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.
Mrs. Somers made a sign to Desmond, who pulled the bell-rope--mildly
this time. An elderly woman instantly appeared with a child a few
months old, puny and anxious-looking. Mrs. Somers took it from her,
and placed it on the table; it tottered and nodded to the chirrups of
the guests. Ben, from the opposite side of the table, addressed me by
a look, which enlightened me. His voyage to India was useless, as the
property would stand for twenty-one years more, lacking some months,
unless Providence interposed. Adelaide was oblivious of the child,
but Desmond thumped his glass on the mahogany to attract it, for its
energies were absorbed in swallowing its fists and fretfully crying.
When Murphy announced coffee in the parlor, the nurse took it away;
and after coffee and sponge cake were served the visitors drove off.
That afternoon some friends of Adelaide called, to whom she introduced
me as "cousin." She gave graphic descriptions of them, after their
departure. One had achieved greatness by spending her winters in
Washington, and contracting a friendship with John C. Calhoun. Another
was an artist who had painted an ideal head of her ancestor, Sir
Roger de Roger, not he who had arrived some years ago as a weaver from
Glasgow, but the one who had remained on the family estate. A third
reviewed books and collected autographs.
The next afternoon one of the Miss Hiticutts from across the way came,
in a splendid camel's-hair shawl and a shabby dress. "How _is_ Mr.
Somers?" she asked. "He is such a martyr."
Here Mrs. Somers entered. "My dear Bellevue, you are worn out with
your devotion to him; when have you taken the air?" She did not wait
for a reply, but addressed Adelaide with, "This is your young friend,
and where is my favorite, Mr. Ben, and little Miss Ann? Have you
anything new? I went down to Harris yesterday to tell her she must
sweep away her old trash of a circulating library, and begin with the
New Regime of Novels, which threatens to overwhelm us."
Adelaide talked slowly at first, and then soared into a region where
I had never seen a woman--an intellectual one. Miss Hiticutt followed
her, and I experienced a new pleasure. Mrs. Somers was silent, but
listened with respect to Miss Hiticutt, for she was of the real Belem
azure in blood as well as in brain; besides, she was rich, and would
never marry. It was a Pickersgill hallucination to be attentive to
people who had legacies in their power. Mrs. Somers had a bequested
fortune already in hair rings and silver ware. While appearing to
listen to Adelaide, her eyes wandered over me with speculation askant
in them. Adelaide was so full of _esprit_ that I was again smitten
with my inferiority, and from this time I felt a respect for her,
which never declined, although she married an Englishman, who, too
choleric to live in America, took her to Florence, where they settled
with their own towels and silver, and are likely to remain, for her
heart is too narrow to comprise any further interest in Belem.
Miss Hiticutt chatted herself out, giving us an invitation to tea, for
any day, including Ben and Miss Ann, who had not been visible since
breakfast.
April rains kept us indoors for several days. Ann refused to go to
school. She must have a holiday; besides, pa needed her; she alone
could take care of him, after all. Her mother said that she must go.
"Who can make me, mum?"
Desmond ordered the coach for her. When it was ready he put her in it,
seated himself beside her, with provoking nonchalance, and carried her
to school. Murphy, with his velvet-banded hat, left her satchel at the
door, with a ceremonious air, which made Ann slap his cheek and call
him an old grimalkin. But she was obliged to walk home in the rain,
after waiting an hour for him to come back.
Mr. Somers hobbled about his room, with the help of his cane, and said
that he should be out soon, and requested Adelaide to put in order
some book-shelves that were in the third story, for he wanted to
read without confusion. We went there together, and sorted some odd
volumes; piles of Unitarian sermons, bound magazines, political works,
and a heap of histories. Ben found a seat on a bunch of books, pleased
to see us together.
"This is a horrid hole," he said. "I have not been up in this floor
for ages. How do the shelves look?"
A hiccough near us caused us to look toward the door.
"It is only Des, in his usual afternoon trim," said Ben.
She nodded, as he pushed open the door, thrusting in his head. "What
the hell are you doing here? This region is sacred to Chaos and old
Night," striking the panels, first one and then the other, with the
tassels of his dressing-gown. No one answered him. Adelaide counted a
row of books, and Ben whistled.
"Damn you, Ben," he said, in a languid voice: "you never seem bored.
Curse you all. I hate ye, especially that she-Calmuck yonder--that
Siberian-steppe-natured, malachite-hearted girl, our sister."
"Oh come away, Mr. Desmond. What are the poor things doing that you
should harry them?" and the woman who had brought in the baby the day
of the dinner laid her hands on him and pulled him away.
