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

still carried her cloak upon her arm, but Amberson had taken her hand, and retained it; and as he led her silently into the library there was something about her attitude, and the pose of her slightly bent head, that was both startled and meek. Thus they quickly disappeared from George’s sight, hand in hand; and Amberson at once closed the massive double doors of the library.

For a time all that George could hear was the indistinct sound of his uncle’s voice: what he was saying could not be surmised, though the troubled brotherliness of his tone was evident. He seemed to be explaining something at considerable length, and there were moments when he paused, and George guessed that his mother was speaking, but her voice must have been very low, for it was entirely inaudible to him.

Suddenly he did hear her. Through the heavy doors her outcry came, clear and loud:

“Oh, no!”

It was a cry of protest, as if something her brother told her must be untrue, or, if it were true, the fact he stated must be undone; and it was a sound of sheer pain.

Another sound of pain, close to George, followed it; this was a vehement sniffling which broke out just above him, and, looking up, he saw Fanny Minafer on the landing, leaning over the banisters and applying her handkerchief to her eyes and nose.

“I can guess what that was about,” she whispered huskily. “He’s just told her what you did to Eugene!”

George gave her a dark look over his shoulder. “You go on back to your room!” he said; and he began to descend the stairs; but Fanny, guessing his purpose, rushed down and caught his arm, detaining him.

“You’re not going in there?” she whispered huskily. “You don’t⁠—”

“Let go of me!”

But she clung to him savagely. “No, you don’t, Georgie Minafer! You’ll keep away from there! You will!”

“You let go of⁠—”

“I won’t! You come back here! You’ll come upstairs and let them alone; that’s what you’ll do!” And with such passionate determination did she clutch and tug, never losing a grip of him somewhere, though George tried as much as he could, without hurting her, to wrench away⁠—with such utter forgetfulness of her maiden dignity did she assault him, that she forced him, stumbling upward, to the landing.

“Of all the ridiculous⁠—” he began furiously; but she spared one hand from its grasp of his sleeve and clapped it over his mouth.

“Hush up!” Never for an instant in this grotesque struggle did Fanny raise her voice above a husky whisper. “Hush up! It’s indecent⁠—like squabbling outside the door of an operating-room! Go on to the top of the stairs⁠—go on!”

And when George had most unwillingly obeyed, she planted herself in his way, on the top step. “There!” she said. “The idea of your going in there now! I never heard of such a thing!” And with the sudden departure of the nervous vigour she had shown so amazingly, she began to cry again. “I was an awful fool! I thought you knew what was going on or I never, never would have done it. Do you suppose I dreamed you’d go making everything into such a tragedy? Do you?”

“I don’t care what you dreamed,” George muttered.

But Fanny went on, always taking care to keep her voice from getting too loud, in spite of her most grievous agitation. “Do you dream I thought you’d go making such a fool of yourself at Mrs. Johnson’s? Oh, I saw her this morning! She wouldn’t talk to me, but I met George Amberson on my way back, and he told me what you’d done over there! And do you dream I thought you’d do what you’ve done here this afternoon to Eugene? Oh, I knew that, too! I was looking out of the front bedroom window, and I saw him drive up, and then go away again, and I knew you’d been to the door. Of course he went to George Amberson about it, and that’s why George is here. He’s got to tell Isabel the whole thing now, and you wanted to go in there interfering⁠—God knows what! You stay here and let her brother tell her; he’s got some consideration for her!”

“I suppose you think I haven’t!” George said, challenging her, and at that Fanny laughed witheringly.

“You! Considerate of anybody!”

“I’m considerate of her good name!” he said hotly. “It seems to me that’s about the first thing to be considerate of, in being considerate of a person! And look here: it strikes me you’re taking a pretty different tack from what you did yesterday afternoon!”

Fanny wrung her hands. “I did a terrible thing!” she lamented. “Now that it’s done and too late I know what it was! I didn’t have sense enough just to let things go on. I didn’t have any business to interfere, and I didn’t mean to interfere⁠—I only wanted to talk, and let out a little! I did think you already knew everything I told you. I did! And I’d rather have cut my hand off than stir you up to doing what you have done! I was just suffering so that I wanted to let out a little⁠—I didn’t mean any real harm. But now I see what’s happened⁠—oh, I was a fool! I hadn’t any business interfering. Eugene never would have looked at me, anyhow, and, oh, why couldn’t I have seen that before! He never came here a single time in his life except on her account, never! and I might have let them alone, because he wouldn’t have looked at me even if he’d never seen Isabel. And they haven’t done any harm: she made Wilbur happy, and she was a true wife to him as long as he lived. It wasn’t a crime for her to care for Eugene all the time; she certainly never told him she did⁠—and she gave me every chance in the world! She left us alone together every time she could⁠—even since Wilbur died⁠—but