Ярмарка тщеславия / Vanity Fair - стр. 6

“Do you find it as good as everything else from India?” said Mr. Sedley.

“Oh, excellent!” said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper.

“Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,” said Joseph, really interested.

“A chili,” said Rebecca, gasping. “Oh yes!” She thought a chili was something cool and was served with some. “How fresh and green they look,” she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. “Water, for Heaven’s sake, water!” she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing.

“They are real Indian, I assure you,” said he. “Sambo, give Miss Sharp some water.”

The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought poor Rebecca suffered too much.

“You won’t like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss Sharp,” said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, “Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you.”

“Pooh! nonsense!” said Joe, highly flattered.

Later he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. “A nice, gay, merry young creature,” thought he to himself. “How she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who’s that singing in the drawing-room? ’Gad! shall I go up and see?”

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force. And he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared.

“There goes Joseph,” said Amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawing-room, while Rebecca was singing at the piano.

“Miss Sharp has frightened him away,” said Mrs. Sedley. “Poor Joe, why WILL he be so shy?”

Poor Joe’s panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca ever mention his name. She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, in a whirl of wonder at the theatre, where the good-natured lady took her. One day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her. “What! you who have shown the poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in her life – quit YOU?

Never!” and the green eyes looked up to Heaven and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own that her daughter’s friend had a charming kind heart.

As for Mr. Sedley’s jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality which pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman. Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room. It was on the day when Joe Sedley made his second appearance. Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this and the good-natured girl came back without her companion, rather affected too. “You know, her father was our drawing-master, Mamma, at Chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings.”

“My love! I’m sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that he did not touch them – he only mounted them.”

“It was called mounting, Mamma. Rebecca remembers the drawing, and her father working at it, – and so, you know, she – ”