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

broke out at her. “You make me dizzy! For heaven’s sake quit the mysterious detective business⁠—at least do quit it around me! Go and try it on somebody else, if you like; but I don’t want to hear it!”

She began to tremble, regarding him with a fixed gaze. “You don’t care to hear then,” she said huskily, “that I approve of what you’re doing?”

“Certainly not! Since I haven’t the faintest idea what you think I’m ‘doing,’ naturally I don’t care whether you approve of it or not. All I’d like, if you please, is to be alone. I’m not giving a tea here, this afternoon, if you’ll permit me to mention it!”

Fanny’s gaze wavered; she began to blink; then suddenly she sank into a chair and wept silently, but with a terrible desolation.

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” he moaned. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

“You’re always picking on me,” she quavered wretchedly, her voice indistinct with the wetness that bubbled into it from her tears. “You do⁠—you always pick on me! You’ve always done it⁠—always⁠—ever since you were a little boy! Whenever anything goes wrong with you, you take it out on me! You do! You always⁠—”

George flung to heaven a gesture of despair; it seemed to him the last straw that Fanny should have chosen this particular time to come and sob in his room over his mistreatment of her!

“Oh, my Lord!” he whispered; then, with a great effort, addressed her in a reasonable tone: “Look here, Aunt Fanny; I don’t see what you’re making all this fuss about. Of course I know I’ve teased you sometimes, but⁠—”

“ ‘Teased’ me?” she wailed. “ ‘Teased’ me! Oh, it does seem too hard, sometimes⁠—this mean old life of mine does seem too hard! I don’t think I can stand it! Honestly, I don’t think I can! I came in here just to show you I sympathized with you⁠—just to say something pleasant to you, and you treat me as if I were⁠—oh, no, you wouldn’t treat a servant the way you treat me! You wouldn’t treat anybody in the world like this except old Fanny! ‘Old Fanny’ you say. ‘It’s nobody but old Fanny, so I’ll kick her⁠—nobody will resent it. I’ll kick her all I want to!’ You do! That’s how you think of me⁠—I know it! And you’re right: I haven’t got anything in the world, since my brother died⁠—nobody⁠—nothing⁠—nothing!”

“Oh my Lord!” George groaned.

Fanny spread out her small, soaked handkerchief, and shook it in the air to dry it a little, crying as damply and as wretchedly during this operation as before⁠—a sight which gave George a curious shock to add to his other agitations, it seemed so strange. “I ought not to have come,” she went on, “because I might have known it would only give you an excuse to pick on me again! I’m sorry enough I came, I can tell you! I didn’t mean to speak of it again to you, at all; and I wouldn’t have, but I saw how you treated them, and I guess I got excited about it, and couldn’t help following the impulse⁠—but I’ll know better next time, I can tell you! I’ll keep my mouth shut as I meant to, and as I would have, if I hadn’t got excited and if I hadn’t felt sorry for you. But what does it matter to anybody if I’m sorry for them? I’m only old Fanny!”

“Oh, good gracious! How can it matter to me who’s sorry for me when I don’t know what they’re sorry about!”

“You’re so proud,” she quavered, “and so hard! I tell you I didn’t mean to speak of it to you, and I never, never in the world would have told you about it, nor have made the faintest reference to it, if I hadn’t seen that somebody else had told you, or you’d found out for yourself some way. I⁠—”

In despair of her intelligence, and in some doubt of his own, George struck the palms of his hands together. “Somebody else had told me what? I’d found what out for myself?”

“How people are talking about your mother.”

Except for the incidental teariness of her voice, her tone was casual, as though she mentioned a subject previously discussed and understood; for Fanny had no doubt that George had only pretended to be mystified because, in his pride, he would not in words admit that he knew what he knew.

“What did you say?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course I understood what you were doing,” Fanny went on, drying her handkerchief again. “It puzzled other people when you began to be rude to Eugene, because they couldn’t see how you could treat him as you did when you were so interested in Lucy. But I remembered how you came to me, that other time when there was so much talk about Isabel; and I knew you’d give Lucy up in a minute, if it came to a question of your mother’s reputation, because you said then that⁠—”

“Look here,” George interrupted in a shaking voice. “Look here, I’d like⁠—” He stopped, unable to go on, his agitation was so great. His chest heaved as from hard running, and his complexion, pallid at first, had become mottled; fiery splotches appearing at his temples and cheeks. “What do you mean by telling me⁠—telling me there’s talk about⁠—about⁠—” He gulped, and began again: “What do you mean by using such words as ‘reputation’? What do you mean, speaking of a ‘question’ of my⁠—my mother’s reputation?”

Fanny looked up at him woefully over the handkerchief which she now applied to her reddened nose. “God knows I’m sorry for you, George,” she murmured. “I wanted to say so, but it’s only old Fanny, so whatever she says⁠—even when it’s sympathy⁠—pick on her for it! Hammer her!” She sobbed. “Hammer her! It’s only poor old lonely Fanny!”

“You look here!” George said harshly. “When I spoke to my Uncle George after that rotten thing I heard Aunt Amelia say about my