Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1919 — The Magnificent Ambersons [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Magnificent Ambersons

Copyright by Doubleday, Pa«o • Company.

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

CHAPTER XlX—Continued. —l4 A month after her death he walked abruptly into Fanny’s room, one night, and found her at her desk, eagerly adding columns of figures with which ahe hari covered several sheets of paper. / “I beg your pardon for not knocktfig," he Said huskily. “I didn't think.” She turned in her chair and looked at him solicitously. “Sit down, George, won’t your* “No. I just wanted ” “I could hear you walking up and down in your room," said Fanny. “You were doing it ever since dinner, and It seems to me you're at it almost every evening. I don’t believe It’s good for you—and I know it would worry your mother terribly If she ’’ Fanny hesitated. “See here." George said, breathing fast, “I want to tell you once more that what I did was right. How could I have done anything else but what I did do?” “Oh, I don’t pretend to judge,” Fanny said soothingly, for his voice and gesture both partook of wildness. “I know you think you -did -George." “ "Think I did!’ ” he echoed violently. “My GoA tn heaven!" And he began to walk up and down the floor. “What else was there to do? What choice did I have? Was there any other way of stopping the talk?" He stopped, close in front of her, gesticulating;—his voice harsh and “Was there any other way on earth of protecting her from the talk?" Miss Fanny looked avvay. “It died down before long, I think,” she said nervously. “That shows I was right, doesn't it?” he cried. “If I hadn't acted as I did, that slanderous old Johnson woman would have kept on with her slanders —she’d still be—” “No,” Fanny interrupted: “She’s dead. She dropped dead with apoplexy one day about six’ weeks after you left. I didn’t meiHion it In my letters because I didn’t want —I thought— ’’ “Well, the other people would have kept on, then. They’d have —’’ “I don’t know.” said Fanny, still •verting her troubled eyes. “Things •re so changed here, George. The other people you speak of —one hardly knows what's become of them. Of course not a great many were doing the talking, and they—well, some of them are dead, and some might as well be—you never see tfyem any more —and the rest, whoever they were, are probably so mixed in with the crowds of new people that seem never even to have heard of us—and I’m sure we eertalply never heard of them —and people seem to forget things so soon—they seem to forget anything. You can’t imagine how things have changed here 1" George gulped painfully before he could speak. “You —you mean to sit there and tell me that if I’d just let ■things go op— Oh!" He swung away, walking the floor again. “I tell you

” C' ■ f did the only right thing ’ You think I was wrong!” “I’m not saying so.” she said. “You did.at the time!” he cried. “You said enough then. I think. Well, what have you to say now, if you’re so sure I was wrong?” “Nothing, George.” / “It’s only because you’re afraid to!” he said, and he went on with a sudden bitter divination: “You’re reproaching yourself with what you' had to do with all that; and you’re trying to make up for it by doing and saying wtftt you think mother would want yoc to, and you think I couldn’t stand it if. I got to thinking I might have done differently. Oh. I know! That’s exactly what’s in your mind: you do think I was wrong! So does Upcle George. I challenged him about it the other day, and he answered just

