The Kentons

W >> William Dean Howells >> The Kentons


"That's very sweet of you," said Trannel, soberly. Whether he had now
vented his malicious humor and was ready to make himself agreeable, or
was somewhat quelled by the unfriendly ambient he had created, or was
wrought upon by her friendliness, he became everything that could be
wished in a companion for a day's pleasure. He took the lead at the
station, and got them a compartment in the car to themselves for the
little run to Leyden, and on the way he talked very well. He politely
borrowed Boyne's Baedeker, and decided for the party what they had best
see, and showed an acceptable intelligence, as well as a large experience
in the claims of Leyden upon the visitor's interest. He had been there
often before, it seemed, and in the event it appeared that he had chosen
the days sightseeing wisely.

He no longer addressed himself respectfully to Ellen alone, but he
re-established himself in Boyne's confidence with especial pains, and he
conciliated Breckon by a recognition of his priority with Ellen with a
delicacy refined enough for even the susceptibility of a lover alarmed
for his rights. If he could not overcome the reluctance of the judge,
he brought him to the civil response which any one who tried for Kenton's
liking achieved, even if he did not merit it, and there remained no more
reserve in Kenton's manner than there had been with the young man from
the first. He had never been a persona grata to the judge, and if he did
not become so now, he at least ceased to be actively displeasing.

That was the year before the young Queen came to her own, and in the last
days of her minority she was visiting all the cities of her future
dominion with the queen-mother. When Kenton's party left the station
they found Leyden as gay for her reception as flags and banners could
make the gray old town, and Trannel relapsed for a moment so far as to
suggest that the decorations were in honor of Boyne's presence, but he
did not abuse the laugh that this made to Boyne's further shame.

There was no carriage at the station which would hold the party of five,
and they had to take two vehicles. Trannel said it was lucky they wanted
two, since there were no more, and he put himself in authority to assort
the party. The judge, he decided, must go with Ellen and Breckon, and he
hoped Boyne would let him go in his carriage, if he would sit on the box
with the driver. The judge afterwards owned that he had weakly indulged
his dislike of the fellow, in letting him take Boyne, and not insisting
on going himself with Tramiel, but this was when it was long too late.
Ellen had her misgivings, but, except for that gibe about the
decorations, Trannel had been behaving so well that she hoped she might
trust Boyne with him. She made a kind of appeal for her brother, bidding
him and Trannel take good care of each other, and Trannel promised so
earnestly to look after Boyne that she ought to have been alarmed for
him. He took the lead, rising at times to wave a reassuring hand to her
over the back of his carriage, and, in fact, nothing evil could very well
happen from him, with the others following so close upon him. They met
from time to time in the churches they visited, and when they lost sight
of one another, through a difference of opinion in the drivers as to the
best route, they came together at the place Trannel had appointed for
their next reunion.

He showed himself a guide so admirably qualified that he found a way for
them to objects of interest that had at first denied themselves in
anticipation of the visit from the queens; when they all sat down at
lunch in the restaurant which he found for them, he could justifiably
boast that he would get them into the Town Hall, which they had been told
was barred for the day against anything but sovereign curiosity. He was
now on the best term with Boyne, who seemed to have lost all diffidence
of him, and treated him with an easy familiarity that showed itself in
his slapping him on the shoulder and making dints in his hat. Trannel
seemed to enjoy these caresses, and, when they parted again for the
afternoon's sight-seeing, Ellen had no longer a qualm in letting Boyne
drive off with him.

He had, in fact, known how to make himself very acceptable to Boyne. He
knew all the originals of his heroical romances, and was able to give the
real names and the geographical position of those princesses who had been
in love with American adventurers. Under promise of secrecy he disclosed
the real names of the adventurers themselves, now obscured in the titles
given them to render them worthy their union with sovereigns. He resumed
his fascinating confidences when they drove off after luncheon, and he
resumed them after each separation from the rest of the party. Boyne
listened with a flushed face and starting eyes, and when at last Trannel
offered, upon a pledge of the most sacred nature from him never to reveal
a word of what he said, he began to relate an adventure of which he was
himself the hero. It was a bold travesty of one of the latest romances
that Boyne had read, involving the experience of an American very little
older than Boyne himself, to whom a wilful young crown-princess, in a
little state which Trannel would not name even to Boyne, had made
advances such as he could not refuse to meet without cruelty. He was
himself deeply in love with her, but he felt bound in honor not to
encourage her infatuation as long as he could help, for he had been
received by her whole family with such kindness and confidence that he
had to consider them.

"Oh, pshaw!" Boyne broke in upon him, doubting, and yet wishing not to
doubt, "that's the same as the story of 'Hector Folleyne'."

"Yes," said Trannel, quietly. "I thought you would recognize it."

"Well, but," Boyne went on, "Hector married the princess!"

"In the book, yes. The fellow I gave the story to said it would never do
not to have him marry her, and it would help to disguise the fact.
That's what he said, after he had given the whole thing away."

"And do you mean to say it was you? Oh, you can't stuff me! How did you
get out of marrying her, I should like to know, when the chancellor came
to you and said that the whole family wanted you to, for fear it would
kill her if--"

"Well, there was a scene, I can't deny that. We had a regular family
conclave--father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the folks--and we kept it
up pretty much all night. The princess wasn't there, of course, and I
could convince them that I was right. If she had been, I don't believe I
could have held out. But they had to listen to reason, and I got away
between two days."

"But why didn't you marry her?"

"Well, for one thing, as I told you, I thought I ought to consider
her family. Then there was a good fellow, the crown-prince of
Saxe-Wolfenhutten, who was dead in love with her, and was engaged to her
before I turned up. I had been at school with him, and I felt awfully
sorry for him; and I thought I ought to sacrifice myself a little to him.
But I suppose the thing that influenced me most was finding out that if I
married the princess I should have to give up my American citizenship and
become her subject."

"Well?" Boyne panted.

"Well, would you have done it?"

"Couldn't you have got along without doing that?"

"That was the only thing I couldn't get around, somehow. So I left."

"And the princess, did she--die?"

"It takes a good deal more than that to kill a fifteen-year-old
princess," said Trannel, and he gave a harsh laugh. "She married
Saxe-Wolfenhutten." Boyne was silent. "Now, I don't want you to speak of
this till after I leave Scheveningen--especially to Miss Lottie. You
know how girls are, and I think Miss Lottie is waiting to get a bind on
me, anyway. If she heard how I was cut out of my chance with that
princess she'd never let me believe I gave her up of my own free will?"

"NO, no; I won't tell her."

Boyne remained in a silent rapture, and he did not notice they were no
longer following the rest of their party in the other carriage. This had
turned down a corner, at which Mr. Breckon, sitting on the front seat,
had risen and beckoned their driver to follow, but their driver, who
appeared afterwards to have not too much a head of his own, or no head at
all, had continued straight on, in the rear of a tram-car, which was
slowly finding its way through the momently thickening crowd. Boyne was
first aware that it was a humorous crowd when, at a turn of the street,
their equipage was greeted with ironical cheers by a group of gay young
Dutchmen on the sidewalk. Then he saw that the sidewalks were packed
with people, who spread into the street almost to the tram, and that the
house fronts were dotted with smiling Dutch faces, the faces of pretty
Dutch girls, who seemed to share the amusement of the young fellows
below.

Trannel lay back in the carriage. "This is something like," he said.
"Boyne, they're on to the distinguished young Ohioan--the only Ohioan out
of office in Europe."

"Yes," said Boyne, trying to enjoy it. "I wonder what they are holloing
at."

Trannel laughed. "They're holloing at your Baedeker, my dear boy. They
never saw one before," and Boyne was aware that he was holding his
red-backed guide conspicuously in view on his lap. "They know you're a
foreigner by it."

"Don't you think we ought to turn down somewhere? I don't see poppa
anywhere." He rose and looked anxiously back over the top of their
carriage. The crowd, closing in behind it, hailed his troubled face with
cries that were taken up by the throng on the sidewalks. Boyne turned
about to find that the tram-car which they had been following had
disappeared round a corner, but their driver was still keeping on. At a
wilder burst of applause Trannel took off his hat and bowed to the crowd,
right and left.

"Bow, bow!" he said to Boyne. "They'll be calling for a speech the next
thing. Bow, I tell you!"

"Tell him to turn round!" cried the boy.

"I can't speak Dutch," said Trannel, and Boyne leaned forward and poked
the driver in the back.

"Go back!" he commanded.

The driver shook his head and pointed forward with his whip. "He's all
right," said Trannel. "He can't turn now. We've got to take the next
corner." The street in front was empty, and the people were crowding
back on the sidewalks. Loud, vague noises made themselves heard round
the corner to which the driver had pointed. "By Jove!" Trannel said,
"I believe they're coming round that way."

