There was one border section of the city which George never explored
in his Sunday morning excursions. This was far out to the north where
lay the new Elysian Fields of the millionaires, though he once went
as far in that direction as the white house which Lucy had so admired
long ago—her “Beautiful House.” George looked at it briefly and turned
back, rumbling with an interior laugh of some grimness. The house was
white no longer; nothing could be white which the town had reached, and
the town reached far beyond the beautiful white house now. The owners
had given up and painted it a despairing chocolate, suitable to the
freight-yard life it was called upon to endure.
George did not again risk going even so far as that, in the direction
of the millionaires, although their settlement began at least two miles
farther out. His thought of Lucy and her father was more a sensation
than a thought, and may be compared to that of a convicted cashier
beset by recollections of the bank he had pillaged—there are some
thoughts to which one closes the mind. George had seen Eugene only once
since their calamitous encounter. They had passed on opposite sides
of the street, downtown; each had been aware of the other, and each
had been aware that the other was aware of him, and yet each kept his
eyes straight forward, and neither had shown a perceptible alteration
of countenance. It seemed to George that he felt emanating from the
outwardly imperturbable person of his mother’s old friend a hate that
was like a hot wind.
At his mother’s funeral and at the Major’s he had been conscious that
Eugene was there: though he had afterward no recollection of seeing
him, and, while certain of his presence, was uncertain how he knew
of it. Fanny had not told him, for she understood George well enough
not to speak to him of Eugene or Lucy. Nowadays Fanny almost never
saw either of them and seldom thought of them—so sly is the way of
time with life. She was passing middle age, when old intensities and
longings grow thin and flatten out, as Fanny herself was thinning and
flattening out; and she was settling down contentedly to her apartment
house intimacies. She was precisely suited by the table-d’hote life,
with its bridge, its variable alliances and shifting feuds, and the
long whisperings of elderly ladies at corridor corners—those eager but
suppressed conversations, all sibilance, of which the elevator boy
declared he heard the words “she said” a million times and the word
“she,” five million. The apartment house suited Fanny and swallowed her.
The city was so big, now, that people disappeared into it unnoticed,
and the disappearance of Fanny and her nephew was not exceptional.
People no longer knew their neighbours as a matter of course; one lived
for years next door to strangers—that sharpest of all the changes since
the old days—and a friend would lose sight of a friend for a year, and
not know it.
One May day George thought he had a glimpse of Lucy. He was not
certain, but he was sufficiently disturbed, in spite of his
uncertainty. A promotion in his work now frequently took him out of
town for a week, or longer, and it was upon his return from one of
these absences that he had the strange experience. He had walked
home from the station, and as he turned the corner which brought him
in sight of the apartment house entrance, though two blocks distant
from it, he saw a charming little figure come out, get into a shiny
landaulet automobile, and drive away. Even at that distance no one
could have any doubt that the little figure was charming; and the
height, the quickness and decision of motion, even the swift gesture
of a white glove toward the chauffeur—all were characteristic of Lucy.
George was instantly subjected to a shock of indefinable nature,
yet definitely a shock: he did not know what he felt—but he knew
that he felt. Heat surged over him: probably he would not have come
face to face with her if the restoration of all the ancient Amberson
magnificence could have been his reward. He went on slowly, his knees
shaky.
But he found Fanny not at home; she had been out all afternoon; and
there was no record of any caller—and he began to wonder, then to doubt
if the small lady he had seen in the distance was Lucy. It might as
well have been, he said to himself—since any one who looked like her
could give him “a jolt like that!”
Lucy had not left a card. She never left one when she called on Fanny;
though she did not give her reasons a quite definite form in her own
mind. She came seldom; this was but the third time that year, and,
when she did come, George was not mentioned either by her hostess or
by herself—an oddity contrived between the two ladies without either
of them realizing how odd it was. For, naturally, while Fanny was
with Lucy, Fanny thought of George, and what time Lucy had George’s
aunt before her eyes she could not well avoid the thought of him.
Consequently, both looked absent-minded as they talked, and each often
gave a wrong answer which the other consistently failed to notice.
At other times Lucy’s thoughts of George were anything but continuous,
and weeks went by when he was not consciously in her mind at all. Her
life was a busy one: she had the big house “to keep up”; she had a
garden to keep up, too, a large and beautiful garden; she represented
her father as a director for half a dozen public charity organizations,
and did private charity work of her own, being a proxy mother of
several large families; and she had “danced down,” as she said,
groups from eight or nine classes of new graduates returned from the
universities, without marrying any of them, but she still danced—and
still did not marry.
