“Let her” was correct; but the time came—and it came in the spring of the next year when it was no longer a question of George’s letting his mother come home. He had to bring her, and to bring her quickly if she was to see her father again; and Amberson had been right: her danger of never seeing him again lay not in the Major’s feebleness of heart but in her own. As it was, George telegraphed his uncle to have a wheeled chair at the station, for the journey had been disastrous, and to this hybrid vehicle, placed close to the platform, her son carried her in his arms when she arrived. She was unable to speak, but patted her brother’s and Fanny’s hands and looked “very sweet,” Fanny found the desperate courage to tell her. She was lifted from the chair into a carriage, and seemed a little stronger as they drove home; for once she took her hand from George’s, and waved it feebly toward the carriage window.
“Changed,” she whispered. “So changed.”
“You mean the town,” Amberson said. “You mean the old place is changed, don’t you, dear?”
She smiled and moved her lips: “Yes.”
“It’ll change to a happier place, old dear,” he said, “now that you’re back in it, and going to get well again.”
But she only looked at him wistfully, her eyes a little frightened.
When the carriage stopped, her son carried her into the house, and up the stairs to her own room, where a nurse was waiting; and he came out a moment later, as the doctor went in. At the end of the hall a stricken group was clustered: Amberson, and Fanny, and the Major. George, deathly pale and speechless, took his grandfather’s hand, but the old gentleman did not seem to notice his action.
“When are they going to let me see my daughter?” he asked querulously. “They told me to keep out of the way while they carried her in, because it might upset her. I wish they’d let me go in and speak to my daughter. I think she wants to see me.”
He was right—presently the doctor came out and beckoned to him; and the Major shuffled forward, leaning on a shaking cane; his figure, after all its years of proud soldierliness, had grown stooping at last, and his untrimmed white hair straggled over the back of his collar. He looked old—old and divested of the world—as he crept toward his daughter’s room. Her voice was stronger, for the waiting group heard a low cry of tenderness and welcome as the old man reached the open doorway. Then the door was closed.
Fanny touched her nephew’s arm. “George, you must need something to eat—I know she’d want you to. I’ve had things ready: I knew she’d want me to. You’d better go down to the dining room: there’s plenty on the table, waiting for you. She’d want you to eat something.”