"But she said," George persisted wretchedly; "she said there was talk. She said--"
"Look here, young fellow!" Amberson laughed good-naturedly. "There probably is some harmless talk about the way your Aunt Fanny goes after poor Eugene, and I've no doubt I've abetted it myself. People can't help being amused by a thing like that. Fanny was always languishing at him, twenty-odd years ago, before he left here. Well, we can't blame the poor thing if she's got her hopes up again, and I don't know that I blame her, myself, for using your mother the way she does."
"How do you mean?"
Amberson put his hand on George's shoulder. "You like to tease Fanny," he said, "but I wouldn't tease her about this, if I were you. Fanny hasn't got much in her life. You know, Georgie, just being an aunt isn't really the great career it may sometimes appear to you! In fact, I don't know of anything much that Fanny has got, except her feeling about Eugene. She's always had it--and what's funny to us is pretty much life-and-death to her, I suspect. Now, I'll not deny that Eugene Morgan is attracted to your mother. He is; and that's another case of 'always was'; but I know him, and he's a knight, George--a crazy one, perhaps, if you've read 'Don Quixote.' And I think your mother likes him better than she likes any man outside her own family, and that he interests her more than anybody else--and 'always has.' And that's all there is to it, except--"
"Except what?" George asked quickly, as he paused.
"Except that I suspect--" Amberson chuckled, and began over: "I'll tell you in confidence. I think Fanny's a fairly tricky customer, for such an innocent old girl! There isn't any real harm in her, but she's a great diplomatist--lots of cards up her lace sleeves, Georgie! By the way, did you ever notice how proud she is of her arms? Always flashing 'em at poor Eugene!" And he stopped to laugh again.
"I don't see anything confidential about that," George complained. "I thought--"
"Wait a minute! My idea is--don't forget it's a confidential one, but I'm devilish right about it, young Georgie!--it's this: Fanny uses your mother for a decoy duck. She does everything in the world she can to keep your mother's friendship with Eugene going, because she thinks that's what keeps Eugene about the place, so to speak. Fanny's always with your mother, you see; and whenever he sees Isabel he sees Fanny. Fanny thinks he'll get used to the idea of her being around, and some day her chance may come! You see, she's probably afraid--perhaps she even knows, poor thing!--that she wouldn't get to see much of Eugene if it weren't for Isabel's being such a friend of his. There! D'you see?"
"Well--I suppose so." George's brow was still dark, however. "If you're sure whatever talk there is, is about Aunt Fanny. If that's so--"
"Don't be an ass," his uncle advised him lightly, moving away. "I'm off for a week's fishing to forget that woman in there, and her pig of a husband." (His gesture toward the Mansion indicated Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Amberson.) "I recommend a like course to you, if you're silly enough to pay any attention to such rubbishings! Good-bye!"
. . . George was partially reassured, but still troubled: a word haunted him like the recollection of a nightmare. "Talk!"
He stood looking at the houses across the street from the Mansion; and though the sunshine was bright upon them, they seemed mysteriously threatening. He had always despised them except the largest of them, which was the home of his henchman, Charlie Johnson. The Johnsons had originally owned a lot three hundred feet wide, but they had sold all of it except the meagre frontage before the house itself, and five houses were now crowded into the space where one used to squire it so spaciously. Up and down the street, the same transformation had taken place: every big, comfortable old brick house now had two or three smaller frame neighbours crowding up to it on each side, cheap-looking neighbours, most of them needing paint and not clean--and yet, though they were cheap looking, they had cost as much to build as the big brick houses, whose former ample yards they occupied. Only where George stood was there left a sward as of yore; the great, level, green lawn that served for both the Major's house and his daughter's. This serene domain--unbroken, except for the two gravelled carriage-drives--alone remained as it had been during the early glories of the Amberson Addition.
George stared at the ugly houses opposite, and hated them more than ever; but he shivered. Perhaps the riffraff living in those houses sat at the windows to watch their betters; perhaps they dared to gossip--
He uttered an exclamation, and walked rapidly toward his own front gate. The victoria had returned with Miss Fanny alone; she jumped out briskly and the victoria waited.
