The Kentons

W >> William Dean Howells >> The Kentons


"Kid!" Boyne ground, through his clenched teeth.

By this time Lottie was up out of her chair and beyond repartee in her
flight down the gangway stairs. She left the two youngsters confronted.

"What do you say to a lemon-squash?" asked Mr. Pogis, respecting his
friend's wounded dignity, and ignoring Lottie and her offence.

"I don't care if I do," said Boyne in gloomy acquiescence.




XV.

Few witnesses of the fact that Julia Rasmith and her mother had found
themselves on the same steamer with the Rev. Hugh Breckon would have been
of such a simple mind as to think they were there by accident, if they
had also been witnesses of their earlier history. The ladies could have
urged that in returning from California only a few days before the Amstel
sailed, and getting a state-room which had been unexpectedly given up,
they had some claim to a charitable interpretation of their behavior, but
this plea could not have availed them with any connoisseur of women.
Besides, it had been a matter of notoriety among such of Mr. Breckon's
variegated congregation as knew one another that Mrs. Rasmith had set her
heart on him, it Julia had not set her cap for him. In that pied flock,
where every shade and dapple of doubt, from heterodox Jew to agnostic
Christian, foregathered, as it has been said, in the misgiving of a
blessed immortality, the devotion of Mrs. Rasmith to the minister had
been almost a scandal. Nothing had saved the appearance from this
character but Mr. Breckon's open acceptance of her flatteries and
hospitalities; this was so frank, and the behavior of Julia herself so
judicious under the circumstances, that envy and virtue were, if not
equally silenced, equally baffled. So far from pretending not to see her
mother's manoeuvres, Julia invited public recognition of them; in the way
of joking, which she kept within the limits of filial fondness, she made
fun of her mother's infatuation to Breckon himself, and warned him
against the moment when her wiles might be too much for him. Before
other people she did not hesitate to save him from her mother, so that
even those who believed her in the conspiracy owned that no girl could
have managed with more cleverness in a situation where not every one
would have refused to be placed. In this situation Julia Rasmith had the
service of a very clear head, and as was believed by some, a cool heart;
if she and her mother had joint designs upon the minister, hers was the
ambition, and her mother's the affection that prompted them. She was a
long, undulant girl, of a mixed blondness that left you in doubt, after
you had left her, whether her hair or her complexion were not of one
tint; but her features were good, and there could be no question of her
captivating laugh, and her charming mouth, which she was always pulling
down with demure irony. She was like her mother in her looks, but her
indolent, droning temperament must have been from her father, whose
memory was lost in that antiquity which swallows up the record of so many
widows' husbands, and who could not have left her what was left of her
mother's money, for none of it had ever been his. It was still her
mother's, and it was supposed to be the daughter's chief attraction.
There must, therefore, have been a good deal of it, for those who were
harshest with the minister did not believe that a little money would
attract him. Not that they really thought him mercenary; some of his
people considered him gay to the verge of triviality, but there were none
that accused him of insincerity. They would have liked a little more
seriousness in him, especially when they had not much of their own, and
would have had him make up in severity of behavior for what he lacked,
and what they wished him to lack, in austerity of doctrine.

The Amstel had lost so much time in the rough weather of her first days
out that she could not make it up with her old-fashioned single screw.
She was at best a ten-day boat, counting from Sandy Hook to Boulogne, and
she had not been four days out when she promised to break her record for
slowness. Three days later Miss Rasmith said to Breckon, as he took the
chair which her mother agilely abandoned to him beside her: "The head
steward says it will be a twelve-day trip, end our bedroom steward thinks
more. What is the consensus of opinion in the smoking-room? Where are
you going, mother? Are you planning to leave Mr. Breckon and me alone
again? It isn't necessary. We couldn't get away from each other if we
tried, and all we ask--Well, I suppose age must be indulged in its
little fancies," she called after Mrs. Rasmith.

Breckon took up the question she had asked him. "The odds are so heavily
in favor of a fifteen-days' run that there are no takers."

"Now you are joking again," she said. "I thought a sea-voyage might make
you serious."

"It has been tried before. Besides, it's you that I want to be serious."

"What about? Besides, I doubt it."

"About Boyne."

"Oh! I thought you were going to say some one else."

"No, I think that is very well settled."