Her father, observing this circumstance happily, yet with some
hypocritical concern, spoke of it to her one day as they stood in her
garden. “I suppose I’d want to shoot him,” he said, with attempted
lightness. “But I mustn’t be an old pig. I’d build you a beautiful
house close by—just over yonder.”
“No, no! That would be like—” she began impulsively; then checked
herself. George Amberson’s comparison of the Georgian house to the
Amberson Mansion had come into her mind, and she thought that another
new house, built close by for her, would be like the house the Major
built for Isabel.
“Like what?”
“Nothing.” She looked serious, and when he reverted to his idea of
“some day” grudgingly surrendering her up to a suitor, she invented a
legend. “Did you ever hear the Indian name for that little grove of
beech trees on the other side of the house?” she asked him.
“No—and you never did either!” he laughed.
“Don’t be so sure! I read a great deal more than I used to—getting
ready for my bookish days when I’ll have to do something solid in
the evenings and won’t be asked to dance any more, even by the very
youngest boys who think it’s a sporting event to dance with the oldest
of the ‘older girls’. The name of the grove was ‘Loma-Nashah’ and it
means ‘They-Couldn’t-Help-It’.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Indian names don’t. There was a bad Indian chief lived in the
grove before the white settlers came. He was the worst Indian
that ever lived, and his name was—it was ‘Vendonah.’ That means
‘Rides-Down-Everything’.”
“What?”
“His name was Vendonah, the same thing as Rides-Down-Everything.”
“I see,” said Eugene thoughtfully. He gave her a quick look and then
fixed his eyes upon the end of the garden path. “Go on.”
“Vendonah was an unspeakable case,” Lucy continued. “He was so proud
that he wore iron shoes and he walked over people’s faces with them. He
was always killing people that way, and so at last the tribe decided
that it wasn’t a good enough excuse for him that he was young and
inexperienced—he’d have to go. They took him down to the river, and put
him in a canoe, and pushed him out from shore; and then they ran along
the bank and wouldn’t let him land, until at last the current carried
the canoe out into the middle, and then on down to the ocean, and he
never got back. They didn’t want him back, of course, and if he’d been
able to manage it, they’d have put him in another canoe and shoved him
out into the river again. But still, they didn’t elect another chief in
his place. Other tribes thought that was curious, and wondered about
it a lot, but finally they came to the conclusion that the beech grove
people were afraid a new chief might turn out to be a bad Indian, too,
and wear iron shoes like Vendonah. But they were wrong, because the
real reason was that the tribe had led such an exciting life under
Vendonah that they couldn’t settle down to anything tamer. He was
awful, but he always kept things happening—terrible things, of course.
They hated him, but they weren’t able to discover any other warrior
that they wanted to make chief in his place. I suppose it was a little
like drinking a glass of too strong wine and then trying to take the
taste out of your mouth with barley water. They couldn’t help feeling
that way.”
“I see,” said Eugene. “So that’s why they named the place
‘They-Couldn’t-Help-It’!”
“It must have been.”
“And so you’re going to stay here in your garden,” he said musingly.
“You think it’s better to keep on walking these sunshiny gravel paths
between your flower-beds, and growing to look like a pensive garden
lady in a Victorian engraving.”
“I suppose I’m like the tribe that lived here, papa. I had too much
unpleasant excitement. It was unpleasant—but it was excitement. I don’t
want any more; in fact, I don’t want anything but you.”
“You don’t?” He looked at her keenly, and she laughed and shook her
head; but he seemed perplexed, rather doubtful. “What was the name of
the grove?” he asked. “The Indian name, I mean.”
“Mola-Haha.”
“No, it wasn’t; that wasn’t the name you said.”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“I see you have,” he said, his look of perplexity remaining. “Perhaps
you remember the chief’s name better.”
She shook her head again. “I don’t!”
At this he laughed, but not very heartily, and walked slowly to the
house, leaving her bending over a rose-bush, and a shade more pensive
than the most pensive garden lady in any Victorian engraving.
... Next day, it happened that this same “Vendonah” or
“Rides-Down-Everything” became the subject of a chance conversation
between Eugene and his old friend Kinney, father of the fire-topped
Fred. The two gentlemen found themselves smoking in neighbouring
leather chairs beside a broad window at the club, after lunch.