"Who are coming?" Boyne palpitated.

"The queens."

"The queens?" Boyne gasped; it seemed to him that he shrieked the words.

"Yes. And there's a tobacconist's now," said Trannel, as if that were
what he had been looking for all along. "I want some cigarettes."

He leaped lightly from the carriage, and pushed his way out of sight on
the sidewalk. Boyne remained alone in the vehicle, staring wildly round;
the driver kept slowly and stupidly on, Boyne did not know how much
farther. He could not speak; he felt as if he could not stir. But the
moment came when he could not be still. He gave a galvanic jump to the
ground, and the friendly crowd on the sidewalk welcomed him to its ranks
and closed about him. The driver had taken the lefthand corner, just
before a plain carriage with the Queen and the queen-mother came in sight
round the right. The young Queen was bowing to the people, gently, and
with a sort of mechanical regularity. Now and then a brighter smile than
that she conventionally wore lighted up her face. The simple progress
was absolutely without state, except for the aide-de-camp on horseback
who rode beside the carriage, a little to the front.

Boyne stood motionless on the curb, where a friendly tall Dutchman had
placed him in front that he might see the Queen.

"Hello!" said the voice of Trannel, and elbowing his way to Boyne's
side, he laughed and coughed through the smoke of his cigarette. "I was
afraid you had lost me. Where's your carriage?"

Boyne did not notice his mockeries. He was entranced in that beatific
vision; his boy-heart went out in worship to the pretty young creature
with a reverence that could not be uttered. The tears came into his
eyes.

"There, there! She's bowing to you, Boyne, she's smiling right at you.
By Jove! She's beckoning to you!"

"You be still!" Boyne retorted, finding his tongue. "She isn't doing
any such a thing."

"She is, I swear she is! She's doing it again! She's stopping the
carriage. Oh, go out and see what she wants! Don't you know that a
queen's wish is a command? You've got to go!"

Boyne never could tell just how it happened. The carriage did seem to be
stopping, and the Queen seemed to be looking at him. He thought he must,
and he started into the street towards her, and the carriage came abreast
of him. He had almost reached the carriage when the aide turned and
spurred his horse before him. Four strong hands that were like iron
clamps were laid one on each of Boyne's elbows and shoulders, and he was
haled away, as if by superhuman force. "Mr. Trannel!" he called out.
in his agony, but the wretch had disappeared, and Boyne was left with his
captors, to whom he could have said nothing if he could have thought of
anything to say.

The detectives pulled him through the crowd and hurried him swiftly down
the side street. A little curiosity straggled after him in the shape of
small Dutch boys, too short to look over the shoulders of men at the
queens, and too weak to make their way through them to the front; but for
them, Boyne seemed alone in the world with the relentless officers, who
were dragging him forward and hurting him so with the grip of their iron
hands. He lifted up his face to entreat them not to hold him so tight,
and suddenly it was as if he beheld an angel standing in his path. It
was Breckon who was there, staring at him aghast.

"Why, Boyne!" he cried.

"Oh, Mr. Breckon!" Boyne wailed back. "Is it you? Oh, do tell them I
didn't mean to do anything! I thought she beckoned to me."

"Who? Who beckoned to you?"

"The Queen!" Boyne sobbed, while the detectives pulled him relentlessly
on.

Breckon addressed them suavely in their owe tongue which had never come
in more deferential politeness from human lips. He ventured the belief
that there was a mistake; he assured them that he knew their prisoner,
and that he was the son of a most respectable American family, whom they
could find at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. He added some irrelevancies,
and got for all answer that they had made Boyne's arrest for sufficient
reasons, and were taking him to prison. If his friends wished to
intervene in his behalf they could do so before the magistrate, but for
the present they must admonish Mr. Breckon not to put himself in the way
of the law.

"Don't go, Mr. Breckon!" Boyne implored him, as his captors made him
quicken his pace after slowing a little for their colloquy with Breckon.
"Oh, where is poppa? He could get me away. Oh, where is poppa?"

"Don't! Don't call out, Boyne," Breckon entreated. "Your father is
right here at the end of the street. He's in the carriage there with
Miss Kenton. I was coming to look for you. Don't cry out so!"

