The Kentons. William Dean Howells
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things to poppa, and nothing has changed.”
“That is the way I hoped you would see it; Ellen.” Her mother looked wistfully at her, but the girl left her without letting her satisfy the longing in the mother’s heart to put her arms round her child, and pull her head down upon her breast for a cry.
Kenton slept better that night than his wife, who was kept awake by a formless foreboding. For the week that followed she had the sense of literally pushing the hours away, so that at times she found herself breathless, as if from some heavy physical exertion. At such times she was frantic with the wish to have the days gone, and the day of their sailing come, but she kept her impatience from her husband and children, and especially from Ellen. The girl was passive enough; she was almost willing, and in the preparation for their voyage she did her share of the shopping, and discussed the difficult points of this business with her mother and sister as if she had really been thinking about it all. But her mother doubted if she had, and made more of Ellen’s sunken eyes and thin face than of her intelligent and attentive words. It was these that she reported to her husband, whom she kept from talking with Ellen, and otherwise quelled.
“Let her alone,” she insisted, one morning of the last week. “What can you do by speaking to her about it? Don’t you see that she is making the best fight she can? You will weaken her if you interfere. It’s less than a week now, and if you can only hold out, I know she can.”
Kenton groaned. “Well, I suppose you’re right, Sarah. But I don’t like the idea of forcing her to go, unless—”
“Then you had better write to that fellow, and ask him to come and get her.”
This shut Kenton’s mouth, and he kept on with his shaving. When he had finished he felt fresher, if not stronger, and he went down to breakfast, which he had alone, not only with reference to his own family, but all the other guests of the hotel. He was always so early that sometimes the dining-room was not open; when this happened, he used to go and buy a newspaper at the clerk’s desk, for it was too early then for the news-stand to be open. It happened so that morning, and he got his paper without noticing the young man who was writing his name in the hotel register, but who looked briskly up when the clerk bade Kenton good-morning by name.
“Why, judge!” he said, and he put out a hand which Kenton took with trembling reluctance and a dazed stare. “I thought you sailed last Saturday!”
“We sail next Saturday,” said Kenton.
“Well, well! Then I misunderstood,” said Bittridge, and he added: “Why, this is money found in the road! How are all the family? I’ve got my mother here with me; brought her on for a kind of a little outing. She’ll be the most surprised woman in New York when I tell her you’re here yet. We came to this hotel because we knew you had been here, but we didn’t suppose you were here! Well! This is too good! I saw Dick, Friday, but he didn’t say anything about your sailing; I suppose he thought I knew. Didn’t you tell me you were going in a week, that day in your house?”
“Perhaps I did,” Kenton faltered out, his eyes fixed on Bittridge’s with a helpless fascination.
“Well, it don’t matter so long as you’re here. Mother’s in the parlor waiting for me; I won’t risk taking you to her now, judge—right off the train, you know. But I want to bring her to call on Mrs. Kenton as soon after breakfast as you’ll let me. She just idolizes Mrs. Kenton, from what I’ve told her about her. Our rooms ready?” He turned to the clerk, and the clerk called “Front!” to a bellboy, who ran up and took Bittridge’s hand-baggage, and stood waiting to follow him into the parlor. “Well, you must excuse me now, judge. So long!” he said, gayly, and Kenton crept feebly away to the dining-room.
He must have eaten breakfast, but he was not aware of doing so; and the events of his leaving the table and going up in the elevator and finding himself in his wife’s presence did not present themselves consecutively, though they must all have successively occurred. It did not seem to him that he could tell what he knew, but he found himself doing it, and her hearing it with strange quiet.
“Very well,” she said. “I must tell Ellen, and, if she wishes, we must stay in and wait for their call.”
“Yes,” the judge mechanically consented.
It was painful for Mrs. Kenton to see how the girl flushed when she announced the fact of Bittridge’s presence, for she knew what a strife of hope and shame and pride there was in Ellen’s heart. At first she said that she did not wish to see him, and then when Mrs. Kenton would not say whether she had better see him or not, she added, vaguely, “If he has brought his mother—”
“I think we must see them, Ellen. You wouldn’t wish to think you had been unkind; and he might be hurt on his mother’s account. He seems really fond of her, and perhaps—”
“No, there isn’t any perhaps, momma,” said the girl, gratefully. “But I think we had better see them, too. I think we had better ALL see them.”
“Just as you please, Ellen. If you prefer to meet them alone—”
“I don’t prefer that. I want poppa to be there, and Lottie and Boyne even.”
Boyne objected when he was told that his presence was requested at this family rite, and he would have excused himself if the invitation had been of the form that one might decline. “What do I want to see him for?” he puffed. “He never cared anything about me in Tuskingum. What’s he want here, anyway?”
“I wish you to come in, my son,” said his mother, and that ended it.
Lottie was not so tractable. “Very well, momma,” she said. “But don’t expect me to speak to him. I have some little self-respect, if the rest of you haven’t. Am I going to shake hands with him! I never took the least notice of him at home, and I’m not going to here.”
Bittridge decided the question of hand-shaking for her when they met. He greeted her glooming brother with a jolly “Hello, Boyne!” and without waiting for the boy’s tardy response he said “Hello, Lottie!” to the girl, and took her hand and kept it in his while he made an elaborate compliment to her good looks and her gain in weight. She had come tardily as a proof that she would not have come in at all if she had not chosen to do so, and Mrs. Bittridge was already seated beside Ellen on the sofa, holding her hand, and trying to keep her mobile, inattentive eyes upon Ellen’s face. She was a little woman, youthfully dressed, but not dressed youthfully enough for the dry, yellow hair which curled tightly in small rings on her skull, like the wig of a rag-doll. Her restless eyes were round and deep-set, with the lids flung up out of sight; she had a lax, formless mouth, and an anxious smile, with which she constantly watched her son for his initiative, while she recollected herself from time to time, long enough to smooth Ellen’s hand between her own, and say, “Oh, I just think the world of Clarence; and I guess he thinks his mother is about right, too,” and then did not heed what Ellen answered.
The girl said very little, and it was Bittridge who talked for all, dominating the room with a large, satisfied presence, in which the judge sat withdrawn, his forehead supported on his hand, and his elbow on the table. Mrs. Kenton held herself upright, with her hands crossed before her, stealing a look now and then at her daughter’s averted face, but keeping her eyes from Mrs. Bittridge, who, whenever she caught Mrs. Kenton’s glance, said something to her about her Clarence, and how he used to write home to her at Ballardsville about the Kentons, so that she felt acquainted with all of them. Her reminiscences were perfunctory; Mrs. Bittridge had voluntarily but one topic, and that was herself, either as she was included in the interest her son must inspire, or as she included him in the interest she must inspire. She said that, now they had met at last, she was not going to rest till the Kentons had been over to Ballardsville, and made her a good, long visit; her son had some difficulty in making her realize that the Kentons were going to Europe. Then she laughed, and said she kept forgetting; and she did wish they were all coming back to Tuskingum.
If it is a merit to treat a fatuous mother with deference, Bittridge had that merit. His deference was of the caressing and laughing