Introduction to Sally

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

‘Peace an’ quiet,’ she said to herself, as she sat painfully trying, at Mrs. Luke’s request, to discuss with her the habits of bees. She hadn’t known they had any habits. She doubted whether she would know a bee if she saw one. There were no bees in Islington. Wasps, now—she knew a thing or two about wasps. Raw onion was the stuff for when they stung.... ‘Peace an’ quiet,’ she said to herself. ‘All one asks. This ain’t neither.’

In an agony of application Sally perspired through the two days of Jocelyn’s absence. Lessons didn’t leave off when the paper and ink were cleared away because of the rissoles of lunch and the poached eggs of supper, but went on just as bad while she was eating. ‘Salvatia dear, don’t ’old your fork like that——’ ‘Salvatia dear, don’t go makin’ all that there noise when you drinks——’ so did Mrs. Luke’s admonishments present themselves to Sally’s ill-attuned ear. And after that the lessons were continued in the garden, where she was walked up and down, up and down, till her head, as she said to herself, fair reeled. Never before had Sally been walked up and down the same spot. She used to walk straight sometimes to places, and then come home again and done with it, but never up and down and keeping on turning round. No escape. The lady had her by the arm. Exercise, she called it. And talk! Not only talk herself, but keep on dragging her into it too. Education, the lady called it. Lessons, that’s to say. What ones these Lukes were for lessons, thought Sally, remembering her experience at St. Mawes. And there, through the kitchen window every time she passed it, she could see Ammond, washing up as free as air.

The garden was small; the turnings accordingly frequent; and Sally’s head, strained by the excessive attention Mrs. Luke insisted on, did indeed reel. Her head.... How was it, Mrs. Luke was asking herself by the evening of that first day, ostensibly pleasantly chatting, but carefully observing Sally, who, pale and beautiful, with faint shadows under her eyes, sat looking at her lap so as not to see the lady looking at her,—how was it that so noble a little head, with a brow so happily formed, one would have supposed, for the harbouring of intelligence, should apparently be without any?

Apparently. Mrs. Luke was careful not to come to any hasty conclusion, but by this time she had been drilling Sally ceaselessly for a whole day, and she had been so clear and patient, and so very, very simple, that she began to think her vocation was probably that of a teacher; yet no sign of real comprehension had up to then appeared. Goodwill there was; much goodwill. But no real grasp. And, of course, most lamentably little ear. Those h’s—it would have been disheartening, if Mrs. Luke hadn’t refused to be disheartened, the way Salvatia didn’t even seem to know if they were in a word or not. She simply didn’t hear them.

‘Do you like music, Salvatia?’ said Mrs. Luke, getting up and preparing to test her ear on the clavichord at the other end of the room, an instrument which gave her great pleasure because it wasn’t so gross as a piano.

‘Yes,’ said Sally, who had been strictly drilled that day in naked monosyllables.

‘Do you sing, dear child?’

‘’Ymns,’ said Sally.

‘Ah, dear, dearest child!’ cried Mrs. Luke, drawing her shoulders up to her ears, for after all the pains and labours of the day she was tired, and she couldn’t help being, perhaps, a little less patient. ‘How do you spell that poor small word? It is such a tiny, short word, and can’t afford to lose any of its letters——’

And in the kitchen, Sally knew, with her hearth swept and neat, and everything put nicely away for the day, sat Ammond, doing her sewing as free as air.