"No, no, I won't, Mr. Breckon. I'll be perfectly quiet now. Only do get
poppa quick! He can tell them in a minute that it's all right!"

He made a prodigious effort to control himself, while Breckon ran a
little ahead, with some wild notion of preparing Ellen. As he
disappeared at the corner, Boyne choked a sob into a muffed bellow, and
was able to meet the astonished eyes of his father and sister in this
degree of triumph.

They had not in the least understood Breckon's explanation, and, in fact,
it had not been very lucid. At sight of her brother strenuously upheld
between the detectives, and dragged along the sidewalk, Ellen sprang from
the carriage and ran towards him. "Why, what's the matter with Boyne?"
she demanded. "Are you hurt, Boyne, dear? Are they taking him to the
hospital?"

Before he could answer, and quite before the judge could reach the
tragical group, she had flung her arms round Boyne's neck, and was
kissing his tear-drabbled face, while he lamented back, "They're taking
me to prison."

"Taking you to prison? I should like to know what for! What are you
taking my brother to prison for?" she challenged the detectives, who
paused, bewildered, while all the little Dutch boys round admired this
obstruction of the law, and several Dutch housewives, too old to go out
to see the queens, looked down from their windows. It was wholly
illegal, but the detectives were human. They could snub such a friend of
their prisoner as Breckon, but they could not meet the dovelike ferocity
of Ellen with unkindness. They explained as well as they might, and at a
suggestion which Kenton made through Breckon, they admitted that it was
not beside their duty to take Boyne directly to a magistrate, who could
pass upon his case, and even release him upon proper evidence of his
harmlessness, and sufficient security for any demand that justice might
make for his future appearance.

"Then," said the judge, quietly, "tell them that we will go with them.
It will be all right, Boyne. Ellen, you and I will get back into the
carriage, and--"

"No!" Boyne roared. "Don't leave me, Nelly!"

"Indeed, I won't leave you, Boyne! Mr. Breckon, you get into the
carriage with poppa, and I--"

"I think I had better go with you, Miss Kenton," said Breckon, and in a
tender superfluity they both accompanied Boyne on foot, while the judge
remounted to his place in the carriage and kept abreast of them on their
way to the magistrate's.




XXIV.

The magistrate conceived of Boyne's case with a readiness that gave the
judge a high opinion of his personal and national intelligence. He even
smiled a little, in accepting the explanation which Breckon was able to
make him from Boyne, but he thought his duty to give the boy a fatherly
warning for the future. He remarked to Breckon that it was well for
Boyne that the affair had not happened in Germany, where it would have
been found a much more serious matter, though, indeed, he added, it had
to be seriously regarded anywhere in these times, when the lives of
sovereigns were so much at the mercy of all sorts of madmen and
miscreants. He relaxed a little from his severity in his admonition to
say directly to Boyne that queens, even when they wished to speak with
people, did not beckon them in the public streets. When this speech
translated to Boyne by Breckon, whom the magistrate complimented on the
perfection of his Dutch, Boyne hung his head sheepishly, and could not be
restored to his characteristic dignity again in the magistrate's
presence. The judge gratefully shook hands with the friendly justice,
and made him a little speech of thanks, which Breckon interpreted, and
then the justice shook hand with the judge, and gracefully accepted the
introduction which he offered him to Ellen. They parted with reciprocal
praises and obeisances, which included even the detectives. The judge
had some question, which he submitted to Breckon, whether he ought not to
offer them something, but Breckon thought not.

Breckon found it hard to abdicate the sort of authority in which his
knowledge of Dutch had placed him, and when he protested that he had done
nothing but act as interpreter, Ellen said, "Yes, but we couldn't have
done anything without you," and this was the view that Mrs. Kenton took
of the matter in the family conclave which took place later in the
evening. Breckon was not allowed to withdraw from it, in spite of many
modest efforts, before she had bashfully expressed her sense of his
service to him, and made Boyne share her thanksgiving. She had her arm
about the boy's shoulder in giving Breckon her hand, and when Breckon had
got away she pulled Boyne to her in a more peremptory embrace.

"Now, Boyne," she said, "I am not going to have any more nonsense. I
want to know why you did it."

The judge and Ellen had already conjectured clearly enough, and Boyne did
not fear them. But he looked at his younger sister as he sulkily
answered, "I am not going to tell you before Lottie."

