Miss Sally

“ Sally had no cravings that he could discover; she was mere lovely acquiescence, content—and with what exquisiteness—to be.
Still, in this world one couldn’t just sit silent, and serene, and wonderful; and the minute circumstances obliged her to say something her discrepances worried him again. It really was surprising: pure perfection outside, and inside—he hated to think it, but more and more feared he recognised—pure Pinner. He must take her in hand. He must teach her, train her in the manners expected in her new sphere of life. ”

“ The mere thought of Sally made him feel happier and more awake than he had felt for years. Better than the fortnight’s cure of silence and diet at Crippenham was one look at Sally, one minute spent with Sally. And she was so kind and intelligent, as well as so beautiful—listening to every word he said with the most obvious interest, and not once fidgeting or getting sleepy, as people nowadays seemed to have got into the habit of doing. It was like sitting in the sun to be with her; like sitting in the sun on a warm spring morning, and freshness everywhere, and flowers, and hope. ”

“ Sally was jolly enough, big-hearted and wholesome, but she lacked refinement. She could work like a steam engine all day, singing her way through great stacks of clothes to be washed, or big meals for hungry haymakers. She was a helpful, hearty, romping ranch girl, just the kind that Aunt ‘Liza liked. And she was also a great favorite with the fellows, with whom she would dance till morning, but whose ears she would box as quick as lightning if they grew too smart. She could joke with the whole crowd of them and hold her own, but the girl was as pure as she was frank and free. ”

“ Sally haunted me. How any girl could live and not be friendly with the people she saw every day was more than I could understand. She just grubbed away at her lessons, paid no attention to what went on around her, snubbed any girl who tried to make advances and lived a life of lofty detachment. She was a good student and invariably recited correctly when called upon, but beyond that none of the teachers could get a particle of warmth out of her, not even fascinating Miss Allison, who has all her classes worshipping at her feet. ”

“ Gentlemen were difficult enough, but they did every now and then cast themselves at one’s feet and make one feel one could do what one liked for a bit, but a lady wouldn’t; a lady would always stay a lady.
The word struck cold on Sally’s heart. What did one do with a lady? And a lady, too, who seemed hardly older than her son, and as wide-awake and sharp as you please, Sally was sure. She had been imagining Jocelyn’s mother old and stout and whitehaired, and perhaps not able to see or hear very well, and therefore comfortingly slow to mark what was done amiss. ”

“ What would become of her mother, should Sally do such a thing? She could not be left to the Squire's wrath, nor could she go along with her daughter. It seemed the meshes of fate were drawing tighter and tighter around the girl. All avenues of escape appeared closed to her.
"To-day and to-night have been too trying for me!" cried Sally, wearily. "We both know what the past has been, we neither can tell about the future, so let us talk only of the present. That concerns us most." ”

“ Sally nodded, and listened with all her soul in her ears.
"She has no name except Baby, and it stands to reason that that won't do all along. We must find something else to call her by; it won't be fair to her otherwise, and she wouldn't thank us for it when she grows up. It'd never do to have her grow up ungrateful, and to fly at us for not giving her what everybody else has got." ”

“ You may be less interested in books and more in human beings."
In the half darkness Sally smiled.
A lantern in one of the trees overhead swung and tilted so that the light shone down on her face.
Sally wore her rose-colored net and had a scarf of the same rose color about her shoulders. Tucked under her brown coil of hair in the fashion of the women who had danced in this old southern house and paraded its lawns a century ago, was a pink rose, a little crumpled now and faded. ”

“ These were the aspirations of his gigantic mind, as he sat, on last Monday morning, like a simple mortal, in a striped-cotton dressing-gown and drab slippers, over a cup of weak coffee. (We love to be minute on great subjects.) The door opened, and a female figure—not the Tragic muse—but Sally, the maid of-all-work, entered, holding in a corner of her dingy apron, between her delicate finger and thumb, a piece of not too snowy paper, folded into an exact parallelogram. ”

“ But Sally merely wept, and bent still lower over her babe. They could not get her to go out during the day—only at night would she creep along by the hedge-rows, in the most unfrequented paths, accompanied by her mother, and hiding the child as much as possible, beneath her shawl, when it was not asleep at home. Her morbid fancy made her think that everyone knew her shame. She could not see people talking together without a rush of blood to her face, as if she felt the talk must be of her.
And how fared it all this time with her seducer? As the world elects, it shall always fare. ”

“ Her best friend's earnestness made her flippant, and it was a curious fact that good old Sally, a predestinate spinster herself, settled on her moated grange of music teaching, always took a most militant part in other people's love affairs. In every lovers' quarrel in the village, in the rare divorces, she had stood fiercely, hot dabs of color on her cheekbones, for the swain or the husband. ”

“ At that moment Sally came in with the beer, and, having poured out a glass for Philip, went to the other side of the table to pour some out for her father. He put his hand round her waist.
"Did you ever see such a handsome, strapping girl? Only fifteen and she might be twenty. Look at her cheeks. She's never had a day's illness in her life. It'll be a lucky man who marries her, won't it, Sally?"
Sally listened to all this with a slight, slow smile, not much embarrassed, for she was accustomed to her father's outbursts, but with an easy modesty which was very attractive. ”

“ Ah, but how far, far more beautiful she herself was than anything else, he thought; how exquisite she looked in Laura’s chinchilla wrap, with the exalted thoughts of the men who had built the church, thoughts frozen into the delicate greys, and silvers, and rose-colours of that fair wide place, for her background.
The man in the cassock left off doing whatever he was doing on catching sight of Sally, and, after looking at her a moment, came up and offered, his eyes on her face, to show them round the church; a little cluster of Americans dissolved, and flowed towards her ”

