Kendal

“ Gilbert Kendal, for, even as a little boy, he was always kind to me, but for the rest—he is so young, madame, even if I could forget—’
‘I see,’ said Albinia. ‘I am sure that you are much too good and sensible at your age to waste a moment’s thought or pain on such a foolish boy, as he certainly is, Genevieve, though not so foolish in liking you, whatever he may be in the way of expressing it. ”

“ During the hour they smoked and talked together Elfrida was wholly delightful, and only one thing occurred to mar the enjoyment of the evening as Kendal remembered it. That was Mr. Golightly Ticke, who came up and smoked too, and seemed to have an extraordinary familiarity, for such an utterly impossible person, with Miss Bell's literary engagements. On his way home Kendal reflected that it was doubtless a question of time; she would take to the customs of civilization by degrees, and the sooner the better. ”

“ Kendal said.
"Oh yes, I'm candid. I don't mind lying for a noble end, but it isn't a noble end to deceive one's self."
"'Oh, purblind race of miserable men—'" Kendal began lightly, but she stopped him.
"Don't!" she cried. "Nothing spoils conversation like quotations. Besides, that's such a trite one; I learned it at school."
But Kendal's offence was clearly in his manner. It seemed to Elfrida that he would never sincerely consider what she had to say about herself. ”

“ There was a war of supremacy in the Kendal household. Albinia and her son were Greek to Greek, and if physical force were on her side, her own tenderness was against her. As to allies, Maurice had by far the majority of the household; the much-tormented Susan was her mistress’s sole supporter; Mr. Kendal and Sophy might own it inexpedient to foster his outrecuidance, but they so loved to do his bidding, so hated to thwart him, and so grieved at his being punished, that they were little better than Gilbert, Lucy, grandmamma, or any of the maids or men. ”

“ All his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,—what would the world hold for him! Books, thought, ideas—were they enough? Could a man live by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt which seemed to shake his nature to its depths. ”

“ Kendal. ‘He could not read words of five letters without spelling.’
‘He always could do much more when he pleased than when he did not please,’ said Albinia. ‘I believe the impulse to use his understanding was all that was wanting, and I am very glad the impulse came from such a motive.’
Mr. Kendal ordained that Maurice’s reward should be learning Latin from himself, a perilous trial; but it proved that Mr. Kendal was really a good teacher for a child of spirit and courage, and Maurice had early come to the age when boys do better with man than with woman. ”

“ There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week before had been, if anything, below the truth. ”

“ She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret stir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own set he had most commonly heard applied to her.
'Yes, indeed,' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels the same. We all do if we are good for anything—we who scribble as well as you who act.'
'Oh yes,' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a great deal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. ”

“ The turbulent people of Kendal no doubt acquired their character from the old-time circumstances of the place, ever subject to incursions of Scottish raiders. Sturdy independence, and a readiness to hold their own, thus become traits in these men of the dales and fells. Something of the ancient trials of Kendal town may yet be seen, behind the modern smug facing of shops in the older streets, where houses and cottages are built around courtyards approached only by narrow alleys easily to be defended, in case of attack. ”

“ Kendal,’ he said, actually weeping, ‘you have always pitied me hitherto.’
‘A man should not ask for pity,’ said Albinia; ‘but I am sorry for you, for she is an admirable person, and I see you are very unhappy; but I will do all I can to help you, and you will get over it, if you are reasonable. Now understand me, I will and must protect Genevieve, and I shall appeal to your father unless you promise me to desist from this persecution.’
The debate might have been endless, if Mr. Kendal had not been heard coming in. ‘You promise?’ she said. ”

“ Janet laughed. "Well, if nearly all our poets are dead and our novelists in the colonies, I can't help it, can I! Here is Mr. Kendal, at all events."
Kendal came up, with his perfect manners, and immediately it seemed to Elfrida that their little group became distinct from the rest, more important, more worthy of observation. Kendal never added anything to the unities of their conversation when he joined these two; he seemed rather to break up what they had to say to each other and attract it to himself. He always gave an accent to the life and energy of their talk ”

“ I hoped you had forgotten that piece of pedantry on my part.'
'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life,' she answered with a sudden gravity.
Kendal had been keeping an iron grip upon himself during the past hours, but, as she said this, standing close beside him, it seemed to him impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in them,—evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in his,—and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look out through them. ”

“ I am sure I pity the poor man heartily, but to see her at three-and-twenty, with her sweet face and high spirits, give herself away to a man who looks but half alive, and cannot, if he would, return that full first love—have the charge of a tribe of children, be spied and commented on by the first wife’s relations—Maurice, I cannot bear it.’
‘It is not what we should have chosen,’ said her husband, ‘but it has a bright side. Kendal is a most right-minded, superior man, and she appreciates him thoroughly. ”

“ The Kendal reaction to life is a mixture of self-depreciation, self-assertion, and a thorough-going, entirely unvenomous pessimism in regard to past, present, and future. There are four sisters, and one brother, who is always spoken of by his family as “poor old Ahlfred.”
Inquiries after Alfred, who is in business and comes home only for week-ends, always elicit the assurance that he is “struggling along somehow.”
General Kendal, known as Puppa, and Mrs. Kendal—Mumma—also “struggle along somehow.”
When they were told about Sallie’s new game, Dolly and Aileen Kendal looked horribly distrustful. ”

