Introduction to Sally

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

§

Mr. Thorpe, being a man accustomed all his life to success in everything he undertook—except in the case of Annie, but even she had been a success at first—had spent a week of bitterness.

He was aggrieved, deeply aggrieved; and he hated the hole and corner way Mrs. Luke had hidden from him, refusing to see him, refusing any sort of explanation, turning him down with a single letter, and not answering when he wrote back.

He, who was very well aware that he was conferring everything, that he was giving her a chance in a million, when he called was shown the door; and all he had done for her, the affection he had bestowed, the gifts he had lavished, were as though they had not been. In the sight of South Winch and of his own household he was humiliated. But it went deeper than that: he knew himself for kind, and no one wanted his kindness; he knew himself for generous, and no one wanted his generosity either. Naturally he was full of resentment; so full, that he hadn’t even gone to his office regularly that week, but had hung about his house and grounds instead, fault-finding.

Where he hung about most was that part of his plantations which abutted on the meadow dividing Abergeldie from Mrs. Luke; and wandering among his conifers he could see, without himself being seen, anything that went on in her miserable plot of ground. If he had been told that such behaviour was undignified he would have replied that dignity be damned; for not only was he smarting under Mrs. Luke’s ingratitude, not only was he annoyed beyond measure at not going to get the wife he no longer really wanted—who would wish to be tied up to a jealous, middle-aged woman, when there were so many pretty, cheerful girls about?—but he longed, with a simple longing he hadn’t felt since he first went sweethearting as a boy, to see Sally again.

He did see her; always, however, arm in arm with Hell’s Fury, as he now called her who had so recently been his Marge. Then, on this Wednesday afternoon, more than a week after Mrs. Luke had shown herself in her true colours—a jolly good thing he had found her out before and not after marriage, thought Mr. Thorpe, who yet was enraged that he had,—as he wandered among his conifers after luncheon, nursing his grievances and glancing every now and then at the little house across the meadow, so insignificant and cheap and nevertheless able to play such a part in his life, he saw young beauty at last come out alone, and go round to the back of the tool-shed, and behave as has been indicated.

For a few minutes Mr. Thorpe stayed where he was, in case the H.F.—so, for convenience sake, did he abbreviate the rude nickname he had given Mrs. Luke—should come out too; but when some time had passed and nobody appeared, he concluded that the two high-brows had gone for a walk, and Beauty for once was alone. Crying, too. What had they been doing to the girl, that precious pair of hoity toity treat-you-as-dirters, Mr. Thorpe asked himself. Then, climbing cautiously over the fence, and crossing the field close to the belt of firs, he arrived unseen and unheard to where Sally, her head bowed over her hands, was standing crying.

How kind he was. What a comfort he was. And how clear in his instructions as to what she was to do. It was quite easy to say things to Father-in-law; he seemed to understand at once.

Nobody had told Sally he wasn’t her father-in-law. The Lukes’ habit of silence towards her about their affairs had left her supposing he was what he said he was, and she herself had heard him not being contradicted by Mrs. Luke when she came into the drawing-room that day and he told her he was making friends with his new daughter.

Sally was aware that Jocelyn’s own father was dead, and she had at first supposed Mr. Thorpe was Mrs. Luke’s second husband. In the confusion of mind in which she had been since arriving at Almond Tree Cottage, she had had no thoughts left over for wondering why, if he were, he lived somewhere else. Dimly the last few days, not having seen him again, she had begun to think, though with no real interest, that perhaps Mrs. Luke hadn’t quite married him yet, but only very nearly. Anyhow it didn’t matter. He said he was her father-in-law, and that was good enough for her. Such a kind old gentleman. Much older than her own father. Might easily have been her grandfather, with all that bald head and grey moustache.

And Mr. Thorpe’s pleasure, nay, delight, at being able to help Beauty and at the same time give those two high-brows something to talk about, was very great. This was indeed killing two birds with one stone—and what birds! He listened attentively to all she brokenly and imperfectly said; he entirely applauded her idea of going back to her father for a bit, and assured her there was no place like home; he told her he would send her there in one of his cars, quite safe from door to door; he advised her to stay with her father till her husband did his duty, which was to make a home for her and live with her in it; he asked why she should allow herself to be deserted, to be left alone with Mrs. Luke, who would do nothing but try and cram her head with rubbish——

‘Don’t you like ‘er?’ asked Sally, surprised.

‘No,’ said Mr. Thorpe stoutly.

‘But you’re goin’ to marry ‘er,’ said Sally, more surprised.

‘Catch me,’ said Mr. Thorpe.

‘But then you ain’t my father-in-law,’ said Sally, more surprised than ever.

‘Yes I am,’ said Mr. Thorpe hastily. ‘Once a father-in-law always a father-in-law,’ he assured her,—and hurried her off this subject by asking her why she should be treated by her husband as if she weren’t married at all, and by what right young Luke thought he could behave differently from any husband any one had ever heard of. Scandalous, said Mr. Thorpe, to leave her. Shocking. Incomprehensible. And that so-called husband of hers with his marriage vows not yet had time to go cold on his lips!

In fact, Mr. Thorpe said out loud and beautifully everything Sally had thought and not been able to get into words.

The result was that, encouraged and supported, indeed urged and driven, she took one of those desperate steps characteristic of the very meek, and, acting according to Mr. Thorpe’s clear and precise instructions, stole out of the house at five next morning—the very day of the party, from which he, who knew all about it from his housekeeper, and had tried to console himself by thinking of the piles of strawberries and peaches and quarts of cream he wasn’t going to send to it, insisted that she should at all costs escape—carrying only a little bag, with her five shillings in it and her comb and toothbrush; and, creeping down the stairs holding her breath, got out without a sound through the kitchen window, anxiously listening for a moment as she passed the shut sitting-room door on the other side of which Jocelyn lay asleep,—Jocelyn, who that night, being still much annoyed with her, had very fortunately not been upstairs.

At the corner of the road was Mr. Thorpe’s car. He himself remained discreetly in bed. No use overdoing things. Besides, he could wait. He knew where to find Beauty when the time came, which was more than those damned Lukes did; and he had given his chauffeur the necessary orders the night before, and could rely on their being carried out to the letter; so that Sally found, when she got into the car, which was more splendid outside and more soft inside than she could have believed possible, not only a lovely rug of the silkiest fur, which the chauffeur, a most attentive young gentleman, wrapped round her legs as carefully as if they were the Queen’s, but a basket full of everything for breakfast, even hot coffee, and an enormous box of chocolates which were for her to keep, the chauffeur said, with Mr. Thorpe’s compliments. And such was the effect on her of all this moral and physical support that she no longer, as she was smoothly and deliciously borne along through sleeping South Winch, across awakening London, past sunshiny fields and woods just flushing green, on and on, into Essex, into Cambridgeshire, smooth and swift, with a motion utterly different from the one Jocelyn’s car made and completely confidence-inspiring, she no longer felt as if she were doing anything that was frightening, and also, perhaps, wrong. Could anybody be doing anything very wrong who had such a splendid car to sit in, and such a respectful and attentive young gentleman driving it?