“ One of the miniature hands fluttered out inadequately to help Sally part the flaps of the dress tent, which was deserted except for the fat girl, already asleep and snoring stertorously.
Sally knelt to enable the midget to stand on the beaten down stubble which served as the only carpet of Sally’s new “dormitory.”
“Thank you, Sally,” the midget piped, her eyes lifted toward Sally out of a network of wrinkles which testified that she was indeed a “woman grown.” “You’re a very nice little girl, and your David is one of the handsomest men I ever saw.” ”

“ Swiftly back through Shady Path and Lover's Lane ran Sally, her frowsly head full of the strange, sweet fragment of fairy song that she had heard.
"Now, where've you been?" cried Mistress Cory Ann, as Sally came panting into the Row. "Not up to Ingleside, I hope! I had to run way up the path to make you hear. Haven't I told you more'n a hundred times you'd better keep away from there? Just let the people up at the big house catch you pokin' around, and back you'll come faster'n ever you went. Do you hear, Sally Dukeen?" ”

“ Sally was in high feather at the success of her exploit, and danced about like an elf, as she put her night-gown on over her frock, braided her hair in funny little tails all over her head, and fastened the great red pin-cushion on her bosom for a breastpin in honor of the feast. ”

“ Sally smiled a pitiful little smile. "Why, I don't know, mother. Is anything the matter?"
"Something must be. A girl like you doesn't get so low-spirited for nothing. It has been going on for nearly a year now. What is it, Sally? Can't you tell me, dear?"
"I wish I could, mother. I wish I knew. If I knew, I would tell you. I don't. I only know that nothing seems to be worth while and that I can't care about anything. A pity, isn't it?" And Sally smiled again.
"Sally, don't! If you smile like that again you will make me cry." ”

“ What would her father have said if he had seen her in the night in Laura’s bedroom, among all that lot of silver bottles and brushes{307} and laces and silks, and herself in a thin silk nightgown the colour of skin, making her look stark naked? What would he have said if he had seen her having her breakfast up there as though she were ill,—and such a breakfast, too! Fleshpots, he’d have said; fleshpots. And he would have said, Sally, strong if inaccurate in her Bible, was sure, that she had sold her husband for a mess of fleshpots. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?
§
Mr. Pinner disillusioned her.
For many years he hadn’t tasted such quiet happiness, such contentment and well-being, as during the four weeks he had been without Sally. Her marriage to a gentleman, to one of the scholars from Cambridge, was known to every one in the village, and he was proud of it, very proud. Sally, besides having been handed over safe and sound to some one else’s care, had risen in life and was now a lady. ”

“ My poor Sally is no less a true penitent because her thoughts turn for a few moments to the days that are gone. 'Tis a fault in your religion, sir, that it is all gloom. Your Master took a kinder view of life, and was indulgent to human affections as He was pitiful to human pains. Sally has made her peace with God, and believes in a happy world where her sins will be forgiven, and she will wear the white robe of innocence, and hear the songs of angels round the heavenly throne. ”

“ There seemed to him to be no steady fellows in the crowd in his shop, except the ones who were already married, and they couldn’t really be steady or they wouldn’t be there. How could a married man be called steady who eagerly waited for Sally to sell him groceries he would only afterwards have to conceal from his wife? While as for the rest, they were a weedy lot of overworked and underpaid young clerks who couldn’t possibly afford to marry. Sally smiled at them all. She had none of the bridling, of the keep-off-the-grass-if-you-please, of her mother. ”

“ Sally’s heart was broken. She tore herself from the embrace of this man who had proved that he did not love her by kissing her, she rushed into her father’s house, and up the stairs to her own four-poster. She wept there until her mother came to find her, and to hear the tragic tale. And her mother, though she had been twice married and twice engaged, confirmed Sally’s belief that she had been insulted. And Captain Ashby rode away on his black horse.
Mrs. Overton sighed a little under the crêpe veil. ”

“ Sally’s face grew very bright. A present from Aunt Sarah, and a present that she might choose her very own self! She leaned forward suddenly and placed a kiss on Mother’s chin. She was so [123] happy she felt that she must do something to show it.
‘What shall I buy, Mother?’ asked Sally, her cheeks red with excitement. ‘What shall I choose? I want a tea-set and a doll’s piano more than anything else, but I would like a farmyard, too, with little cows and pigs and ducks like the new one Alice has, or perhaps a big bag full of marbles like Andy’s. I could shoot marbles just as well as Andy. ”

“ THE PERIWINKLE FAMILY
That night Sally couldn’t go to sleep.
She tossed and turned in her little white bed. She watched Snow White’s wings move lazily to and fro on the window-sill. She had two drinks of water. But still she couldn’t go to sleep.
‘Mother,’ called Sally, ‘Mother, I can’t go to sleep.’
So Mother came to smooth Sally’s pillow and to tuck in the bed covers that were sadly tumbled and twisted about. ”

“ Sure enough, directly in front of Sally walked a little boy wearing a blue sailor suit, and not far away she spied a little girl with long yellow curls.
‘I see them,’ said Sally. ‘I wonder whether they would buy a tea-set or a piano or a farmyard for a birthday present, if they had an Aunt Sarah to give them one. Would you stop and ask them, Mother, if you were me?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mother. ‘I would rather go into this shop and look at the toys for sale.’
In the store entrance Mother paused to let Sally look in the shop window. ”

“ Wherever there were human beings, those human beings stared at Sally and began to follow her; or, if they couldn’t follow her with their feet, did so with astonished, eager eyes as long as she was in sight. Holy Communion was the only one of the Sunday services Mr. Pinner let her go to in Woodles, because it was sparsely attended, and the few worshippers were women. ”