"Where's mother?" George asked sharply, as he met her.
"At Lucy's. I only came back to get some embroidery, because we found the sun too hot for driving. I'm in a hurry."
But, going into the house with her, he detained her when she would have hastened upstairs.
"I haven't time to talk now, Georgie; I'm going right back. I promised your mother--"
"You listen!" said George.
"What on earth--"
He repeated what Amelia had said, This time, however, he spoke coldly, and without the emotion he had exhibited during the recital to his uncle: Fanny was the one who showed agitation during this interview, for she grew fiery red, and her eyes dilated. "What on earth do you want to bring such trash to me for?" she demanded, breathing fast.
"I merely wished to know two things: whether it is your duty or mine to speak to father of what Aunt Amelia--"
Fanny stamped her foot. "You little fool!" she cried. "You awful little fool!"
"I decline---"
"Decline, my hat! Your father's a sick man, and you--"
"He doesn't seem so to me."
"Well, he does to me! And you want to go troubling him with an Amberson family row! It's just what that cat would love you to do!"
"Well, I--"
"Tell your father if you like! It will only make him a little sicker to think he's got a son silly enough to listen to such craziness!"
"Then you're sure there isn't any talk?"
Fanny disdained a reply in words. She made a hissing sound of utter contempt and snapped her fingers. Then she asked scornfully: "What's the other thing you wanted to know?"
George's pallor increased. "Whether it mightn't be better, under the circumstances," he said, "if this family were not so intimate with the Morgan family--at least for a time. It might be better--"
Fanny stared at him incredulously. "You mean you'd quit seeing Lucy?"
"I hadn't thought of that side of it, but if such a thing were necessary on account of talk about my mother, I--I--" He hesitated unhappily. "I suggested that if all of us--for a time--perhaps only for a time--it might be better if--"
"See here," she interrupted. "We'll settle this nonsense right now. If Eugene Morgan comes to this house, for instance, to see me, your mother can't get up and leave the place the minute he gets here, can she? What do you want her to do: insult him? Or perhaps you'd prefer she'd insult Lucy? That would do just as well. What is it you're up to, anyhow? Do you really love your Aunt Amelia so much that you want to please her? Or do you really hate your Aunt Fanny so much that you want to--that you want to--"
She choked and sought for her handkerchief; suddenly she began to cry.
"Oh, see here," George said. "I don't hate you, Aunt Fanny. That's silly. I don't--"
"You do! You do! You want to--you want to destroy the only thing--that I--that I ever--" And, unable to continue, she became inaudible in her handkerchief.
George felt remorseful, and his own troubles were lightened: all at once it became clear to him that he had been worrying about nothing. He perceived that his Aunt Amelia was indeed an old cat, and that to give her scandalous meanderings another thought would be the height of folly. By no means insusceptible to such pathos as that now exposed before him, he did not lack pity for Fanny, whose almost spoken confession was lamentable, and he was granted the vision to understand that his mother also pitied Fanny infinitely more than be did. This seemed to explain everything.
He patted the unhappy lady awkwardly upon her shoulder. "There, there!" he said. "I didn't mean, anything. Of course the only thing to do about Aunt Amelia is to pay no attention to her. It's all right, Aunt Fanny. Don't cry. I feel a lot better now, myself. Come on; I'll drive back there with you. It's all over, and nothing's the matter. Can't you cheer up?"
Fanny cheered up; and presently the customarily hostile aunt and nephew were driving out Amberson Boulevard amiably together in the hot sunshine.
"ALMOST" was Lucy's last word on the last night of George's vacation--that vital evening which she had half consented to agree upon for "settling things" between them. "Almost engaged," she meant. And George, discontented with the "almost," but contented that she seemed glad to wear a sapphire locket with a tiny photograph of George Amberson Minafer inside it, found himself wonderful in a new world at the final instant of their parting. For, after declining to let him kiss her "good-bye," as if his desire for such a ceremony were the most preposterous absurdity in the world, she had leaned suddenly close to him and left upon his cheek the veriest feather from a fairy's wing.
She wrote him a month later:
No. It must keep on being almost.