as you’re answering—evaded, anq tried to be gentle! I don’t cure to be handled with gloves! I tell you I was right, and I don’t need any coddling by people that think I wasn’t! And I suppose you believe I was wrong not to let Morgan see her that last night when he came here, and she —she was God did vou come and ask me? You could hnve taken him In! r-Slit* <JIcT want to see him—She—” Miss Fanny looked startled. “You thtnk—“She told me so!" And the tortured young man choked., “She said—‘Just once.’ She said ‘l’d like to have seen him—just once!’ She meant—to tell him good-bye! That’s what she meant! And you put this on me, too; you put this Responsibility on me! But I tell you. and I told Uncle George, that the responsibility isn’t all mine! If you were so sure I was wrong all jhe time —when I took her away, and when I turned Morgan out —if you were so sure, what did you let me do it for? You and Uncle, George were grown people, both of you, weren’t you? You were older than I, and if you were so sure you were wiser than U why -dM you just, stand around with your hands hanging down, mid let rue go ahead? You could have stopped it if it was wrong, couldn't you?" Fanny shook her head. “No, George," she said slowly. “Nobody could have stopped you. You were too strong, ; and ' ” ■ ’ • “And what?"hedemanded loudly. “And she loved you—too well.” George stared fit her hard, flion his lower lip began to move convulsively, and he set his teeth upon it but could not check its frantic twitching. He ran out of the room. She sat still, listening. He had plunged into his mother’s room, but no sound came to Fanny’s ears after the sharp closing of the door' and presently she rose and stepped out into the hall —but could - hear nothing. What interview was sealed away from human eye and ear within the lonely darkness on the other side of that door—in that darkness where Isabel’s own special chairs were, and her own special books, and the two great walnut wardrobes filled with her dresses and wraps? What tragic argument might be there vainly striving to confute the gentle dead? “In God’s name, what else could I hnve done?” For his mother’s immutable silence was surely answering him as Isabel in life would never have answered him, and he was beginning to understand how eloquent the dead can be. They cannot stop their eloquence, no matter how they have loved the living; they cannot choose. And so, no matter in what agony George should cry out, “What else could I hnve done?” and to the end of his fife no matter how I often he made that wild appeal. Isabel t was -doomed to-answer him with the wistful, faint murmur. “I’d like to have-Hseen him. Just , once.” * .•> —-—-—. —A superstitious person uidght-ha vethoughtitunf ortunatethat i Fanny’s partner in speculative indusTry 8S In W!lbnr> fiisflMnfflS rolline- | mills, was that charming but too haphazardous man of the world, George Amberson. He was one of those optimists who believe that If .you P Qt money into ff great many etnerprises one of them is sure to turn out a for- ■ tune, and therefore, in order to find ! the lucky one. it is only necessary to go into a large enough number of them. “You ought to have, thought of iny record and stayed out.” he told Fanny, one day the next spring, when the affairs of the headlight company had begun to look discouraging. Things do look bleak, and I’fn only glad you didn’t go into this confounded thing to the extent I did." ——— - Miss Fanny pink. “But it mtfin go right!” she, protested. “We saw with our own eyes how perfectly it worked out shop. It simply—” “Oh. you’re right about that.” Amberson said. “It certainly was a perfect thing—in the shop!” “But think of that test on the road when we— ’’ % “That tests»as.Jov4ly.” he admitted. “The inventor made us happy with his oratory, and you and Frank Bronson and I went whirling through the night at a speed that thriTled’Tis. We must never forget it —and we never shall. It cost —” “But something must be done.” ' “It must indeed! My something would seem to be leaving my w*atch at my uncle’s. Luckily, you—” The pink of Fanny’s cheeks became deeper. “But isn’t that man going to do anything to remedy it? Can’t he “He can try,” said Amberson. “He is trying, in fact. I’ve sat in the shop watching him try for several beautiful afternoons.” “But you must make him keep on trying!” 5 ■ “Oh. yes. I’ll keep sitting!” * However, in spite of the time he spent sitting, in the shop, worrying the i inventor of the fractious lighr. AaibeFI son found opportunity to worry him- ; self about another matter of business. This was the settlement of Isabel’s estate.

“It’s curious about the deed to her house,” be said to his nephew. “You're absolutely sure It wasn’t among her papers?" . . “Mother didn’t have any papers,” George told him, “None at all. All she ever had to do with business was to deposit the checks grandfather gave against them." —. ■■The d<>ed to the house was never recorded, 1 ’ Ambersou said thoughtfully. “I’ve been over to the courthouse To see. I think It would be just as well to get him to execute one now in your favor. I’ll speak to him about it." George sighed. “I don’t think I’d bother him about Jt ; the house is mine, and you and I understand that It is. That’s enough for me, and there Isn’t likely to he much trouble between you and me when we come to settling poor grandfather’s with him, and I think it would only confuse him for you to speak to him -about it again. I notice he seems distressed if anybody tries to get bls attention—he’s a long way off, somewhere, and he likes to stay that way. I think —I think mother wouldn’t want ns to bother him nhont it: I’m sure, she'd tell us to let him alone. He Amberson shook his head. -“I won’t bother him any more than I can help; but I’ll have the deed made out ready for his signature.” ?“I wouldn't bother him at all. I don’t — “You might see,” said his uncle uneasily. “The estate is just about as involved and mixed up as un estate can well get, to the best of my knowledge. You ought to have that deed.” “No, don’t bother him.” “I'll bother him as little as possible. I’ll waft till some day when he seems to brighten up a little.” But Amberson wailed too long. The Major had already taken eleven months since his daughter’s death to think important things out. One evening his grandsoiL sat with him—the Major seemed to like best to have young George with him, so far as they were able to guess his preferences —and the old gentleman made a queer gesture; he slapped his knee as if he had. made a sudden discovery, or else remembered that he had forgotten something. George looked at him with an air of Inquiry, but said nothing. He had grotvn to be almost as silent as his grandfather. However, the Major spoke without being questioned. “It must be in the sun," he said. “There wasn’t anything here but the sun in-the first place, and the earth came out of the sun, and we came out of the earth. So, whatever we are, we must have been in the sun. We go back to the earth we came out of so the earth will go back to the sun that it came out of. And time means nothing—nothing at all —so in a little while we’ll all be back in the sun together. I wish ” He moved his hand uncertainly as if reaching for something, and George jumped up. “Did you want anything, -grandfather ?”■ -= “What?” —' “Would you like' a glass of water?” “No—no. No; I don’t want anything.” The reaching hand dropped back uponi the s arm of his chair, and he relapsed into silence; but a few mi times later he finished the sentence he had begun: “I wish —somebody could tell me!” The next day he had a slight cold, but he seemed annoyed when his son suggested calling the doctor, and Amberson let him have his own way so far. in fact, that after he had got up and dressed, the following morning, he was all alone when he went away to find out what he hadn’t been able to think out—all those things he had. wished “somebody” would tell him. Old Sam, shuffling in with the breakfast tray, found Major in his accustomed easy-chair by the fireplace —and yet even the old darkey coulo see instantly that the Major was pot thei e.

