Kenby

“ Adding and Kenby launched upon us is too much. Of course I like Kenby, and if the widow alone were concerned I would give him my blessing: a wife more or a widow less is not going to disturb the equilibrium of the universe; but—” He stopped, and then he went on: “Men and women are well enough. They complement each other very agreeably, and they have very good times together. But why should they get in love?—It is sure to make them uncomfortable to themselves and annoying to others.” He broke off, and stared about him. “My dear, this is really charming—almost as charming as the Posthof.” ”

“ He wondered how she came to take it up, and whether she began with the bear when they were both very young, and she could easily throw him.
"Well, women have a great deal more strength than we suppose," Kenby began with a philosophical air that gave March the hope of some rational conversation. Then his eye glazed with a far-off look, and a doting smile came into his face. "When we went through the Dresden gallery together, Rose and I were perfectly used up at the end of an hour, but his mother kept on as long as there was anything to see, and came away as fresh as a peach." ”

“ His mother consented, if he would promise not to get tired, and then she mounted into the two-spanner which had driven instinctively up to their party when their parley began, and General Triscoe took the place beside her, while Kenby, with smiling patience, seated himself in front.
Rose kept on talking with March about Wurzburg and its history, which it seemed he had been reading the night before when he could not sleep. He explained, “We get little histories of the places wherever we go. That's what Mr. Kenby does, you know.” ”

“ What the boy needs is a man's care, and a man's will—Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind to the little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table.
"My dear fellow!" March protested.
"I'd rather cut off my right hand!" Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then he said, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should want her so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both. So far, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. I had a letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day ”

“ Kenby is tremendously in love with her; and I believe she's had a fancy for him from the beginning. If it hadn't been for Rose she would have accepted him at once; and now he's essential to them both in their helplessness. As for Papa Triscoe and his Europeanized scruples, if they have any reality at all they're the residuum of his personal resentment, and Kenby and Mrs. Adding have nothing to do with their unreality. His being in love with her is no reason why he shouldn't be helpful to her when she needs him, and every reason why he should. ”

“ Oh no!" came from Kenby. He did not care much for society, but he vaguely respected it as the stronghold of the proprieties and the amenities.
"Isn't society a good place for Tammany to be in?" asked March in the pause Triscoe let follow upon Kenby's laugh.
"There's no reason why it shouldn't be. Society is as bad as all the rest of it. ”

“ March's sympathy for favor.
"No, he only lives to do good," Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose; won't you come in and see them?"
Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would not let him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had already pushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very general knowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up after they were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that he was not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the points where he had found Kenby wanting. ”

“ No man is so inveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release to bachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed that they would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular life and amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenby had never been before ”

“ March. There isn't any doubt about my wanting to marry her, and up to this time there hasn't been any doubt about her not wanting to marry me. But it isn't a question of her or of me, now. It's a question of Rose. I love the boy," and Kenby's voice shook, and he faltered a moment. "Pshaw! You understand."
"Indeed I do, Mr. Kenby," said Mrs. March. "I perfectly understand you."
"Well, I don't think Mrs. Adding is fit to make the journey with him alone, or to place herself in the best way after she gets to Schevleningen. She's been badly shaken up ”

“ San Francisco wants to know about Denver, Denver about Chicago, Chicago about New York, and New York about London; but curiosity never travels the other way any more than a hot wave or a cold wave.”
“Ah, but London doesn't care a rap about Vienna,” said Kenby.
“Well, some pressures give out before they reach the coast, on our own side. It isn't an infallible analogy.”
Triscoe was fiercely chewing a morsel, as if in haste to take part in the discussion. He gulped it, and broke out. “Why should they care about us, anyway?”
March lightly ventured, “Oh, men and brothers, you know.” ”

“ And what New York is, politically, morally, and socially, the whole country wishes to be and tries to be."
There was that measure of truth in the words which silences; no one could find just the terms of refutation.
"Well," said Kenby at last, "it's a good thing there are so many lines to
Europe. We've still got the right to emigrate."
"Yes, but even there we don't escape the abuse of our infamous newspapers for exercising a man's right to live where he chooses. And there is no country in Europe—except Turkey, or Spain—that isn't a better home for an honest man than the United States." ”

“ Now,” he recurred to his grievance again, dreamily, “I have got to take Papa Triscoe in hand, and poison his mind against Burnamy, and I shall have to instil a few drops of venomous suspicion against Kenby into the heart of poor little Rose Adding. Oh;” he broke out, “they will spoil everything. They'll be with us morning, noon, and night,” and he went on to work the joke of repining at his lot. The worst thing, he said, would be the lovers' pretence of being interested in something besides themselves, which they were no more capable of than so many lunatics. ”

“ She's certainly commoner clay than Rose. No, I won't say that! It's really nothing but General Triscoe's being an old goose about her that makes her seem so, and it isn't fair."
March went down to his coffee in the morning with the delicate duty of telling Kenby that Mrs. Adding was in town. Kenby seemed to think it quite natural she should wish to see the manoeuvres, and not at all strange that she should come to them with General Triscoe and his daughter. He asked if March would not go with him to call upon her after breakfast, and as this was in the line of his own instructions from Mrs. ”

