Introduction to Sally

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

This was most awkward in a shop. It continually put Mr. Pinner in false positions. And it seemed to go on so long. There seemed to be no end to the years of Mrs. Pinner’s prettiness. They did end, however; and when she was about thirty-five, worn out by her own unquiet spirit and the work of helping Mr. Pinner in the shop, as well as keeping house for him, which included doing everything single-handed, by God’s mercy she at last began to fade.

Mr. Pinner was pleased. For though her behaviour had been beyond criticism, and she had invariably, by a system of bridling and head-tossing, kept off familiarity on the part of male customers, still those customers had undoubtedly been more numerous than the others, and Mr. Pinner hadn’t liked it. It was highly unnatural, he knew, for gentlemen on their way home from their offices to wish to buy rice, for instance, when it had been bought earlier in the day by their wives or mothers. There was something underhand about it; and he, who being timid was also honest, found himself not able to be happy if there were a shadow of doubt in his mind as to the honourableness of any of his transactions. He never got used to these purchases, and was glad when the gradual disappearance of his wife’s beauty caused the gradual disappearance of the customers who made them. Money, it was true, was lost, but he preferred to lose it than to make it by means that verged in his opinion on shady.

As Mrs. Pinner faded and custom dropped off, he and she had more time on their hands, and went to bed earlier; for Mrs. Pinner, who had an untiring tongue when she was awake, and inveigled her husband into many quarrels, was obliged to leave off talking when she was asleep, and he, pretending it was because of the gas bills, got her to go to bed earlier and earlier. Besides, he wished more heartily than ever that she might have a child, if only to take her attention off him. But he longed for a child himself as well, for he was affectionate without passion, and it was his secret opinion—all his opinions were secret, because if he let them out Mrs. Pinner quarrelled—that such men are born good fathers. Something, however, had to be born besides themselves before they could show their capabilities, and Mrs. Pinner, who was passionate without affection, which in Mr. Pinner’s opinion was rather shocking, for she sometimes quite frightened him in bed, and he was sure it wasn’t at all respectable for a wife to do that, especially as next day she didn’t seem to like him any better than before, hadn’t been able to produce what was needed.

Certain it was that he couldn’t become a father without her. In this one thing he depended utterly on her; for though she believed she ruled him through and through, in every other matter at the back of his soul Mr. Pinner always secretly managed very well for himself. But here he was helpless. If she didn’t, he couldn’t. Nothing doing at all without Mrs. Pinner.

Therefore, as a first step, every evening at nine o’clock, instead of at eleven or twelve as had been their habit in the busy, tiring years, after a day of only too much leisure they went to bed. There they tossed, because of its being so early; or, rather, Mrs. Pinner tossed, while he lay quiet, such being his nature. And whether it was these regular hours, or whether it was God, who favours families, at last taking pity on the Pinners, just as Mr. Pinner was coming to the conclusion that he had best perhaps now let well alone, for he and his wife were drawing near forty, Mrs. Pinner inexplicably began to do that which she ought to have done twenty years earlier, and proceeded to go through those bodily changes, one after the other and all strictly according to precedent, which were bound to end, though for many months Mr. Pinner didn’t believe it, in either a boy or a girl; or perhaps—this was his secret longing—in both.

They ended in one girl.

‘I’m blest,’ said Mr. Pinner to himself, seeing his wife’s complete, impassioned absorption, ‘if that kid ain’t goin’ to be my salvation.’

And he wanted to have it christened Salvation, but Mrs. Pinner objected, because it wasn’t a girl’s name at all, she said; and, as she had no heart just then for quarrelling, they compromised on Salvatia.

§

Thus was Salvatia projected into the world, who afterwards became Sally. Her parents struggled against her being called Sally, because they thought it common. Their struggles, however, were vain. People were unteachable. And the child herself, from the moment she could talk, persisted in saying she was Sally.