Vanity Fair
and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that day. But he was
always exceedingly communicative in a man's party, and has told this
delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary, Dr. Gollop,
when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill.
Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of
claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates
full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that
were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists
have the privilege of knowing everything) 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. His
father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach
standing hard by in Southampton Row. "I'll go and see the Forty
Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he slipped away
gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without
waking his worthy parent.
"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?"
CHAPTER IV
The Green Silk Purse
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; delighted
beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre,
whither 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 of her own.
As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality
and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that
good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone
that Miss Sharp found favour. She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by
evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam preserving, which
operation was then going on in the Housekeeper's room; she persisted in
calling Sambo "Sir," and "Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that attendant;
and she apologised to the lady's maid for giving her trouble in
venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and humility, that the
Servants' Hall was almost as charmed with her as the Drawing Room.
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 display of
feeling, 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 the
thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--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.
"She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at Dumdum, only
fairer. She's married now to Lance, the Artillery Surgeon. Do you
know, Ma'am, that once Quintin, of the 14th, bet me--"
"O Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing. "Never mind about
telling that; but 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 extended 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, meditating an instant departure. "Gracious Heavens!
Good Gad! 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 defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother.
"The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite gravely.
"Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in it--no, there was NOT."
"And the chilis?"
"By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe, caught by the ridicule
of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter which ended
quite suddenly, as usual.
"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 little involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard on
the part of the simple girl.
It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable
correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but, you
see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself. If a
person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must
sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle matters
with the young man, she must do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy
it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't
resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and
men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same.
And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair
opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.
Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the
field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely
if they did.
"Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I exactly begin to
feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little appeals,
half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes
at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable
familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each
other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a
house together for ten days.
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.
"To-night is not the night," said Joe.
"Well, to-morrow."
"To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs. Sedley.
"You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed?" said her husband, "and
that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an
abominable damp place?"
"The children must have someone with them," cried Mrs. Sedley.
"Let Joe go," said-his father, laughing. "He's big enough." At which
speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat
Joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost.
"Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. "Fling some
water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him upstairs: the dear
creature's fainting. Poor victim! carry him up; he's as light as a
feather!"
"If I stand this, sir, I'm d------!" roared Joseph.
"Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father. "Send to Exeter
'Change, Sambo"; but seeing Jos ready almost to cry with vexation, the
old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his
son, "It's all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos--and, Sambo, never mind
the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of Champagne. Boney
himself hasn't got such in his cellar, my boy!"
A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity, and before the
bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he had
agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall.
"The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman. "Jos
will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with
Miss Sharp here. Send to 96, and ask George Osborne if he'll come."
At this, I don't know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked
at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner
indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging
down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to
blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life--at least
not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam
out of a cupboard by her godmother. "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. Do you
remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and
spelt twelfth without the f?"
"That was years ago," said Amelia.
"It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs. Sedley to her
husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a front
room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of
a rich and fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a tender
rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee was a
featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red
faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending
in a tassel--in a CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband
to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.
"It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the
poor boy so."
"My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "Jos is a
great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's saying a
good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen
hundred and eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right to be vain--I
don't say no. But I've no patience with Jos and his dandified modesty.
It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only
thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt, Ma'am, we
shall have some trouble with him yet. Here is Emmy's little friend
making love to him as hard as she can; that's quite clear; and if she
does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey
to woman, as I am to go on 'Change every day. It's a mercy he did not
bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words,
the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him."
"She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs.
Sedley, with great energy.
"Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white face
at any rate. I don't care who marries him. Let Joe please himself."