The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington (top novels of all time TXT) 📗

“I mean the things that we have and that we think are so solid⁠—they’re like smoke, and time is like the sky that the smoke disappears into. You know how wreath of smoke goes up from a chimney, and seems all thick and black and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such important things and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner⁠—and then, in such a little while, it isn’t there at all; nothing is left but the sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever.”

“It strikes me you’re getting mixed up,” said George cheerfully. “I don’t see much resemblance between time and the sky, or between things and smoke-wreaths; but I do see one reason you like Lucy Morgan so much. She talks that same kind of wistful, moony way sometimes⁠—I don’t mean to say I mind it in either of you, because I rather like to listen to it, and you’ve got a very good voice, mother. It’s nice to listen to, no matter how much smoke and sky, and so on, you talk. So’s Lucy’s for that matter; and I see why you’re congenial. She talks that way to her father, too; and he’s right there with the same kind of guff. Well, it’s all right with me!” He laughed, teasingly, and allowed her to retain his hand, which she had fondly seized. “I’ve got plenty to think about when people drool along!”

She pressed his hand to her cheek, and a tear made a tiny warm streak across one of his knuckles.

“For heaven’s sake!” he said. “What’s the matter? Isn’t everything all right?”

“You’re going away!”

“Well, I’m coming back, don’t you suppose? Is that all that worries you?”

She cheered up, and smiled again, but shook her head. “I never can bear to see you go⁠—that’s the most of it. I’m a little bothered about your father, too.”

“Why?”

“It seems to me he looks so badly. Everybody thinks so.”

“What nonsense!” George laughed. “He’s been looking that way all summer. He isn’t much different from the way he’s looked all his life, that I can see. What’s the matter with him?”

“He never talks much about his business to me but I think he’s been worrying about some investments he made last year. I think his worry has affected his health.”

“What investments?” George demanded. “He hasn’t gone into Mr. Morgan’s automobile concern, has he?”

“No,” Isabel smiled. “The ‘automobile concern’ is all Eugene’s, and it’s so small I understand it’s taken hardly anything. No; your father has always prided himself on making only the most absolutely safe investments, but two or three years ago he and your Uncle George both put a great deal⁠—pretty much everything they could get together, I think⁠—into the stock of rolling-mills some friends of theirs owned, and I’m afraid the mills haven’t been doing well.”

“What of that? Father needn’t worry. You and I could take care of him the rest of his life on what grandfather⁠—”

“Of course,” she agreed. “But your father’s always lived so for his business and taken such pride in his sound investments; it’s a passion with him. I⁠—”

“Pshaw! He needn’t worry! You tell him we’ll look after him: we’ll build him a little stone bank in the backyard, if he busts up, and he can go and put his pennies in it every morning. That’ll keep him just as happy as he ever was!” He kissed her. “Good night, I’m going to tell Lucy goodbye. Don’t sit up for me.”

She walked to the front gate with him, still holding his hand, and he told her again not to “sit up” for him.

“Yes, I will,” she laughed. “You won’t be very late.”

“Well⁠—it’s my last night.”

“But I know Lucy, and she knows I want to see you, too, your last night. You’ll see: she’ll send you home promptly at eleven!”

But she was mistaken: Lucy sent him home promptly at ten.

Isabel’s uneasiness about her husband’s health⁠—sometimes reflected in her letters to George during the winter that followed⁠—had not been alleviated when the accredited Senior returned for his next summer vacation, and she confided to him in his room, soon after his arrival, that “something” the doctor had said to her lately had made her more uneasy than ever.

“Still worrying over his rolling-mills investments?” George asked, not seriously impressed.

“I’m afraid it’s past that stage from what Dr. Rainey says. His worries only aggravate his condition now. Dr. Rainey says we ought to get him away.”

“Well, let’s do it, then.”

“He won’t go.”

“He’s a man awfully set in his ways; that’s true,” said George. “I don’t think there’s anything much the matter with him, though, and he looks just the same to me. Have you seen Lucy lately? How is she?”

“Hasn’t she written you?”

“Oh, about once a month,” he answered carelessly. “Never says much about herself. How’s she look?”

“She looks⁠—pretty!” said Isabel. “I suppose she wrote you they’ve moved?”

“Yes; I’ve got her address. She said they were building.”

“They did. It’s all finished, and they’ve been in it a month. Lucy is so capable; she keeps house exquisitely. It’s small, but oh, such a pretty little house!”

“Well, that’s fortunate,” George said. “One thing I’ve always felt they didn’t know a great deal about is architecture.”

“Don’t they?” asked Isabel, surprised. “Anyhow, their house is charming. It’s way out beyond the end of Amberson Boulevard; it’s quite near that big white house with a gray-green roof somebody built out there a year or so ago. There are any number of houses going up, out that way; and the trolley-line runs within a block of them now, on the next street, and the traction people are laying tracks more than three miles beyond. I suppose you’ll be driving out to see Lucy tomorrow.”

“I thought⁠—” George hesitated. “I thought perhaps I’d go after dinner this evening.”

At this his mother laughed, not astonished. “It was only my feeble joke about ‘tomorrow,’ Georgie! I was pretty sure you couldn’t wait