He would have been growing bald if his hair had not been so grown and brushed as to cover the denuded spots. He had a fat, pasty face, shrewd little eyes, a blunt nose, and a tiny, rather pursed up mouth. He was plump and thick, and his legs were very short. His appearance held no thrills, unless, as far as Sally was concerned, a thrill of aversion. She meets him soon enough and is not impressed: She needs to marry a man with enough money to keep her comfortably, and Mr Bingley’s fifteen hundred a year will do nicely. Sally is clear-eyed about her reasons for returning to the village. So, after much heart-searching, Sally returns to Little Crampton and moves in with her erstwhile guardian, Reverend Adam Lovelady. Her main reason seems to be sheer mischief making – as she says, ‘We want somebody to liven things up dreadfully’. Although Miss Maggie doesn’t spell it out in the letter, it’s clear that she hopes Sally will return and give Mr Bingley another option to choose from. Of course there’s already a candidate – Mrs Dalton, an attractive young widow with a young daughter.

His domineering mother has recently died, so Mr Bingley is in need of a wife. She’s writing to Sally now because she has a plan. Nobody is safe in Little Crampton, as Miss Maggie’s stern morality always prevents her from keeping her knowledge to herself: ‘No matter how small the skeleton she pounced upon, the lady could make its bones rattle so loudly that you would be deafened yourself’. Miss Maggie is a terrifying character: she devotes her life to finding out about her neighbours and spreading malicious gossip. It’s at this exact moment that she receives a letter from Miss Maggie Hopkins, a resident of the village of Little Crampton, where Sally grew up. The Paris she had known was dead, and with it her prospects of making a living’. Now, following the outbreak of war, ‘things were looking grim and grey, and the shadow of the gaunt wolf lay on the threshold. She’s been living in Paris since she was eighteen, though her aspirations to become a great artist have resulted only in her being able to make a living of sorts doing illustrations. For thirty-one year old Sally Lunton has had quite a rackety life. Published in 1915, Sally on the Rocks is in many ways a product of its time, but its heroine seemed to me extraordinarily modern.

I’ve reviewed a few of these on here, most recently the brilliant Which Way by Theodora Benson. This delightful novel is part of the latest batch of the British Library Women Writers series.

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs