"I!" f.a.n.n.y jeered. "I was gloomy? I was excited? You mean about that engagement?"
"Yes. Weren"t you? I thought I heard you worrying over somebody"s being engaged. Didn"t I hear you say you"d heard Mr. Eugene Morgan was engaged to marry some pretty little seventeen-year-old girl?"
f.a.n.n.y was stung, but she made a brave effort. "Did you ask Lucy?" she said, her voice almost refusing the teasing laugh she tried to make it utter. "Did you ask her when Fred Kinney and she--"
"Yes. That story wasn"t true. But the other one--" Here he stared at f.a.n.n.y, and then affected dismay. "Why, what"s the matter with your face, Aunt f.a.n.n.y? It seems agitated!"
"Agitated!" f.a.n.n.y said disdainfully, but her voice undeniably lacked steadiness. "Agitated!"
"Oh, come!" Mr. Minafer interposed. "Let"s have a little peace!"
"I"m willing," said George. "I don"t want to see poor Aunt f.a.n.n.y all stirred up over a rumour I just this minute invented myself. She"s so excitable--about certain subjects--it"s hard to control her." He turned to his mother. "What"s the matter with grandfather?"
"Didn"t you see him this morning?" Isabel asked.
"Yes. He was glad to see me, and all that, but he seemed pretty fidgety.
Has he been having trouble with his heart again?"
"Not lately. No."
"Well, he"s not himself. I tried to talk to him about the estate; it"s disgraceful--it really is--the way things are looking. He wouldn"t listen, and he seemed upset. What"s he upset over?"
Isabel looked serious; however, it was her husband who suggested gloomily, "I suppose the Major"s bothered about this Sydney and Amelia business, most likely."
"What Sydney and Amelia business?" George asked.
"Your mother can tell you, if she wants to," Minafer said. "It"s not my side of the family, so I keep off."
"It"s rather disagreeable for all of us, Georgie," Isabel began. "You see, your Uncle Sydney wanted a diplomatic position, and he thought brother George, being in Congress, could arrange it. George did get him the offer of a South American ministry, but Sydney wanted a European amba.s.sadorship, and he got quite indignant with poor George for thinking he"d take anything smaller--and he believes George didn"t work hard enough for him. George had done his best, of course, and now he"s out of Congress, and won"t run again--so there"s Sydney"s idea of a big diplomatic position gone for good. Well, Sydney and your Aunt Amelia are terribly disappointed, and they say they"ve been thinking for years that this town isn"t really fit to live in--"for a gentleman," Sydney says--and it is getting rather big and dirty. So they"ve sold their house and decided to go abroad to live permanently; there"s a villa near Florence they"ve often talked of buying. And they want father to let them have their share of the estate now, instead of waiting for him to leave it to them in his will."
"Well, I suppose that"s fair enough," George said. "That is, in case he intended to leave them a certain amount in his will."
"Of course that"s understood, Georgie. Father explained his will to us long ago; a third to them, and a third to brother George, and a third to us."
Her son made a simple calculation in his mind. Uncle George was a bachelor, and probably would never marry; Sydney and Amelia were childless. The Major"s only grandchild appeared to remain the eventual heir of the entire property, no matter if the Major did turn over to Sydney a third of it now. And George had a fragmentary vision of himself, in mourning, arriving to take possession of a historic Florentine villa--he saw himself walking up a cypress-bordered path, with ancient carven stone bal.u.s.trades in the distance, and servants in mourning livery greeting the new signore. "Well, I suppose it"s grandfather"s own affair. He can do it or not, just as he likes. I don"t see why he"d mind much."
"He seemed rather confused and pained about it," Isabel said. "I think they oughtn"t to urge it. George says that the estate won"t stand taking out the third that Sydney wants, and that Sydney and Amelia are behaving like a couple of pigs." She laughed, continuing, "Of course I don"t know whether they are or not: I never have understood any more about business myself than a little pig would! But I"m on George"s side, whether he"s right or wrong; I always was from the time we were children: and Sydney and Amelia are hurt with me about it, I"m afraid. They"ve stopped speaking to George entirely. Poor father Family rows at his time of life."
George became thoughtful. If Sydney and Amelia were behaving like pigs, things might not be so simple as at first they seemed to be. Uncle Sydney and Aunt Amelia might live an awful long while, he thought; and besides, people didn"t always leave their fortunes to relatives. Sydney might die first, leaving everything to his widow, and some curly-haired Italian adventurer might get round her, over there in Florence; she might be fool enough to marry again--or even adopt somebody!
He became more and more thoughtful, forgetting entirely a plan he had formed for the continued teasing of his Aunt f.a.n.n.y; and, an hour after lunch, he strolled over to his grandfather"s, intending to apply for further information, as a party rightfully interested.
He did not carry out this intention, however. Going into the big house by a side entrance, he was informed that the Major was upstairs in his bedroom, that his sons Sydney and George were both with him, and that a serious argument was in progress. "You kin stan" right in de middle dat big, sta"y-way," said Old Sam, the ancient negro, who was his informant, "an" you kin heah all you a-mind to wivout goin" on up no fudda. Mist"
Sydney an" Mist" Jawge talkin" louduh"n I evuh heah n.o.body ca"y on in nish heah house! Quollin", honey, big quollin"!"