“ March liked him for coming to the defence of a young writer whom he had not himself learned to like yet. “Yes,” he said, “if he has the power you say, and can keep it after he comes to his artistic consciousness!”
Mrs. Leffers, as if she thought things were going her way, smiled; Rose Adding listened with shining eyes expectantly fixed on March; his mother viewed his rapture with tender amusement. The steward was at Kenby's shoulder with the salad and his entreating “Bleace!” and Triscoe seemed to be questioning whether he should take any notice of Burnamy's general disagreement. ”

“ Kenge, gravely. "I can't say that, indeed, for I know nothing whatever of Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very superior man; but he is, so to speak, merged—merged—in the more shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and tedious, on such an evening, and as we had been traveling already, Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town, early in the forenoon of to-morrow. ”

“ In ten minutes the whole party, the four Kenway sisters, Neale, and Sammy, and Tom Jonah, had tumbled into the body of the big sleigh which was so heaped with clean straw that they burrowed right into it just like mice! The big bay horses were eager to start, and tossed their heads and made the little silver bells on the harness jingle to a merry tune indeed.
Mr. Howbridge and Ruth sat up on the wide front seat—the only seat—with the driver, John. The guardian wished to talk in private with the oldest Kenway girl. He considered her a very bright girl, with a very well-balanced mind. ”

“ When I accepted John Kenneby's hand and heart,—and well I remember the beauteous language in which he expressed his feelings, and always shall,—I told him, that I respected him as a man that would do his duty by a woman, though perhaps he mightn't be so cute in the way of having much to say for himself as some others. 'What's the good,' said I, 'of a man's talking, if so be he's ashamed to meet the baker at the end of the week?' So I listened to the vows he made me, and have considered that he and I was as good as one. ”

“ Her crimson lips curled in faint scorn.
"I could not learn the lesson," she replied. "You are not the kind of man whom I could love," and again the handsome face of Guy Kenmore rose before her mind's eye.
[Pg 55]
"Why do I think of him?" she asked herself.
"What sort of a man could you love, Miss Berlin?" he asked, almost despairingly, and again the proud, handsome, indifferent face of Guy Kenmore rose tormentingly before her.
"Why do I think of him?" she asked herself again, in wonder, and forgetting to answer the question of the kneeling man. ”

“ Kenelm responded cordially to the civilities of the master of the house, who had just returned from his city office, and left all its cares behind him. You had only to look at him to see that he was prosperous, and deserved to be so. There were in his countenance the signs of strong sense, of good-humour,—above all, of an active energetic temperament. A man of broad smooth forehead, keen hazel eyes, firm lips and jaw; with a happy contentment in himself, his house, the world in general, mantling over his genial smile, and outspoken in the metallic ring of his voice. ”

“ No more acute and accomplished man of the world. The three hundred a year or so that you would pay for Kenelm would suit him very well. His name is Welby, and he lives in Chester Square."
"No doubt he is a contributor to 'The Londoner,'" said the Parson, sarcastically.
"True. He writes our classical, theological, and metaphysical articles. Suppose I invite him to come here for a day or two, and you can see him and judge for yourself, Sir Peter?"
"Do."
CHAPTER X. MR. WELBY arrived, and pleased everybody. A man of the happiest manners, easy and courteous. ”

“ Kenwigs,’ said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor.
‘You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?’ returned Mr. Kenwigs.
‘It’s the finest boy I ever saw in all my life,’ said the doctor. ‘I never saw such a baby.’
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
‘I ne—ver saw such a baby,’ said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor.
‘Morleena was a fine baby,’ remarked Mr. Kenwigs; as if this were rather an attack, by implication, upon the family. ”

“ Thus, though it became known at Moleswich that a young gentleman, the heir to a baronetcy and a high estate, was sojourning at Cromwell Lodge, no overtures were made to him on the part of the A's, B's, and C's. The vicar, who called on Kenelm the day after the dinner at Braefieldville, explained to him the social conditions of the place. "You understand," said he, "that it will be from no want of courtesy on the part of my neighbours if they do not offer you any relief from the pleasures of solitude. It will be simply because they are shy, not because they are uncivil. ”

“ ON quitting Oxford, Kenelm wandered for several days about the country, advancing to no definite goal, meeting with no noticeable adventure. At last he found himself mechanically retracing his steps. A magnetic influence he could not resist drew him back towards the grassy meads and the sparkling rill of Moleswich.
“There must be,” said he to himself, “a mental, like an optical, illusion. In the last, we fancy we have seen a spectre. If we dare not face the apparition,—dare not attempt to touch it,—run superstitiously away from it,—what happens? ”

“ But Kenneby said that he should dine in London. He always preferred dining late. Besides, it was a long time since he had been at Hamworth, and he was desirous of taking a walk that he might renew his associations.
'Associations!' said Dockwrath with a sneer. According to his ideas a man could have no pleasant associations with a place unless he had made money there or been in some way successful. Now John Kenneby had enjoyed no success at Hamworth. ”

“ Poor Kenney came to my room next evening, and I could not have believed that one night could have ruined a man so completely. I swear to you I thought at first it was a flimsy suit of clothes had left some bedside and walked into my room without waiting for the owner to get up, or that it was one of those frames on which clothiers stretch coats at their shop-doors, until I perceived a thin face, sticking edgeways out of the collar of the coat like the axe in a bundle of fasces. ”