CHAPTER XX. When the great Amberson estate went into court for settlement, “there wasn't any,” George Amberson said—thas is, when the settlement was concluded there was no estate. He reproached himself bitterly for not having long ago discovered that his father had never given Isabel a deed to her house. “And those pigs, Sydney and Amelia!” he added, for this was another thing he was; bitter about. “They won’t, do anything. I’m sorry I gave them the opportunity of making a polished refusal. The estate was badly crippled, even before they took out their ‘third.’ and the ‘third’ they took was the only good part of the rotten apple. Well, I didnY ask them for restitution on my own account, and at least It will isave you some trouble, young George. Never waste any time writing to them; you mustn’t count on them.” . “IT don’t.” George said quietly. “I don’t count on anything.” f “Oh, we’ll not feel that things are quite desperate," Amberson laughed.

but not with great cheerfulness. “We'll survive. Georgle—you will, especially. For my part TfiTa little too old and too accustomed to fall back on somebody else for supplies to start a big fight with life; I’ll be content with just surviving, and L can do It on an eighteen-hundred-doilar-a-year consulship. An ex-<«mgre«sman -ean always be pretty sure of getting some such jdty. and I hear from Washington the matter’s about settled. So much for me! But you—of course you've had a poor training for making your own way, but you’re only a boy after all, and the stuff of the old stock is in you. It’ll come out and do something. I’ll never forgive myself about that deed; it would have given you something substantial to start with. Still," you have a little tiny bit, and you’ll have a little tiny salary, too; and of course your Aunt Fanny’s here, and she's got something you can fall back on if you get too pinched, until I can begin to send you a dribble now and then.” George’s “little tiny bit” was six hundred dollars which had ‘ come to him from the sale fils mother’s furniture; and the “little tiny salary” was eight dollars a week "which old Frank Bronson was to pay him for services as a clerk and student-at-iaw. George had accepted haughtily, and thereby removed a burden from his uncle’s mind. = Amberson himself, hawever T had_not even a “tiny bit;” though he got his "consular appointment, andTio take him to his post he found it necessary to borrow two hundred of his nephew’s six hundred dollars. “It makes me sick, George,” he said. “But I’d better get there and get that salary started. Of course Eugene would do anything in the world, and the fact is he wanted to, but I felt that—ah—under the circumstances ” “Never!” George exclaimed, growing red. “I can’t imagine one of the family ” He paused, not finding it necessary to explain that “the famlly” Shouldn’t tiim'a limn from the door and Then accent favors from him; “I wish you’d take more.” Amberson declined. “One thing I’ll say for you, young George; you haven't a stingy bone in your body. That’s the Amberson stock in you—and I like it!” He added something to this praise of his nephew on the day he left for Washington. He was not to return, but <o set forth from the capital on the long journey to his post. George went with him to the station, and their farewell was lengthened by the train’s being several minutes late. “I may not see you again, Georgie,” Amberson said, and his voice was a little husky as he set a kind hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It’s quite probable that from this time on we’ll only know each other by letter —until you’re notified as my next of kin that there’s an old valise to be forwarded to you, and perhaps some dusty curios from the consulate mantelpiece. Well, it’s an odd way for us to be saying good bve; one wouldn’t have thought ItTeven a few yearsTagTTßutHere we ance in a state of bustitude. We can’t ever tell what will happen at all, can we? Life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. And when they’re gone we can’t tell where —or what the devil we did with ’em! But I believe I’ll say now—while there isn’t much time left for either of us to get embarrassed about it —I believe I’ll say that I've always been fond of you. We all spoiled you terribly when you were a little boy aud let you grow up en prince—and I must say you took to it! But you’ve received a pretty heavy jolt, and 1 had enough of your disposition, myself, at your age, to understand a. little of. what cocksure youth has to go through Inside when it finds that it can make ■terrible mistakes. Well, with my train coming ~into the shell, you’ll _forgive me for saying that there have been times when I thought you ought to be hanged—but I’ve always been flind of you, and now I like you! And just for a last word; there may be somebody else in this town who’s always felt about you like that —fond of you, 1 mean, no matter how much it seemed you ought tb be hanged. You might try- Hello, I must run. I’ll send back the money as fast as they pay me—so, good bye and God bless you, Georgie!" He-passed through the gates, waved his hat cheerily from the other side of the iron screen, and was lost from sight in the hurrying crowd. And as he disappeared, an unexpected poignant loneliness fell upon his nephew so heavily and so suddenly that he had no energy to recoil from the shock'. It seemed to him that the last fragment of his familiar world had leaving.him all alone forever. lie walked homeward slowly through what appealed to be the strange city, and, as a matter of fact, the city was strange to him. He had seen little of it during his years in college, and then had followed the long absence and his tragic return. Since that he hAd been “scarcely outdoors at all” as Fanny complained, 'Avarning him

that his health would suffer, and he had been downtown only in a closed carriage. He had not realized the great change. The streets were thunderous, a vast energy heaved under the universal coating of dinginess. George walked through the begrimed crowds of hurrying strangers and saw no face that he remembered. Great numbers oi faces were even of a kind he ,did not remember ever to have seen; they were partly like the old type that his boyhood knew, and partly like types he knew abroad. He saw German eyes with American wrinkles at their corners; he saw Irish eyes and Neapolitan eyes, Roman eyes, Tuscan eyes, eyes of Lombardy, of Savoy, Hungarian eyes, Balkan eyes, Scandinavian eyes—-all with a queer American look in them. He saw Jews who were no longer German or Russia a-or Polish Jews. All the people were soiled by the smoke-m Ist through which they hurried, under the heavy sky that hung close upon the new skyscrapers, and nearly all seemed harried by something impending, thoughhere and there a woman with bundles would be laughing to a companion about some adventure of the department store, or perhaps an escape from the charging traffic of the streets—and not Infrequently a girl, or a free-and-easy young matron, found time to encouraging look to George. He took no note of these, and, leaving the crowded sidewalks, turned

north into National avenue, and presently reached the quieter but no less begrimed region of smaller shops and old-fashioned houses. Those latter had been the homes of his boyhood playmates, old friends of his grandfather had lived here—in this alley he had fought with two boys at the same time, and whipped them; in that front yard he had been successfully teased into temporary insanity by a Sunday school class of pinky little girls. On that sagging porch a laughihg woman had fed him and other boys with . doughnuts and gingerbread; yonder he saw the staggered relics of the iron picket fence he had made his white pony jump, on a dare, and in the shabby,stone-facedHouse behind the V nhilrlt*nn’q TTifl Ffica nnd, when hL 1 1,1 Lt J It he had danced there often, and fallen in love with Mary Sharon, and kissed her. apparently by force, under the stairs in the hall. The double front doors, of meaningiessly carved walnut, once so glossily varnished, had been painted smqke gray, but the smoke grime showed repulsively, even on the smoke gray; and over the doors a smoked sign proclaimed the place to be a “Stag hotel.” This was the last “walk home” he was ever to take by the route he was now following: up National avenue to Amberson addition and the two big old houses at the foot of Amberson boulevard; for tonight would be the last night that he and Fanny were to spend in the house which the Major had forgotten to deed to Isabel. Tomorrow they were to “move out,” and George was to begin his work in Bronson’s office. He had not come to this collapse without a fierce struggle—but the struggle was inward, and the rolling world was not agitated by it. and rolled calmly on. For of all the “ideals of life” which the world, in its rolling, Inconsiderately flattens„out to nothingness, the least likely, tb retain a profile is that ideal which depends upon inheriting money. George Amberson, in spite of his record of failures in business, had spoken shrewdly when he realized at last that money, like life, was “like quicksilver in a nest of cracks.” And his nephew had the a wakening experience of seeing the great Amberson estate vanishing into such a nest —in a tw’inkling; it seemed, now that it was indeed so utterly vanished. On this last homeward walk of his. When George reached the, entrance to Amberson addition —that is, when he came to where the entrance had formerly been —he gave a little start, and baited for a moment to star< This was the first time he had noticed that the stone pillars, marking the entrance, had been removed. Then he realized that for a Jong time he had been conscious of a queerness about this corner without being aware of what made the difference. National * ' f '

