Читать книгу Mariquita: A Novel - Ayscough John - Страница 5

Don Joaquin expressed no surprise at Mr. Gore's arrival, and no rapture at that of Miss Jackson. But he appeared to take it for granted both would remain – as they did.

He saw more of the young man than of the young woman, which seemed to Mariquita to account for his preferring the latter. She had to see more of the lady. Miss Jackson was undeniably pretty, and instantly recognized as such by the cowboys: but she "kept her distance," and largely ignored their presence – a fact not unobserved by Don Joaquin, who inwardly commended her prudence. Of Mr. Gore she took more notice, as was natural, owing to their previous acquaintance. She spoke of him, however, to her host, as a lad, and hinted that at her age, lads were tedious; while frequent in allusion to a certain Eastern friend of hers (Mr. Bluck, a man of large means and great capacity) whose married daughter was her closest acquaintance.

"Carolina was older than me at school," she would admit, "but she was more to my taste than those of my own age. Maturity wins me. Youth is so raw!"

"What you call underdone," suggested Don Joaquin, who had talked English for forty years, and translated it still, in his mind, into Spanish.

"Just that," Sarah agreed. "You grasp me."

He didn't then, though he would sooner or later, thought the cowboys.

Miss Jackson, then, ignored the cowboys, and gave all the time she could spare from herself to Mariquita. When not with Mariquita she was sewing, being an indefatigable dressmaker. She called it her "studies."

"It is essential (out here in the wilderness) that I should not neglect my studies, and run to seed," she would say, as she smilingly retreated into her bedroom, where there were no books.

Mariquita would not have been sorry had she "studied" more. Sarah did not fit into her old habits of life, and when they were together Mariquita felt lonelier than she had ever done before. Indoors she did not find the young woman so incongruous – but when they were out on the prairie together the elder girl seemed somehow altogether impossible to reconcile with it.

"One might sketch," Miss Jackson would observe. "One ought to keep up one's sketching: I feel it to be a duty – don't you?"

"No. I can't sketch. It can't be a duty in my case."

"Ah, but in mine! I know I ought. But there's no feature." And she slowly waved her parasol round the horizon as though defying a "feature" to supervene from any point of the compass.

Though she despised her present neighborhood, Sarah never hinted at any intention of leaving it: and it became apparent that her host would not have liked her to go away. That her presence was a great thing for Mariquita it suited him to assume, but he saw no necessity for discussing the matter, nor ascertaining what might in fact be his daughter's opinion.

"I think," he said instead, "it will be better we call your cousin 'Sarella'. It is her name Sarah and Ella. 'Sarella' sounds more fitting."

So he and Mariquita thenceforth called her "Sarella."