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

come to ask you a few questions which I would like you to answer, if you please.”

She became grave at once. “Certainly, Mr. Minafer. Anything I can⁠—”

He interrupted sternly, yet his voice shook in spite of its sternness. “You were talking with my Aunt Fanny about my mother this afternoon.”

At this Mrs. Johnson uttered an involuntary gasp, but she recovered herself. “Then I’m sure our conversation was a very pleasant one, if we were talking of your mother, because⁠—”

Again he interrupted. “My aunt has told me what the conversation virtually was, and I don’t mean to waste any time, Mrs. Johnson. You were talking about a⁠—” George’s shoulders suddenly heaved uncontrollably; but he went fiercely on: “You were discussing a scandal that involved my mother’s name.”

“Mr. Minafer!”

“Isn’t that the truth?”

“I don’t feel called upon to answer, Mr. Minafer,” she said with visible agitation. “I do not consider that you have any right⁠—”

“My aunt told me you repeated this scandal to her.”

“I don’t think your aunt can have said that,” Mrs. Johnson returned sharply. “I did not repeat a scandal of any kind to your aunt and I think you are mistaken in saying she told you I did. We may have discussed some matters that have been a topic of comment about town⁠—”

“Yes!” George cried. “I think you may have! That’s what I’m here about, and what I intend to⁠—”

“Don’t tell me what you intend, please,” Mrs. Johnson interrupted crisply. “And I should prefer that you would not make your voice quite so loud in this house, which I happen to own. Your aunt may have told you⁠—though I think it would have been very unwise in her if she did, and not very considerate of me⁠—she may have told you that we discussed some such topic as I have mentioned, and possibly that would have been true. If I talked it over with her, you may be sure I spoke in the most charitable spirit, and without sharing in other people’s disposition to put an evil interpretation on what may be nothing more than unfortunate appearances and⁠—”

“My God!” said George. “I can’t stand this!”

“You have the option of dropping the subject,” Mrs. Johnson suggested tartly, and she added: “Or of leaving the house.”

“I’ll do that soon enough, but first I mean to know⁠—”

“I am perfectly willing to tell you anything you wish if you will remember to ask it quietly. I’ll also take the liberty of reminding you that I had a perfect right to discuss the subject with your aunt. Other people may be less considerate in not confining their discussion of it, as I have, to charitable views expressed only to a member of the family. Other people⁠—”

“Other people!” the unhappy George repeated viciously. “That’s what I want to know about⁠—these other people!”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I want to ask you about them. You say you know of other people who talk about this.”

“I presume they do.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“I want to know how many other people talk about it?”

“Dear, dear!” she protested. “How should I know that?”

“Haven’t you heard anybody mention it?”

“I presume so.”

“Well, how many have you heard?”

Mrs. Johnson was becoming more annoyed than apprehensive, and she showed it. “Really, this isn’t a courtroom,” she said. “And I’m not a defendant in a libel-suit, either!”

The unfortunate young man lost what remained of his balance. “You may be!” he cried. “I intend to know just who’s dared to say these things, if I have to force my way into every house in town, and I’m going to make them take every word of it back! I mean to know the name of every slanderer that’s spoken of this matter to you and of every tattler you’ve passed it on to yourself. I mean to know⁠—”

“You’ll know something pretty quick!” she said, rising with difficulty; and her voice was thick with the sense of insult. “You’ll know that you’re out in the street. Please to leave my house!”

George stiffened sharply. Then he bowed, and strode out of the door.

Three minutes later, disheveled and perspiring, but cold all over, he burst into his Uncle George’s room at the Major’s without knocking. Amberson was dressing.

“Good gracious, Georgie!” he exclaimed. “What’s up?”

“I’ve just come from Mrs. Johnson’s⁠—across the street,” George panted.

“You have your own tastes!” was Amberson’s comment. “But curious as they are, you ought to do something better with your hair, and button your waistcoat to the right buttons⁠—even for Mrs. Johnson! What were you doing over there?”

“She told me to leave the house,” George said desperately. “I went there because Aunt Fanny told me the whole town was talking about my mother and that man Morgan⁠—that they say my mother is going to marry him and that proves she was too fond of him before my father died⁠—she said this Mrs. Johnson was one that talked about it, and I went to her to ask who were the others.”

Amberson’s jaw fell in dismay. “Don’t tell me you did that!” he said, in a low voice; and then, seeing that it was true, “Oh, now you have done it!”

XXIII

“I’ve ‘done it’?” George cried. “What do you mean: I’ve done it? And what have I done?”

Amberson had collapsed into an easy chair beside his dressing-table, the white evening tie he had been about to put on dangling from his hand, which had fallen limply on the arm of the chair. The tie dropped to the floor before he replied; and the hand that had held it was lifted to stroke his graying hair reflectively. “By Jove!” he muttered. “That is too bad!”

George folded his arms bitterly. “Will you kindly answer my question? What have I done that wasn’t honourable and right? Do you think these riffraff can go about bandying my mother’s name⁠—”

“They can now,” said Amberson. “I don’t know if they could before, but they certainly can now!”

“What do you mean by that?”

His uncle sighed profoundly, picked up his tie and, preoccupied with despondency, twisted the strip of white lawn till it became unwearable. Meanwhile, he tried to