"You'll never persuade my mother," said Miss Rasmith, with a low,
comfortable laugh.

"But if you are satisfied--"

"She will have to resign herself? Well, perhaps. But why do you wish me
to be serious about Boyne?"

"I have no doubt he amuses you. But that doesn't seem a very good reason
why you should amuse yourself with him."

"No? Why not?"

"Well, because the poor boy is in earnest; and you're not exactly
--contemporaries."

"Why, how old is Boyne?" she asked, with affected surprise.

"About fifteen, I think," said Breckon, gravely.

"And I'm but a very few months past thirty. I don't see the great
disparity. But he is merely a brother to me--an elder brother--and he
gives me the best kind of advice."

"I dare say you need it, but all the same, I am afraid you are putting
ideas into his head."

"Well, if he began it? If he put them in mine first?"

She was evidently willing that he should go further, and create the
common ground between them that grows up when one gives a reproof and the
other accepts it; but Breckon, whether he thought that he had now done
his duty, and need say no more, or because he was vexed with her, left
the subject.

"Mrs. Rasmith says you are going to Switzerland for the rest of the
summer."

"Yes, to Montreux. Are you going to spend it in Paris?"

"I'm going to Paris to see. I have had some thoughts of Etretat; I have
cousins there."

"I wish that I could go to the sea-side. But this happens to be one of
the summers when nothing but mountains can save my mother's life. Shall
you get down to Rome before you go back?"

"I don't know. If I sail from Naples I shall probably pass through
Rome."

"You had better stop off. We shall be there in November, and they say
Rome is worth seeing," she laughed demurely. "That is what Boyne
understands. He's promised to use his influence with his family to let
him run down to see us there, if he can't get them all to come. You
might offer to personally conduct them."

"Yes." said Breckon, with the effect of cloture. "Have you made many
acquaintances an board?"

"What! Two lone women? You haven't introduced us to any but the
Kentons. But I dare say they are the best. The judge is a dear, and
Mrs. Kenton is everything that is motherly and matronly. Boyne says she
is very well informed, and knows all about the reigning families. If he
decides to marry into them, she can be of great use in saving him from a
mesalliance. I can't say very much for Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie seems
to me distinctly of the minx type. But that poor, pale girl is adorable.
I wish she liked me!"

"What makes you think she doesn't like you?" Breckon asked.

"What? Women don't require anything to convince them that other women
can't bear them. They simply know it. I wonder what has happened to
her?"

"Why do you think anything has happened to her?"

"Why? Well, girls don't have that air of melanholy absence for nothing.
She is brooding upon something, you may be sure. But you have had so
many more opportunities than I! Do you mean that you haven't suspected a
tragical past far her?"

"I don't know," said Breckon, a little restively, "that I have allowed
myself to speculate about her past."

"That is, you oughtn't to have allowed yourself to do so. Well, there I
agree with you. But a woman may do so without impertinence, and I am
sure that Miss Kenton has a story. I have watched her, and her face has
told me everything but the story."

Breckon would not say that some such revelation had been made to him, and
in the absence of an answer from him Miss Rasmith asked, "Is she
cultivated, too?"

"Too?"

"Like her mother."

"Oh! I should say she had read a good dial. And she's bookish, yes, in
a simple-hearted kind of way."

"She asks you if you have read 'the book of the year,' and whether you
don't think the heroine is a beautiful character?"

"Not quite so bad as that. But if you care to be serious about her!"

"Oh, I do!"

"I doubt it. Then, I should say that she seems to have grown up in a
place where the interests are so material that a girl who was disposed to
be thoughtful would be thrown back upon reading for her society more than
in more intellectual centres--if there are such things. She has been so
much with books that she does not feel odd in speaking of them as if they
were the usual topics of conversation. It gives her a certain
quaintness."

"And that is what constitutes her charm?"

"I didn't know that we were speaking of her charm."

"No, that is true. But I was thinking of it. She fascinates me. Are
they going to get off at Boulogne?"

"No, they are going on to Rotterdam."

"To be sure! Boyne told me. And are you going on with them?"

"I thought we talked of my going to Paris." Breckon looked round at her,
and she made a gesture of deprecation.

"Why, of course! How could I forget? But I'm so much interested in Miss
Kenton that I can't think of anything else."

"Not even of Miss Rasmith?"

"Not even of Miss Rasmith. I know that she has a history, and that it's
a sad one." She paused in ironical hesitation. "You've been so good as
to caution me about her brother--and I never can be grateful enough--and
that makes me almost free to suggest--"

She stopped again, and he asked, hardily, "What?"

"Oh, nothing. It isn't for me to remind my pastor, my ghostly adviser"
--she pulled down her mouth and glanced at him demurely--"and I will only
offer the generalization that a girl is never so much in danger of having
her heart broken as when she's had it broken--Oh, are you leaving me?"
she cried, as Breckon rose from his chair.

"Well, then, send Boyne to me." She broke into a laugh as he faltered.
"Are you going to sit down again? That is right. And I won't talk any
more about Miss Kenton."

"I don't mind talking of her," said Breckon. "Perhaps it will even be
well to do so if you are in earnest. Though it strikes me that you have
rather renounced the right to criticise me."

"Now, is that logical? It seems to me that in putting myself in the
attitude of a final friend at the start, and refusing to be anything
more, I leave established my right to criticise you on the firmest basis.
I can't possibly be suspected of interested motives. Besides, you've
just been criticizing me, if you want a woman's reason!"

"Well, go on."

"Why, I had finished. That's the amusing part. I should have supposed
that I could go on forever about Miss Kenton, but I have nothing to go
upon. She has kept her secret very well, and so have the rest of them.
You think I might have got it out of Boyne? Perhaps I might, but you
know I have my little scruples. I don't think it would be quite fair,
or quite nice."

"You are scrupulous. And I give you credit for having been more delicate
than I've been."

"You don't mean you've been trying to find it out!"

"Ah, now I'm not sure about the superior delicacy!"

"Oh, how good!" said Miss Rasmith. "What a pity you should be wasted
in a calling that limits you so much."

"You call it limiting? I didn't know but I had gone too far."

"Not at all! You know there's nothing I like so much as those little
digs."

"I had forgotten. Then you won't mind my saying that this surveillance
seems to me rather more than I have any right to from you."

"How exquisitely you put it! Who else could have told me to mind my own
business so delightfully? Well, it isn't my business. I acknowledge
that, and I spoke only because I knew you would be sorry if you had gone
too far. I remembered our promise to be friends."

She threw a touch of real feeling into her tone, and he responded, "Yes,
and I thank you for it, though it isn't easy."

She put out her hand to him, and, as he questioningly took it, she
pressed his with animation. "Of course it isn't! Or it wouldn't be for
any other man. But don't you suppose I appreciate that supreme courage
of yours? There is nobody else-nobody!--who could stand up to an
impertinence and turn it to praise by such humility."

"Don't go too far, or I shall be turning your praise to impertinence by
my humility. You're quite right, though, about the main matter. I
needn't suppose anything so preposterous as you suggest, to feel that
people are best left alone to outlive their troubles, unless they are of
the most obvious kind."

"Now, if I thought I had done anything to stop you from offering that
sort of helpfulness which makes you a blessing to everybody, I should
never forgive myself."

"Nothing so dire as that, I believe. But if you've made me question the
propriety of applying the blessing in all cases, you have done a very
good thing."

Miss Rasmith was silent and apparently serious. After a moment she said,
"And I, for my part, promise to let poor little Boyne alone."

Breckon laughed. "Don't burlesque it! Besides, I haven't promised
anything."

"That is very true," said Miss Rasmith, and she laughed, too.




XVI.

In one of those dramatic reveries which we all hold with ourselves when
fortune has pressingly placed us, Ellen Kenton had imagined it possible
for her to tell her story to the man who had so gently and truly tried to
be her friend. It was mostly in the way of explaining to him how she was
unworthy of his friendship that the story was told, and she fancied
telling it without being scandalized at violating the conventions that
should have kept her from even dreaming of such a thing. It was all
exalted to a plane where there was no question of fit or unfit in doing
it, but only the occasion; and he would never hear of the unworthiness
which she wished to ascribe to herself. Sometimes he mournfully left her
when she persisted, left her forever, and sometimes he refused, and
retained with her in a sublime kindness, a noble amity, lofty and serene,
which did not seek to become anything else. In this case she would break
from her reveries with self-accusing cries, under her breath, of "Silly,
silly! Oh, how disgusting!" and if at that moment Breckon were really
coming up to sit by her, she would blush to her hair, and wish to run
away, and failing the force for this, would sit cold and blank to his
civilities, and have to be skilfully and gradually talked back to
self-respect and self-tolerance.

The recurrence of these reveries and their consequence in her made it
difficult for him to put in effect the promise he had given himself in
Miss Rasmith's presence. If Ellen had been eager to welcome his coming,
it would have been very simple to keep away from her, but as she appeared
anxious to escape him, and had to be entreated, as it were, to suffer his
society, something better than his curiosity was piqued, though that was
piqued, too. He believed that he saw her lapsing again into that morbid
state from which he had seemed once able to save her, and he could not
help trying again. He was the more bound to do so by the ironical
observance of Miss Rasmith, who had to be defied first, and then
propitiated; certainly, when she saw him apparently breaking faith with
her, she had a right to some sort of explanation, but certainly also she
had no right to a blind and unreasoning submission from him. His
embarrassment was heightened by her interest in Miss Kenton, whom, with
an admirable show of now finding her safe from Breckon's attractions, she
was always wishing to study from his observation. What was she really
like? The girl had a perfect fascination for her; she envied him his
opportunities of knowing her, and his privileges of making that
melancholy face light up with that heart-breaking smile, and of banishing
that delicious shyness with which she always seemed to meet him. Miss
Rasmith had noticed it; how could she help noticing it?

Breckon wished to himself that she had been able to help noticing it, or
were more capable of minding her own business than she showed herself,
and his heart closed about Ellen with a tenderness that was dangerously
indignant. At the same time he felt himself withheld by Miss Rasmith's
witness from being all to the girl that he wished to be, and that he now
seemed to have been in those first days of storm, while Miss Rasmith and
her mother were still keeping their cabin. He foresaw that it would end
in Miss Rasmith's sympathetic nature not being able to withhold itself
from Ellen's need of cheerful companionship, and he was surprised, as
little as he was pleased, one morning, when he came to take the chair
beside her to find Miss Rasmith in it, talking and laughing to the girl,
who perversely showed herself amused. Miss Rasmith made as if to offer
him the seat, but he had to go away disappointed, after standing long
enough before them to be aware that they were suspending some topic while
he stayed.

He naturally supposed the topic to be himself, but it was not so, or at
least not directly so. It was only himself as related to the scolding he
had given Miss Rasmith for trifling with the innocence of Boyne, which
she wished Miss Kenton to understand as the effect of a real affection
for her brother. She loved all boys, and Boyne was simply the most
delightful creature in the world. She went on to explain how delightful
he was, and showed a such an appreciation of the infantile sweetness
mingled with the mature severity of Boyne's character that Ellen could
not help being pleased and won. She told some little stories of Boyne
that threw a light also their home life in Tuskingum, and Miss Rasmith
declared herself perfectly fascinated, and wished that she could go and
live in Tuskingum. She protested that she should not find it dull; Boyne
alone would be entertainment enough; and she figured a circumstance so
idyllic from the hints she had gathered, that Ellen's brow darkened in
silent denial, and Miss Rasmith felt herself, as the children say in the
game, very hot in her proximity to the girl's secret. She would have
liked to know it, but whether she felt that she could know it when she
liked enough, or whether she should not be so safe with Breckon in
knowing it, she veered suddenly away, and said that she was so glad to
have Boyne's family know the peculiar nature of her devotion, which did
not necessarily mean running away with him, though it might come to that.
She supposed she was a little morbid about it from what Mr. Breckon had
been saying; he had a conscience that would break the peace of a whole
community, though he was the greatest possible favorite, not only with
his own congregation, which simply worshipped him, but with the best
society, where he was in constant request.

It was not her fault if she did not overdo these history, but perhaps it
was all true about the number of girls who were ready and willing to
marry him. It might even be true, though she had no direct authority for
saying it, that he had made up his mind never to marry, and that was the
reason why he felt himself so safe in being the nicest sort of friend.
He was safe, Miss Rasmith philosophized, but whether other people were so
safe was a different question. There were girls who were said to be
dying for him; but of course those things were always said about a
handsome young minister. She had frankly taken him on his own ground,
from the beginning, and she believed that this was what he liked. At any
rate, they had agreed that they were never to be anything but the best of
friends, and they always had been.

