Mrs. Burbank

Mrs. Burbank, the mother of Phil Burbank and George Burbank and wife of the Old Gent, belongs to the older generation that has withdrawn from the family home but remains entangled in its affairs. Her life is shaped by distance: she has moved to Salt Lake City, yet news of George’s possible marriage draws her back toward the family. Through her correspondence, return, and guarded response to Rose Gordon Burbank, the novel presents a woman negotiating family propriety without simply making it the measure of her judgment.

Identity and Background

For years, the brothers’ lives had been organized around the household in which they grew up. After the Old Gent and Mrs. Burbank left for their autumn years in Salt Lake City, Phil and George continued to sleep in their childhood room, in the same brass beds. The parents’ former bedroom, by contrast, stood closed and neglected: dust gathered, the geraniums died, and the black marble clock stopped. The contrast gives Mrs. Burbank a presence even in her absence. The old home retains the trace of her domestic life, but no longer seems actively inhabited by her.

In the city, Mrs. Burbank and the Old Gent occupy a suite in the best hotel, where they have had the hotel’s furnishings replaced with their own. Their days include reading, walking in the sun, correspondence with the East, and looking out at snow-covered mountains. They have made friends among retired ranchers, lumber people, and mining people, a company whose knowledge extends beyond the American West. This cultivated social world differs from the brothers’ isolated ranch life. Yet their retreat followed unpleasant episodes at home, and Phil’s glances had made them feel that their lives there were useless. Their departure is therefore both a change of setting and a retreat from a household in which their presence no longer seems welcome.

George’s News and Her Return

When Phil writes that George may marry, Mrs. Burbank’s eyebrows rise. His account describes Rose as a woman who had played music in a bar and had a half-grown child; it does not mention her former husband. Mrs. Burbank writes several letters to George, tearing up all but the final one. In it, she urges him to think the matter over until his fiancée has been approved and asks that his parents be present at the wedding, invoking how it would look if they were absent. Her response draws on an established family maxim and on the expectations attached to a son’s marriage; Phil’s report gives her a narrow, unfavorable first view of Rose.

The Old Gent resists making appearances decisive. He observes that George has never done anything that looked funny before and questions why one unconventional choice should matter now. Mrs. Burbank, meanwhile, raises the possibility that something may be wrong with Phil. The Old Gent tells her that, if there is, it is not her fault; she replies that it is not his either. The exchange leaves the source of their concern unresolved, but shows that both parents are thinking about Phil as well as George’s engagement. They send the letter, pack their bags, ask the maid to water the geraniums, and arrange for George to meet them in Beech. Their journey turns a hesitant exchange of family letters into direct participation in George’s new life.

Meeting Rose and Reconsidering

George meets his parents on the platform in winter, wearing a buffalo coat against the wind and snow. He greets Mrs. Burbank as his mother and leans to kiss her; he formally shakes the Old Gent’s hand. The warmth of the greeting stands alongside the formality that still shapes the family’s manners. The two parents have come because of the marriage, but the visit also places them again in the cold household they had left behind.

Mrs. Burbank’s response to Rose is not simply the fulfillment of her earlier reservations. She is pleased that Rose recognizes George’s kindness, a quality she regards as important in her son. When the Old Gent asks whether she will give Rose some jewelry or other things, Mrs. Burbank does not immediately commit herself. She coughs, pats her chest, looks toward a dead geranium on the windowsill, and suggests waiting to see. She adds that it is too bad there is a child, invoking the loyalties involved. Her caution remains, but so does her awareness of George’s kindness and her willingness to consider what Rose sees in him. The child is not merely a detail in the match: it introduces obligations and attachments that Mrs. Burbank recognizes, even while she weighs them warily.

Family Convention and Narrative Role

Mrs. Burbank’s actions reveal a tension between conventional approval and personal attachment. Her first impulse is to ask that Rose be approved and to preserve the appearance of a properly attended wedding. But her letters are revised before they are sent, and her later response registers Rose’s perception of George rather than only Phil’s disparaging description. The novel does not show her reaching a final, uncomplicated verdict; instead, it places her judgment in motion, between inherited family rules and the evidence of a new relationship.

Her return also brings the family’s separate emotional pressures into one place. The Old Gent worries about Phil, Phil has already framed Rose for his parents, and George has chosen to marry despite the possibility that the choice will seem unusual. Mrs. Burbank is not the force that resolves these tensions, but her presence makes them visible as more than a dispute between the brothers. She carries the older household’s expectations into the encounter with Rose, then shows that those expectations can be reconsidered. The dead geranium beside her as she hesitates over jewelry quietly recalls the home and life she left behind, without making her return a simple restoration of either.