Mr. Kinney had remarked that he expected to get his family established
at the seashore by the Fourth of July, and, following a train of
thought, he paused and chuckled. “Fourth of July reminds me,” he said.
“Have you heard what that Georgie Minafer is doing?”
“No, I haven’t,” said Eugene, and his friend failed to notice the
crispness of the utterance.
“Well, sir,” Kinney chuckled again, “it beats the devil! My boy Fred
told me about it yesterday. He’s a friend of this young Henry Akers,
son of F. P. Akers of the Akers Chemical Company. It seems this
young Akers asked Fred if he knew a fellow named Minafer, because
he knew Fred had always lived here, and young Akers had heard some
way that Minafer used to be an old family name here, and was sort of
curious about it. Well, sir, you remember this young Georgie sort of
disappeared, after his grandfather’s death, and nobody seemed to know
much what had become of him—though I did hear, once or twice, that
he was still around somewhere. Well, sir, he’s working for the Akers
Chemical Company, out at their plant on the Thomasvile Road.”
He paused, seeming to reserve something to be delivered only upon
inquiry, and Eugene offered him the expected question, but only after a
cold glance through the nose-glasses he had lately found it necessary
to adopt. “What does he do?”
Kinney laughed and slapped the arm of his chair.
“He’s a nitroglycerin expert!”
He was gratified to see that Eugene was surprised, if not, indeed, a
little startled.
“He’s what?”
“He’s an expert on nitroglycerin. Doesn’t that beat the devil! Yes,
sir! Young Akers told Fred that this George Minafer had worked like
a houn’-dog ever since he got started out at the works. They have
a special plant for nitroglycerin, way off from the main plant, o’
course—in the woods somewhere—and George Minafer’s been working
there, and lately they put him in charge of it. He oversees shooting
oil-wells, too, and shoots ’em himself, sometimes. They aren’t allowed
to carry it on the railroads, you know—have to team it. Young Akers
says George rides around over the bumpy roads, sitting on as much as
three hundred quarts of nitroglycerin! My Lord! Talk about romantic
tumbles! If he gets blown sky-high some day he won’t have a bigger
drop, when he comes down, than he’s already had! Don’t it beat the
devil! Young Akers said he’s got all the nerve there is in the world.
Well, he always did have plenty of that—from the time he used to ride
around here on his white pony and fight all the Irish boys in Can-Town,
with his long curls all handy to be pulled out. Akers says he gets a
fair salary, and I should think he ought to! Seems to me I’ve heard
the average life in that sort of work is somewhere around four years,
and agents don’t write any insurance at all for nitroglycerin experts.
Hardly!”
“No,” said Eugene. “I suppose not.”
Kinney rose to go. “Well, it’s a pretty funny thing—pretty odd, I
mean—and I suppose it would be pass-around-the-hat for old Fanny
Minafer if he blew up. Fred told me that they’re living in some
apartment house, and said Georgie supports her. He was going to study
law, but couldn’t earn enough that way to take care of Fanny, so he
gave it up. Fred’s wife told him all this. Says Fanny doesn’t do
anything but play bridge these days. Got to playing too high for awhile
and lost more than she wanted to tell Georgie about, and borrowed a
little from old Frank Bronson. Paid him back, though. Don’t know how
Fred’s wife heard it. Women do hear the darndest things!”
“They do,” Eugene agreed.
“I thought you’d probably heard about it—thought most likely Fred’s
wife might have said something to your daughter, especially as they’re
cousins.”
“I think not.”
“Well, I’m off to the store,” said Mr. Kinney briskly; yet he lingered.
“I suppose we’ll all have to club in and keep old Fanny out of the
poorhouse if he does blow up. From all I hear it’s usually only a
question of time. They say she hasn’t got anything else to depend on.”
“I suppose not.”
“Well—I wondered—” Kinney hesitated. “I was wondering why you hadn’t
thought of finding something around your works for him. They say he’s
an all-fired worker and he certainly does seem to have hid some decent
stuff in him under all his damfoolishness. And you used to be such a
tremendous friend of the family—I thought perhaps you—of course I know
he’s a queer lot—I know—”
“Yes, I think he is,” said Eugene. “No. I haven’t anything to offer
him.”
“I suppose not,” Kinney returned thoughtfully, as he went out. “I don’t
know that I would myself. Well, we’ll probably see his name in the
papers some day if he stays with that job!”