Mrs. Kenton came and shyly took the chair on Miss Rasmith's other side,
and Miss Rasmith said they had been talking about Mr. Breckon, and she
repeated what she had been saying to Ellen. Mrs. Kenton assented more
openly than Ellen could to her praises, but when she went away, and her
daughter sat passive, without comment or apparent interest, the mother
drew a long, involuntary sigh.

"Do you like her, Ellen?"

"She tries to be pleasant, I think."

"Do you think she really knows much about Mr. Breckon?"

"Oh yes. Why not? She belongs to his church."

"He doesn't seem to me like a person who would have a parcel of girls
tagging after him."

"That is what they do in the East, Boyne says."

"I wish she would let Boyne alone. She is making a fool of the child.
He's round with her every moment. I think she ought to be ashamed, such
an old thing!"

Ellen chose to protest, or thought it fair to do so. "I don't believe
she is doing him any harm. She just lets him talk out, and everybody
else checks him up so. It was nice of her to come and talk with me, when
we had all been keeping away from her. Perhaps he sent her, though. She
says they have always been such good friends because she wouldn't be
anything else from the beginning."

"I don't see why she need have told you that."

"Oh, it was just to show he was run after. I wonder if he thinks we are
running after him? Momma, I am tired of him! I wish he wouldn't speak
to me any more."

"Why! do you really dislike him, Ellen?"

"No, not dislike him. But it tires me to have him trying to amuse me.
Don't you understand?"

Mrs. Kenton said yes, she understood, but she was clear only of the fact
that Ellen seemed flushed and weak at that moment. She believed that it
was Miss Rasmith and not Mr. Breckon who was to blame, but she said:
"Well, you needn't worry about it long. It will only be a day or two now
till we get to Boulogne, and then he will leave us. Hadn't you better go
down now, and rest awhile in your berth? I will bring your things."

Ellen rose, pulling her wraps from her skirts to give them to her mother.
A voice from behind said between their meeting shoulders: "Oh, are you
going down? I was just coming to beg Miss Kenton to take a little walk
with me," and they looked round together and met Breckon's smiling face.

"I'm afraid," Mrs. Kenton began, and then, like a well-trained American
mother, she stopped and left the affair to her daughter.

"Do you think you can get down with them, momma?" the girl asked, and
somehow her mother's heart was lightened by her evasion, not to call it
uncandor. It was at least not morbid, it was at least like other girls,
and Mrs. Kenton imparted what comfort there was in it to the judge, when
he asked where she had left Ellen.

"Not that it's any use," she sighed, when she had seen him share it with
a certain shamefacedness. "That woman has got her grip on him, and she
doesn't mean to let go."

Kenton understood Miss Rasmith by that woman; but he would not allow
himself to be so easily cast down. This was one of the things that
provoked Mrs. Kenton with him; when he had once taken hope he would not
abandon it without reason. "I don't see any evidence of her having her
grip on him. I've noticed him, and he doesn't seem attentive to her.
I should say he tried to avoid her. He certainly doesn't avoid Ellen."

"What are you thinking of, Rufus?"

"What are you? You know we'd both be glad if he fancied her."

"Well, suppose we would? I don't deny it. He is one of the most
agreeable gentlemen I ever saw; one of the kindest and nicest."

"He's more than that," said the judge. "I've been sounding him on
various points, and I don't see where he's wrong. Of course, I don't
know much about his religious persuasion, if it is one, but I think I'm a
pretty fair judge of character, and that young man has character. He
isn't a light person, though he likes joking and laughing, and he
appreciates Ellen."

"Yes, so do we. And there's about as much prospect of his marrying her.
Rufus, it's pretty hard! She's just in the mood to be taken with him,
but she won't let herself, because she knows it's of no use. That Miss
Rasmith has been telling her how much he is run after, and I could see
that that settled it for Ellen as plainly as if she said so. More
plainly, for there's enough of the girl in her to make her say one thing
when she means another. She was just saying she was sick of him, and
never wanted to speak to him again, when he came up and asked her to
walk, and she went with him instantly. I knew what she meant. She
wasn't going to let him suppose that anything Miss Rasmith had said was
going to change her."