"We do not have your Surrey suppers," Ben remarked.
"How should you know?" his mother asked. Ben's eyes looked violent and he bit his lips. Adelaide commenced speaking before her mother had finished her question, as if she only needed the spur of her voice to be lively and agreeable, per contra.
"Hepburn must ask us to tea. Her jam and her gossip are wonderful. Aunt Tucker might ask us too, with housekeeper Beck's permission. I like tea fights with the old Hindoos. They like us too, Ben; we are the children of Hindoos also—superior to the rest of the world. There will be a party or two for this young person."
"Parties be hanged!" he said. "Then we must have a rout here, and I hate 'em."
"But we owe an entertainment," said Mrs. Somers. "I have been thinking of giving one as soon as Mr. Somers gets out."
"I have no such idea," said Adelaide, with her back toward her mother. "We shall have no party until some one has been given to our young friend, Ben."
Ben and I visited his father, who asked questions relative to the temperature, the water, and the dietetic qualities of Surrey. He was affable, but there was no nearness in his affability. He skated on the ice of appearances, and that was his vocation in his family. He fulfilled it well, but it was a strain sometimes. His family broke the ice now and then, which must have made him plunge into the depths of reality. I learned to respect his courage, bad as his cause was. Marrying Bellevue Pickersgill for her money, he married his master, and was endowed only with the privilege of settling her taxes. Simon Pickersgill, her father, tied up the main part of his money for his grandchildren. It was to be divided among them when the youngest son should arrive at the age of twenty-one—an event which took place, I supposed, while Ben was on his way to India. Desmond and an older son, who resided anywhere except at home, made havoc with the income. As the principal prospectively was theirs, or nearly the whole of it, why should they not dispose of that?
At last Mr. Somers looked at his watch, a gentle reminder that it was time for us to withdraw. Adelaide was still in the parlor, lying on her favorite sofa contemplating the ceiling. I asked permission to retire, which she granted without removing her regards. In spite of my sound sleep that night, I was started from it by the wail of a young child. The strangeness of the chamber, and the continued crying, which I could not locate, kept me awake at intervals till dawn peeped through the curtains.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A few days after my arrival, some friends dined with Mrs. Somers. The daughters of a senator, as Ann informed me, and an ex-governor, or I should not have known this fact, for I was not introduced. The dinner was elaborate, and Desmond did the honors. With the walnuts one of the ladies asked for the baby.