avenue met Amberson boulevard here at an obtuse angle, and the removal of the pillars made the boulevard seep a cross street of no overpowering importance —certainly it did not seem to be a boulevard! George walked by the Mansion hurriedly, and came home to his mother’s house for the last time. Emptiness was there, too, and the closing of the door resounded through bare rooms; for downstairs there was no furniture in the house except a kitchen table In the dining room, which Fanny had kept “for dinner," she said, though as she was to cook and serve that meal herself George had his doubts about her name for it. Upstairs, she had retained her own furniture, and George had been living in his mother's room, having sent everything from his own to the auction. Isabel’s room was still as It had been, but the furniture would be moved with Fanny’s to new quarters in the morning. Fanny had made plans for her nephew as well as herself; she had fouhd a “three-room kitchenette apartment” In an apartment house where several old friends of hers had established themselves —elderly widows of citizens once “prominent” and other retired gentry. -People used their own “kitchenettes” for-breakfast and lunch, but there was a table-dTiote arrangement for dinner on the ground floor; and after dinner bridge was played all evening, an attraction powerful with Fanny. She had “made all the arrangements,” she reported, and nervously appealed for approval, asking if she hadn’t shown herself “pretty practical” in such mattery. George acquiesced absent-mindedly, not thinking of what she said and not realizing to what it committed him. $ He began to realize It now, as he wandered about the dismantled house; hewasfarfroTnsurethat^he was willing to live In a “three-room apart; rnent” with Fanny and eat breakfast and lunch with her (prepared by herself in the “kitchenette”) and dinner at the table d’hote in “such a pretty Colonial dining room" (so Fanny described it) at a little round table they weuld have all-to- themselves - in-the midst of a dozen little round tables which other relics of disrupted families would have all to themselves. For the first time, now that the change was imminent, George began to develop before his mind’s eye pictures of v bat he was in for; and they appalled him. He decided that such a life verged upon the sheerly unbearable, and that after all there were some things left that he jyst couldn’t,stand. So he made up his mind to sjfeak to his aunt about it' at “dinner,” and tell her that he preferred to ask Bronson to let him put a sofa-bed, a trunk and a. folding rubber bathtub behind a screen in the dark rear room of the office. But at “dinner” Fanny was nervous, and so distressed about the failure of her efforts with sweetbreads □nd macaroni; and she was so eager in her talk of how comfortable they would be “by this time tomorrow night.’ After “dinner” he went upstairs, moving his hand slowly along the smooth walnut railing of the balustrade. Half way to the landing he stopped, turned, and stood looking down at the heavy doors masking the black emptiness that had been the library. Here he had stood on whal he now knew was the worst day of his life; here he had stood when his mother passed through that doorway, hand-in-hand with her brother, to learn whal her sqn had done. He went on more heavily, more slow ly; and, more heavily and slowly still entered Isabel’s room and shut the tlie closed door when she stopped out side It later; “I’ve put all the lights out, George,’ she said. “Everything’s all right.”' “Very well,” he called. “Good night Aunt Fanny.” . His voice had a strangled sound ii spite of him; but she seemed not t< notice it, and he heard her go to hei own room and lock herself in witl bolt and key against burglars. Sh« had said the one thing she should no. have said just then: “I’m sure youi mother’s watching over you, Georgie.’ She had meant to be kind, but it de stroyed his last chance for sleep thai night. He would have slept little 11 she had not said it, but since she hat said it he did not sleep at all. For h< knew that it was true —if it could b< true —that his mother, if she still livec Jn spirit, would be weeping on th< other side of the wall of silence, weep ing and seeking for sope gate to let her through so that she could com< and “watch over him.” He felt that if there were such gate* they were surely barred: they wer< like those awful library doors down stairs, which had shut her in to begit the suffering to which he had con signed her. The room was still Isabel’s. Noth ing had been changed: even the pho tographs of George,' of the Major anC of “brother George” still stood on hei dressing table, and in a drawer of hei desk was an old picture of Eugene anc Luey, taken together, which Georgi had found but had slowly closed'awaj again from sight, not touching IL To morrow everything would be gone and he had heard there wai not lon| to wait before the house itself woul< be demolished. The very space whlcl tonight was still Isabel’s room woulc be cut into new shapes by new walk •and floors and ceilings; yet the roon would always live, for it could not di* out of George’s memory. It would llv« s as long as he did, and It would alwayt be murmurous with a tragic, wlstfU .whispering, (TO BE CONTIbi UED.) * . 1.1

“I Old the Right Thing, I Tell You."

“There Have Been Times When I Thought You Ought to Be Hanged."