Salvatia—‘No, no, dearest Jocelyn—not Sally, not Sally,’ she begged on his calling her that, for she had a theory that names had the power of making you be like them, and a Sally was foredoomed to unredeemable vulgarity—should have masters (perhaps mistresses would be better,) down from London, when once Mrs. Luke was married to Mr. Thorpe and could afford things; regular teachers who would give her lessons at stated hours, while she herself would give her lessons at all the unstated ones. And she would take her everywhere, to each of the South Winch festivities, whether tea-parties, or debates, or lectures, or concerts or plays, and wherever she went Salvatia should be her open glory. It would be a mistake in tactics, besides being an impossibility, to try to hide her. She should be flaunted. For, confronted by a bull, Mrs. Luke remembered, quite the best thing to do was to take it by the horns.
So swiftly do thoughts gallop through minds like Mrs. Luke’s that she had planned out her attitude in those few instants in the sitting-room, while she stood gazing at Sally and holding Jocelyn’s hand.
‘We’re going to be great friends, are we not Salvatia?’ she said, laying her free hand on her daughter-in-law’s delicate little shoulder.
Great friends? She and the lady? The bare suggestion produced in Sally that physical condition known to the Pinner family as fit to drop.
Directly questioned, however, she was forced to answer, so she said faintly, ‘Right O,’ and Mrs. Luke, smiling elaborately and patting the shoulder, said, ‘You very quaint little girl,’—and in spite of the obvious inappropriateness of these adjectives as a description of the noble young angel standing before her, she was determined that they should, roughly, represent her attitude towards her.
‘Now we’ll all have tea,’ she said, suddenly becoming gaily business-like. These children—it was she who must take them in hand. No more emotions, she decided. Her beloved Jocelyn needed her help again, couldn’t do without her.... ‘Won’t we, Jocelyn? Won’t we, Salvatia? I’ve had some already, but I’ll be greedy and have some more. Jocelyn, you go and tell Hammond——’ Hammond was the little maid’s surname, and by it, to her great astonishment who knew herself only as Lizz, she had been called since she entered Mrs. Luke’s service—‘to make fresh tea and bring it in here. You must both be dying for it. And then you can say goodbye to the Walkers for me, Jocelyn, will you?’ she called after him. ‘Tell them I’ve got a most beautiful surprise for them—quite soon, perhaps to-morrow. You’re the beautiful surprise, Salvatia,’ she said, turning to Sally smilingly, who had made a sudden forward movement as if to follow Jocelyn, and who, on seeing him go out of the room and leave her alone with his mother, was so seriously alarmed that she again had a queer conviction about her stomach, but this time that it was turning what the Pinner family called as white as a sheet.
‘Of course you know you’re beautiful, don’t you?’ said Mrs. Luke, busily pulling out the little table the tea was to be put on in the absence of the proper table in the garden, and clearing Sir Thomas Browne off it, and also two bright tulips in a clear glass vessel. ‘You must have heard that ever since you can remember.’
‘But I can’t ’elp it,’ said Sally, very anxious, her eyes on the door.
‘’Elp it? You quaint child. There’s an h in help, Salvatia dear. Help it? But why should you want to? It’s a wonderful gift, and you should thank God who gave it you, and use it entirely——’ Mrs. Luke was quite surprised at her own words, for she wasn’t at all religious, yet they came out glibly, and she concluded they were subconsciously inspired by the Canon in the garden—‘entirely to His glory.’
‘Yes, m——’