However, the nitroglycerin expert of whom they spoke did not get into
the papers as a consequence of being blown up, although his daily
life was certainly a continuous exposure to that risk. Destiny has
a constant passion for the incongruous, and it was George’s lot to
manipulate wholesale quantities of terrific and volatile explosives
in safety, and to be laid low by an accident so commonplace and
inconsequent that it was a comedy. Fate had reserved for him the final
insult of riding him down under the wheels of one of those juggernauts
at which he had once shouted “Git a hoss!” Nevertheless, Fate’s ironic
choice for Georgie’s undoing was not a big and swift and momentous car,
such as Eugene manufactured; it was a specimen of the hustling little
type that was flooding the country, the cheapest, commonest, hardiest
little car ever made.
The accident took place upon a Sunday morning, on a downtown crossing,
with the streets almost empty, and no reason in the world for such a
thing to happen. He had gone out for his Sunday morning walk, and he
was thinking of an automobile at the very moment when the little car
struck him; he was thinking of a shiny landaulet and a charming figure
stepping into it, and of the quick gesture of a white glove toward the
chauffeur, motioning him to go on. George heard a shout but did not
look up, for he could not imagine anybody’s shouting at him, and he was
too engrossed in the question “Was it Lucy?” He could not decide, and
his lack of decision in this matter probably superinduced a lack of
decision in another, more pressingly vital. At the second and louder
shout he did look up; and the car was almost on him; but he could not
make up his mind if the charming little figure he had seen was Lucy’s
and he could not make up his mind whether to go backward or forward:
these questions became entangled in his mind. Then, still not being
able to decide which of two ways to go, he tried to go both—and the
little car ran him down. It was not moving very rapidly, but it went
all the way over George.
He was conscious of gigantic violence; of roaring and jolting and
concussion; of choking clouds of dust, shot with lightning, about his
head; he heard snapping sounds as loud as shots from a small pistol,
and was stabbed by excruciating pains in his legs. Then he became aware
that the machine was being lifted off of him. People were gathering in
a circle round him, gabbling.
His forehead was bedewed with the sweat of anguish, and he tried to
wipe off this dampness, but failed. He could not get his arm that far.
“Nev’ mind,” a policeman said; and George could see above his eyes the
skirts of the blue coat, covered with dust and sunshine. “Amb’lance be
here in a minute. Nev’ mind tryin’ to move any. You want ’em to send
for some special doctor?”
“No.” George’s lips formed the word.
“Or to take you to some private hospital?”
“Tell them to take me,” he said faintly, “to the City Hospital.”
“A’ right.”
A smallish young man in a duster fidgeted among the crowd, explaining
and protesting, and a strident voiced girl, his companion, supported
his argument, declaring to everyone her willingness to offer testimony
in any court of law that every blessed word he said was the God’s truth.
“It’s the fella that hit you,” the policeman said, looking down on
George. “I guess he’s right; you must of been thinkin’ about somep’m’
or other. It’s wunnerful the damage them little machines can do—you’d
never think it—but I guess they ain’t much case ag’in this fella that
was drivin’ it.”
“You bet your life they ain’t no case on me!” the young man in the
duster agreed, with great bitterness. He came and stood at George’s
feet, addressing him heatedly: “I’m sorry fer you all right, and I
don’t say I ain’t. I hold nothin’ against you, but it wasn’t any more
my fault than the statehouse! You run into me, much as I run into you,
and if you get well you ain’t goin’ to get not one single cent out
o’ me! This lady here was settin’ with me and we both yelled at you.
Wasn’t goin’ a step over eight mile an hour! I’m perfectly willing to
say I’m sorry for you though, and so’s the lady with me. We’re both
willing to say that much, but that’s all, understand!”
George’s drawn eyelids twitched; his misted glance rested fleetingly
upon the two protesting motorists, and the old imperious spirit within
him flickered up in a single word. Lying on his back in the middle
of the street, where he was regarded by an increasing public as an
unpleasant curiosity, he spoke this word clearly from a mouth filled
with dust, and from lips smeared with blood.
It was a word which interested the policeman. When the ambulance
clanged away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him.
“Funny what he says to the little cuss that done the damage. That’s all
he did call him—nothin’ else at all—and the cuss had broke both his
legs fer him and God-knows-what-all!”
“I wasn’t here then. What was it?”
“Riffraff!”