"Come in here, then," said his mother, and she led him into the next room
and closed the door. She quickly returned without him. "Yes," she
began, "it's just as I supposed; it was that worthless fellow who put him
up to it. Of course, it began with those fool books he's been reading,
and the notions that Miss Rasmith put into his head. But he never would
have done anything if it hadn't been for Mr. Trannel."

Lottie had listened in silent scorn to the whole proceedings up to this
point, and had refused a part in the general recognition of Breckon as a
special providence. Now she flashed out with a terrible volubility:
"What did I tell you? What else could you expect of a Cook's tourist?
And mom--mother wanted to make me go with you, after I told her what he
was! Well, if I had have gone, I'll bet I could have kept him from
playing his tricks. I'll bet he wouldn't have taken any liberties, with
me along. I'll bet if he had, it wouldn't have been Boyne that got
arrested. I'll bet he wouldn't have got off so easily with the
magistrate, either! But I suppose you'll all let him come bowing and
smiling round in the morning, like butter wouldn't melt in your mouths.
That seems to be the Kenton way. Anybody can pull our noses, or get us
arrested that wants to, and we never squeak." She went on a long time to
this purpose, Mrs. Kenton listening with an air almost of conviction, and
Ellen patiently bearing it as a right that Lottie had in a matter where
she had been otherwise ignored.

The judge broke out, not upon Lottie, but upon his wife. "Good heavens,
Sarah, can't you make the child hush?"

Lottie answered for her mother, with a crash of nerves and a gush of
furious tears: "Oh, I've got to hush, I suppose. It's always the way
when I'm trying to keep up the dignity of the family. I suppose it will
be cabled to America, and by tomorrow it will be all over Tuskingum how
Boyne was made a fool of and got arrested. But I bet there's one person
in Tuskingum that won't have any remarks to make, and that's Bittridge.
Not, as long as Dick's there he won't."

"Lottie!" cried her mother, and her father started towards her, while
Ellen still sat patiently quiet.

"Oh, well!" Lottie submitted. "But if Dick was here I know this Trannel
wouldn't get off so smoothly. Dick would give him a worse cowhiding than
he did Bittridge."

Half the last word was lost in the bang of the door which Lottie slammed
behind her, leaving her father and mother to a silence which Ellen did
not offer to break. The judge had no heart to speak, in his dismay, and
it was Mrs. Kenton who took the word.

"Ellen," she began, with compassionate gentleness, "we tried to keep it
from you. We knew how you would feel. But now we have got to tell you.
Dick did cowhide him when he got back to Tuskingum. Lottie wrote out to
Dick about it, how Mr. Bittridge had behaved in New York. Your father
and I didn't approve of it, and Dick didn't afterwards; but, yes, he did
do it."

"I knew it, momma," said Ellen, sadly.

"You knew it! How?"

"That other letter I got when we first came--it was from his mother."

"Did she tell--"

"Yes. It was terrible she seemed to feel so. And I was sorry for her.
I thought I ought to answer it, and I did. I told her I was sorry, too.
I tried not to blame Richard. I don't believe I did. And I tried not to
blame him. She was feeling badly enough without that."

Her father and mother looked at each other; they did not speak, and she
asked, "Do you think I oughtn't to have written?"

Her father answered, a little tremulously: "You did right, Ellen. And I
am sure that you did it in just the right way."

"I tried to. I thought I wouldn't worry you about it."

She rose, and now her mother thought she was going to say that it put an
end to everything; that she must go back and offer herself as a sacrifice
to the injured Bittridges. Her mind had reverted to that moment on the
steamer when Ellen told her that nothing had reconciled her to what had
happened with Bittridge but the fact that all the wrong done had been
done to themselves; that this freed her. In her despair she could not
forbear asking, "What did you write to her, Ellen?"

"Nothing. I just said that I was very sorry, and that I knew how she
felt. I don't remember exactly."

She went up and kissed her mother. She seemed rather fatigued than
distressed, and her father asked her. "Are you going to bed, my dear?"

"Yes, I'm pretty tired, and I should think you would be, too, poppa.
I'll speak to poor Boyne. Don't mind Lottie. I suppose she couldn't
help saying it." She kissed her father, and slipped quietly into Boyne's
room, from which they could hear her passing on to her own before they
ventured to say anything to each other in the hopeful bewilderment to
which she had left them.

"Well?" said the judge.

"Well?" Mrs. Kenton returned, in a note of exasperation, as if she were
not going to let herself be forced to the initiative.