"All right," said George shortly. "You go on back to your own part of the house, and don"t make any talk. Hear me?"
"Yessuh, yessuh," Sam chuckled, as he shuffled away. "Plenty talkin"
wivout Sam! Yessuh!"
George went to the foot of the great stairway. He could hear angry voices overhead--those of his two uncles--and a plaintive murmur, as if the Major tried to keep the peace. Such sounds were far from encouraging to callers, and George decided not to go upstairs until this interview was over. His decision was the result of no timidity, nor of a too sensitive delicacy. What he felt was, that if he interrupted the scene in his grandfather"s room, just at this time, one of the three gentlemen engaging in it might speak to him in a peremptory manner (in the heat of the moment) and George saw no reason for exposing his dignity to such mischances. Therefore he turned from the stairway, and going quietly into the library, picked up a magazine--but he did not open it, for his attention was instantly arrested by his Aunt Amelia"s voice, speaking in the next room. The door was open and George heard her distinctly.
"Isabel does? Isabel!" she exclaimed, her tone high and shrewish. "You needn"t tell me anything about Isabel Minafer, I guess, my dear old Frank Bronson! I know her a little better than you do, don"t you think?"
George heard the voice of Mr. Bronson replying--a voice familiar to him as that of his grandfather"s attorney-in-chief and chief intimate as well. He was a contemporary of the Major"s, being over seventy, and they had been through three years of the War in the same regiment. Amelia addressed him now, with an effect of angry mockery, as "my dear old Frank Bronson"; but that (without the mockery) was how the Amberson family almost always spoke of him: "dear old Frank Bronson." He was a hale, thin old man, six feet three inches tall, and without a stoop.
"I doubt your knowing Isabel," he said stiffly. "You speak of her as you do because she sides with her brother George, instead of with you and Sydney."
"Pooh!" Aunt Amelia was evidently in a pa.s.sion. "You know what"s been going on over there, well enough, Frank Bronson!"
"I don"t even know what you"re talking about."
"Oh, you don"t? You don"t know that Isabel takes George"s side simply because he"s Eugene Morgan"s best friend?"
"It seems to me you"re talking pure nonsense," said Bronson sharply.
"Not impure nonsense, I hope!"
Amelia became shrill. "I thought you were a man of the world: don"t tell me you"re blind! For nearly two years Isabel"s been pretending to chaperone f.a.n.n.y Minafer with Eugene, and all the time she"s been dragging that poor fool f.a.n.n.y around to chaperone her and Eugene! Under the circ.u.mstances, she knows people will get to thinking f.a.n.n.y"s a pretty slim kind of chaperone, and Isabel wants to please George because she thinks there"ll be less talk if she can keep her own brother around, seeming to approve. "Talk!" She"d better look out! The whole town will be talking, the first thing she knows! She--"
Amelia stopped, and stared at the doorway in a panic, for her nephew stood there.
She kept her eyes upon his white face for a few strained moments, then, regaining her nerve, looked away and shrugged her shoulders.
"You weren"t intended to hear what I"ve been saying, George," she said quietly. "But since you seem to--"
"Yes, I did."
"So!" She shrugged her shoulders again. "After all, I don"t know but it"s just as well, in the long run."
He walked up to where she sat. "You--you--" he said thickly. "It seems--it seems to me you"re--you"re pretty common!"
Amelia tried to give the impression of an unconcerned person laughing with complete indifference, but the sounds she produced were disjointed and uneasy. She fanned herself, looking out of the open window near her.
"Of course, if you want to make more trouble in the family than we"ve already got, George, with your eavesdropping, you can go and repeat--"
Old Bronson had risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt was talking nonsense because she"s piqued over a business matter, George,"
he said. "She doesn"t mean what she said, and neither she nor any one else gives the slightest credit to such foolishness--no one in the world!"
George gulped, and wet lines shone suddenly along his lower eyelids.
"They--they"d better not!" he said, then stalked out of the room, and out of the house. He stamped fiercely across the stone slabs of the front porch, descended the steps, and halted abruptly, blinking in the strong sunshine.
In front of his own gate, beyond the Major"s broad lawn, his mother was just getting into her victoria, where sat already his Aunt f.a.n.n.y and Lucy Morgan. It was a summer fashion-picture: the three ladies charmingly dressed, delicate parasols aloft; the lines of the victoria graceful as those of a violin; the trim pair of bays in glistening harness picked out with silver, and the serious black driver whom Isabel, being an Amberson, dared even in that town to put into a black livery coat, boots, white breeches, and c.o.c.kaded hat. They jingled smartly away, and, seeing George standing on the Major"s lawn, Lucy waved, and Isabel threw him a kiss.
But George shuddered, pretending not to see them, and stooped as if searching for something lost in the gra.s.s, protracting that posture until the victoria was out of hearing. And ten minutes later, George Amberson, somewhat in the semblance of an angry person plunging out of the Mansion, found a pale nephew waiting to accost him.
"I haven"t time to talk, Georgie."
"Yes, you have. You"d better!"
"What"s the matter, then?"