"Sarah will never give him up," said Ben.
"She swears there is good in him. I think he is a wretch," turning
over the leaves of a book with her beautiful hand, such a hand as I
had just seen beating the door--such a hand as clasped its fellow in
Ben's hair. Adelaide was not embarrassed at my presence. She neither
sought nor avoided my look. But Ben said, "You are thinking."
"Is she?" And Adelaide raised her eyes.
"You are all so much alike," I said.
"You are right," she answered seriously. "Our grandfather--"
"Confound him!" broke in Ben. "I wish he had never been born. Are
you proud, Addie, of being like the Pickersgills? But I know you are.
Remember that the part of us which is Pickersgill hates its like. I am
off; I am going to walk."
Adelaide coolly said, after he had gone, that he was very visionary,
predicting changes that could not be, and determined to bring them
about.
"Why did he bring me here?" I asked, as if I were asking in a dream.
"Ben's hospitality is genuine. He is like pa. Besides, you are related
to us--on the Somers side, and are the first visitor we ever saw,
outside of mother's connection. Do you not know, too, that Ben's
friendship is very sincere--very strong?"
"I begin to comprehend the Pickersgills," I remarked as if in a dream.
"How words with any meaning glance off, when addressed to them. How
impossible it is to return the impression they give. How incapable
they are of appreciating what they cannot appropriate to the use of
their idiosyncrasies."
She gazed at me, as if she heard an abstract subject discussed, with a
slight interest in her black eyes.
"Are they vicious to the death?" I went on with this dream. "It is
not fair--their overpowering personality--it is not fair to others. It
overpowers me, though I know it is _all_ fallacious."
"I am ignorant of Ethical Philosophy."
"Miss Somers," said Murphy, knocking, "if Major Millard is below?"
"I am coming."
She smiled when she looked at me again. I stared at her with a
singular feeling. Had I touched her, or had I made a fool of myself?
"There is some nice gingerbread in the closet. Sha'n't I get you a
piece?"
I fell out of my dream.
"Major Millard is an old beau. Come down and captivate him. He likes
fair women."
Declining the gingerbread, I accepted the Major. He was an old
gentleman, in a good deal of highly starched linen, amusing himself
by teazing Ann, who liked it, and paid him in impertinence. Adelaide
played chess with him. Desmond sauntered in about nine, threw himself
into a chair behind the sofa where I sat, and swung his arm over the
back. The chessboard was put aside, and a gossipy conversation was
started, which included Mrs. Somers, who was on a sofa across the
room, but he did not join in it. I watched Mrs. Somers, as her fingers
moved with her Berlin knitting, feeling more composed and settled as
to my identity, in spite of my late outburst, than I had felt at
any moment since my arrival in Belem. They were laughing at a funny
description, which Ann was giving of a meeting she had witnessed
between Miss Hiticutt and Mr. Pearsall, a gentleman lately arrived
from China, after a twenty years' residence, with several lacs of
rupees. Her delineation of Miss Hiticutt, who attempted to appear as
she had twenty years before, was excellent. Ben, who was rolling and
unrolling his mother's yarn, laughed till the tears ran, but Major
Millard looked uneasy, as if he expected to be served _à-la_-Hiticutt
by the satirical Ann after his departure. Before the laughter
subsided, I heard a low voice at my ear, and felt a slight touch from
the tip of a finger on my cheek.
"How came those scars?"
I brushed my cheek with my handkerchief, and answered, "I got them in
battle."
He left his chair, and walked slowly through the room into the dark
front parlor. Major Millard took leave, and was followed by Mrs.
Somers and Ann, neither of whom returned. As Ben stretched himself
on his sofa with an air of relief, Desmond emerged from the dark and
stood behind him, leaning against a column, with his hands in his coat
pockets and his eyes searchingly fixed upon me. Ben, turning his head
in my direction, sprang up so suddenly that I started; but Desmond's
eyes did not move till Ben confronted him; then he gave him a haughty
smile, and begged him to take his repose again.
I went to the piano and ran my fingers over the keys.
"Do you play? Can you sing?" asked Adelaide, rousing herself.
"Yes."
"Do sing. I never talk music; but I like it."
"Some old song," said Ben.
Singing
"Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine,"
I became conscious that Desmond was near me. With a perfectly pure
voice he joined in the song:
"The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine."
As the tones of his voice floated through the room, I was where I saw
the white sea-birds flashing between the blue deeps of our summer
sea and sky, and the dark rocks that rose and dipped in the murmuring
waves.