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

her. I didn’t know what to say. I said I’d see. I didn’t know⁠—the doctor said⁠—”

“The doctor said we ‘must keep her peaceful,’ ” George said sharply. “Do you think that man’s coming would be very soothing? My God! if it hadn’t been for him this mightn’t have happened: we could have gone on living here quietly, and⁠—why, it would be like taking a stranger into her room! She hasn’t even spoken of him more than twice in all the time we’ve been away. Doesn’t he know how sick she is? You tell him the doctor said she had to be quiet and peaceful. That’s what he did say, isn’t it?”

Fanny acquiesced tearfully. “I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him the doctor said she was to be kept very quiet. I⁠—I didn’t know⁠—” And she pottered out.

An hour later the nurse appeared in George’s doorway; she came noiselessly, and his back was toward her; but he jumped as if he had been shot, and his jaw fell, he so feared what she was going to say.

“She wants to see you.”

The terrified mouth shut with a click; and he nodded and followed her; but she remained outside his mother’s room while he went in.

Isabel’s eyes were closed, and she did not open them or move her head, but she smiled and edged her hand toward him as he sat on a stool beside the bed. He took that slender, cold hand, and put it to his cheek.

“Darling, did you⁠—get something to eat?” She could only whisper, slowly and with difficulty. It was as if Isabel herself were far away, and only able to signal what she wanted to say.

“Yes, mother.”

“All you⁠—needed?”

“Yes, mother.”

She did not speak again for a time; then, “Are you sure you didn’t⁠—didn’t catch cold coming home?”

“I’m all right, mother.”

“That’s good. It’s sweet⁠—it’s sweet⁠—”

“What is, mother darling?”

“To feel⁠—my hand on your cheek. I⁠—I can feel it.”

But this frightened him horribly⁠—that she seemed so glad she could feel it, like a child proud of some miraculous seeming thing accomplished. It frightened him so that he could not speak, and he feared that she would know how he trembled; but she was unaware, and again was silent. Finally she spoke again:

“I wonder if⁠—if Eugene and Lucy know that we’ve come⁠—home.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Has he⁠—asked about me?”

“Yes, he was here.”

“Has he⁠—gone?”

“Yes, mother.”

She sighed faintly. “I’d like⁠—”

“What, mother?”

“I’d like to have⁠—seen him.” It was just audible, this little regretful murmur. Several minutes passed before there was another. “Just⁠—just once,” she whispered, and then was still.

She seemed to have fallen asleep, and George moved to go, but a faint pressure upon his fingers detained him, and he remained, with her hand still pressed against his cheek. After a while he made sure she was asleep, and moved again, to let the nurse come in, and this time there was no pressure of the fingers to keep him. She was not asleep, but thinking that if he went he might get some rest, and be better prepared for what she knew was coming, she commanded those longing fingers of hers⁠—and let him go.

He found the doctor standing with the nurse in the hall; and, telling them that his mother was drowsing now, George went back to his own room, where he was startled to find his grandfather lying on the bed, and his uncle leaning against the wall. They had gone home two hours before, and he did not know they had returned.

“The doctor thought we’d better come over,” Amberson said, then was silent, and George, shaking violently, sat down on the edge of the bed. His shaking continued, and from time to time he wiped heavy sweat from his forehead.

The hours passed, and sometimes the old man upon the bed would snore a little, stop suddenly, and move as if to rise, but George Amberson would set a hand upon his shoulder, and murmur a reassuring word or two. Now and then, either uncle or nephew would tiptoe into the hall and look toward Isabel’s room, then come tiptoeing back, the other watching him haggardly.

Once George gasped defiantly: “That doctor in New York said she might get better! Don’t you know he did? Don’t you know he said she might?”

Amberson made no answer.

Dawn had been murking through the smoky windows, growing stronger for half an hour, when both men started violently at a sound in the hall; and the Major sat up on the bed, unchecked. It was the voice of the nurse speaking to Fanny Minafer, and the next moment, Fanny appeared in the doorway, making contorted efforts to speak.

Amberson said weakly: “Does she want us⁠—to come in?”

But Fanny found her voice, and uttered a long, loud cry. She threw her arms about George, and sobbed in an agony of loss and compassion:

“She loved you!” she wailed. “She loved you! She loved you! Oh, how she did love you!”

Isabel had just left them.

XXX

Major Amberson remained dry-eyed through the time that followed: he knew that this separation from his daughter would be short, that the separation which had preceded it was the long one. He worked at his ledgers no more under his old gas drop-light, but would sit all evening staring into the fire, in his bedroom, and not speaking unless someone asked him a question. He seemed almost unaware of what went on around him, and those who were with him thought him dazed by Isabel’s death, guessing that he was lost in reminiscences and vague dreams. “Probably his mind is full of pictures of his youth, or the Civil War, and the days when he and mother were young married people and all of us children were jolly little things⁠—and the city was a small town with one cobbled street and the others just dirt roads with board sidewalks.” This was George Amberson’s conjecture, and the others agreed; but they were mistaken. The Major was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life. No business plans which