Introduction to Sally

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

§

It was Mr. Pinner’s turn next day to have a bad time, and he had it. He had a most miserable day, from noon on, when the same car that had brought Sally drew up in front of his shop, and a stout elderly gentleman with a red face and a bristly moustache got out, and came and spent half an hour with him.

What a half hour that was; but all of a piece with the life he seemed now to be living. The day before there had been first Sally, and then Mr. Luke, and now there was this gentleman. Mr. Luke had soon been pacified, and only wanted to be getting home again, but the stout gentleman came in and sat down square to it, and at the end of half an hour Mr. Pinner felt as if he had been turned inside out, and wouldn’t ever be able to look himself in the face again.

For Sally hadn’t gone home, and it was his fault that she hadn’t. These were the facts; the gentleman said so. Terrible, terrible, thought Mr. Pinner, shrinking further than ever into his trousers. The first fact was terrible enough, but the second seemed even worse to Mr. Pinner. Responsibility, again—and he who had supposed when he got Sally safely married that he had done with it for good and all!

At first he had tried to make a stand and hold up his head, and had said politely—nothing lost by manners,—‘Excuse me, sir, but are you by any chance the gentleman my daughter mentioned to me as ’er father-in-law?’ And when the gentleman, after a minute, said he was, Mr. Pinner told him that in that case it was he who was responsible for her loss, for it was he who had lent her the car in which she had left her husband.

Wasn’t this true? Anybody would have thought so; but before Mr. Pinner could say knife the boot had been put on the other leg, and he found that it was his fault and his only that she was lost, because he hadn’t, as the gentleman said was his plain duty, taken her back himself to the very door.

Mr. Pinner, constitutionally unable not to feel guilty if anybody told him loud enough that he was, at once saw the truth of this. Terrible. Awful. Fancy. Yes, indeed—a daughter like that. Yes, indeed—any daughter, but a daughter like that, a daughter in a million. No, indeed—he didn’t know how he came not to do such a thing——

And the more Mr. Thorpe cross-examined him about the details of that seeing-off at the station, the more did Mr. Pinner’s conduct appear criminal; for, under Mr. Thorpe’s searching questions, Mr. Pinner somehow began to be sure the lady in the carriage hadn’t been a lady at all, but something quite different, something terrible and wicked, who had carried Sally off into the sort of place one doesn’t mention. He remembered her black eyes, and how they rolled——

‘Rolled, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe, who was snatching at Mr. Pinner’s words almost before they appeared, trembling, on the edge of his mouth.

Yes—rolled. And bold-looking, she was too,—bold-looking, and pat as you please at answering. Not Mr. Pinner’s idea at all of a modest woman. Yes, and the compartment smelt of scent, now he came to think of it—yes, he dared say it was cheap scent. And powdered, her face was—he had remarked on it to himself, after the train had gone.

Thus did Mr. Thorpe’s own fears get by cross-examination into Mr. Pinner’s mind, and by the end of the half hour Mr. Pinner was as much convinced as Mr. Thorpe that Sally had fallen into the hands of somebody of whom Mr. Thorpe used an expression that Mr. Pinner wouldn’t have soiled his lips with for any sum one cared to mention. And then, after swearing at him, and asking him what sort of a father he thought he was, and Mr. Pinner, who by this time was wishing with all his heart that he wasn’t a father at all, tremblingly begging him not to blaspheme, Mr. Thorpe went away.

‘What ’ad I better do now, sir?’ Mr. Pinner asked, following him out on to the steps in much distress, clinging to him in spite of his horrifying language.

‘You? What can you do? You’ve done your damnedest——’

‘Sir, sir——’

And he got into his car, and Mr. Pinner heard him tell the chauffeur to drive like the devil to London and go to Liverpool Street Station; and it seemed as if in a flash the street were empty, and he alone.