extreme vanity.
Rebecca’s first move showed considerable skill. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the compliment – Rebecca spoke loud enough – and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body. He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind.[5] “Does she really think I am handsome?” thought he, “or is she only making game of me?” We have talked of Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl. Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing,
Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow – the picture of youth, unprotected innocence.
“I must be very quiet,” thought Rebecca, “and very much interested about India.”
Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. “What is it?” said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph.
“Capital,” said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite red. “Mother, it’s as good as my own curries in India.”
“Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish,” said Miss Rebecca.
“I am sure everything must be good that comes from there.”
“Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear,” said Mr. Sedley, laughing.
Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.
“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?”
4
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 – ”
“The poor child is all heart,” said Mrs. Sedley.
“I wish she could stay with us another week,” said Amelia.
“O Joseph,” said Amelia, “Persuade Mamma to write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red with weeping.”
“I’m better, now,” said the girl, with the sweetest smile possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley’s hand and kissing it respectfully. “How kind you all are to me! All,” she added, with a laugh, “except you, Mr. Joseph.”
“Me!” said Joseph, “Gracious Heavens! Miss Sharp!”
“Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever saw you? You are not so good to me as dear Amelia.”
“He doesn’t know you so well,” cried Amelia.
“I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me another time,” said Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. “I didn’t think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain.”
“By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
“No,” said she, “I KNOW you wouldn’t”; and then she gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe’s heart did not thump at this timid, gentle motion of regard on the part of the simple girl.
As if bent upon advancing Rebecca’s plans in every way – what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last Easter holidays – ”When I was a girl at school,” said she, laughing – a promise that he, Joseph, would take her
to Vauxhall. “Now,” she said, “that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time.”
“O, delightful!” said Rebecca, going to clap her hands; but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was.
“Tonight is not the night,” said Joe.
“Well, tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow your Papa and I dine out,” said Mrs. Sedley.
“Let Joe go,” said his father, laughing. “The girls must have a gentleman,” said the old gentleman.
“Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Ask George Osborne if he’ll come.”
At this Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush. “Amelia had better write a note,” said her father; “and let George Osborne see what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton’s.”
On the evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights,