “Why do you say such a thing, George?” she asked.

  “He strikes me as that sort of man,” he answered doggedly. “Isn’t he, father?”

  Minafer set down his paper for the moment. “He was a fairly wild young fellow twenty years ago,” he said, glancing at his wife absently. “He was like you in one thing, Georgie; he spent too much money — only he didn’t have any mother to get money out of a grandfather for him, so he was usually in debt. But I believe I’ve heard he’s done fairly well of late years. No, I can’t say I think he’s a swindler, and I doubt if he needs anybody else’s money to back his horseless carriage.”