“ After some experience at Birmingham and elsewhere, he joined the Haymarket company in London in 1866, acting everything from burlesque to Romeo. In 1869 he married Margaret (Madge) Shafto Robertson (b. 1849) , sister of the dramatist, T. W. Robertson. As “Mr and Mrs Kendal” their professional careers then became inseparable. Mrs Kendal’s first stage appearance was as Marie, “a child,” in The Orphan of the Frozen Sea in 1854 in London. She soon showed such talent both as actress and singer that she secured numerous engagements, and by 1865 was playing Ophelia and Desdemona. ”

“ It is easy to ask, but to wait patiently for the answer, is a far more difficult duty. However, when I had carefully arranged in the places indicated our household treasures of napery, clothing, silver, and so forth, I wished I could go to Kendal. But I saw Robert’s face change as soon as I mentioned Kendal.
“We made a plan for our movements, Milly,” he said, “and I do not wish a single point altered. It might disarrange all I have been working for.” ”

“ Just as Martyn had finished distributing pencils and strips of paper the Misses Kendal were announced.
It was the twins, Dolly and Aileen.
They wear their hats on the backs of their heads, and their skirts a little longer behind than in front, [10] as do all the Kendals, but they are nice-looking girls in a bovine way. It is hard on them to compare them with Sallie, who is ten years their junior, as slim and as straight as a wand, and whose clothes invariably produce a peculiarly dashing effect.
No Kendals are ever dashing. ”

“ But come, we must do our duty;' and he drew Kendal forward towards the front of the box, and they saw the whole house on its feet, clapping and shouting, and the curtain just being drawn back to let the White Lady and the Prince appear before it. She was very pale, but the storm of applause which greeted her seemed to revive her, and she swept her smiling glance round the theatre, until at last it rested with a special gleam of recognition on the party in the box, especially on Forbes, who was outdoing himself in enthusiasm. ”

“ Fortunately, the amiable people included some very young people, so young that they could properly compel Kendal to go into the fields with them and make cowslip balls, and some robust girls of eighteen and twenty, who mutely demanded the pleasure of beating him at tennis every afternoon. He was able in this way to work off the depression that visited him daily with the damp odor of London art, criticism, quite independently of its bias toward himself. ”

“ JAMES PATRICK OF KENDAL,
WHO DIED MARCH 2D, 1787, AGED 71 YEARS.
"When staying in Kendal, with his friend Mr. Thomas Cookson, Mr. Wordsworth himself was an occasional worshipper, along with the family, at this chapel; and thus became acquainted with the minister, the Reverend John Harrison, and [392] with one of his congregation, the well-known blind mathematician and botanist, Mr. John Gough, with the delineation of whose remarkable powers and character the poet has enriched his Excursion ”

“ Mr. Kendal’s first impulse always was to find a sufficient plea for doing nothing. If Gilbert was to go to India, it was not worth while to give him a classical education.
‘Is he to go to India? Albinia had not told me so.’
‘I thought she was aware of it; but possibly I may not have mentioned it. It has been an understood thing ever since I came home. He will have a good deal of the property in this place, but he had better have seen something of the world. Bayford is no place for a man to settle down in too young.’
‘Certainly,’ said Mr. Ferrars, repressing a smile. ”

“ Kendal said. "If I could reproduce Barrie on canvas, I'd go, like a shot. By the way, Miss Bell, there's somebody you are, interested in—do you see a middle-aged man, rather bald, thick-set, coming this way?—George Jasper."
"Really!" Elfrida exclaimed, jumping to her feet "Oh, thank you! The most consummate artist in human nature that the time has given!" she added, with intensity. "There can be no question. Oh, I am so happy to have seen him!"
"I'm not altogether sure," Kendal began, and then he stopped, looking at Janet in astonished question. ”

“ But it was making its way against antagonistic forces of habit, tradition, self-restraint,—it found a hundred other interests in possession;—it had a strange impersonality and timidity of nature to fight with. Kendal had been accustomed to live in other men's lives. ”

“ Mrs. Kendal stated, with all the Kendal directness. “You know how few men there are anywhere near Cross Loman. The girls often say that it’s next door to impossible to get a man for anything round here. Of course, Ahlfred would come down for it, and perhaps he could bring a friend—that would be two men.”
We tried to look encouraged.
“Let’s make a list of the people you want to invite, Cousin Claire.”
Claire dictated names, and Sallie wrote them down, and we all made suggestions. The monosyllable “men” must have resounded through the hall fifty times, in Mumma’s emphatic contralto. ”

“ But I wish she had had a trifle more education and something worth calling a training. Her manager, Robinson, talks of her attempting all the great parts; but it's absurd. She talks very naïvely and prettily about "her art"; but really she knows no more about it than a baby, and it is perhaps part of her charm that she is so unconscious of her ignorance.'
'It is strange how little critical English audiences are,' said Kendal. 'I believe we are the simplest people in the world. All that we ask is that our feelings should be touched a little, but whether by the art or the artist doesn't matter. ”

“ At any rate, there could be no doubt that in this one scene she realised the utmost limits of the author's ideal, and when she faded into the darkness beyond the moonlight in which she had first appeared, the house, which had been breathlessly silent during the progress of the apparition, burst into a roar of applause, in which Wallace and Kendal heartily joined.
'Exquisite!' said Kendal in Mrs. Stuart's ear, as he stood behind her chair. 'She was romance itself! Her acting should always be a kind of glorified and poetical pantomime ”