17 - Sally Lays a Ghost. The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse.

17 - Sally Lays a Ghost. The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse.  
This romantic comedy stars a young American girl named Sally, who inherits a considerable fortune and finds her life turned upside down. The typically Wodehouseian cast includes Sally's ambitious brother, an assortment of theater people, a pair of English cousins, and, of course, an Uncle. It's jolly good fun! 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter seventeen of the Adventures of Sallie. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
The Adventures of Sallie by P. G. Woodhouse, Chapter seventeen,
Sallie lays a ghost one. The blood flowed slowly back

(00:27):
into Sallie's face, and her heart, which had leaped madly
for an instant at the sound of his voice, resumed
its normal beat. The suddenness of the shock over, she
was surprised to find herself perfectly calm. Always when she
had imagined this meeting, knowing that it would have to
take place sooner or later, she had felt something akin

(00:48):
to panic, But now that it had actually occurred, it
hardly seemed to stir her. The events of the night
had left her incapable of any violent emotion. Hello, Sallie,
said Gerald. He spoke thickly, and there was a foolish
smile on his face as he stood swaying with one
hand on the door. He was in his shirt sleeves, collarless,

(01:11):
and it was plain that he had been drinking heavily.
His face was white and puffy, and about him there
hung like a nimbus, a sudden disreputableness. Sallie did not speak.
Weighed down before by a numbing exhaustion, she seemed now
to have passed into that second phase, in which overtired
nerves enter upon a sort of Indian summer of abnormal alertness.

(01:37):
She looked at him quietly, coolly, and altogether dispassionately, as
if he had been a stranger. Hullo, said Gerald again,
what do you want? Said Sallie. Heard your voice, saw
the door open, thought I'd come in. What do you want?
The weak smile, which had seemed pinned on Gerald's face vanished.

(02:01):
A tear rolled down his cheek. His intoxication had reached
the maudlin stage, Sallie. Sallie, I'm very miserable, He slurred
awkwardly over the difficult syllables. Heard your voice, saw the
door open, thought I'd come in. Something flicked at the

(02:22):
back of Sallie's mind. She seemed to have been through
all this before. Then she remembered this was simply mister
Reginald Kracknell over again. I think you had better go
to bed, Gerald, She said, steadily, nothing about him seemed
to touch her now, neither the sight of him nor
his shameless misery. What's the use? Can't sleep? No good,

(02:47):
couldn't sleep, Sallie. You don't know how worried I am.
I see what a fool I've been. Sallie made a
quick gesture to check what she supposed was about to
develop into a belated expression of regret for his treatment
of herself. She did not want to stand there listening
to Gerald apologizing with tears for having done his best

(03:08):
to wreck her life. But it seemed that it was
not this that was weighing upon his soul. I was
a fool ever to try writing plays, he went on,
got a winner first time, but can't repeat. It's no good.
Ought to have stuck to newspaper work. I'm good at that.
She'll have to go back to it. Had another frost
to night. No good trying any more. She'll have to

(03:29):
go back to the old grind. Damn it. He wept softly,
full of pity for his hard case. Very miserable, he murmured.
He came forward a step into the room, lurched, and
retreated to the safe support of the door. For an instant,
Sally's artificial calm was shot through by a swift stab

(03:52):
of contempt. It passed, and she was back again in
her armor of indifference. Go to bed, Gerald, you'll feel
better in the morning. Perhaps some inkling of how he
was going to feel in the morning worked through to
Gerald's muddled intelligence, for he winced and his manner took
on a deeper melancholy. May not be alive in the morning,

(04:16):
he said, solemnly, good mind to end it all. End
it all, he repeated, with the beginning of a sweeping gesture,
which was cut off abruptly as he clutched at the
friendly door. Sally was not in the mood for melodrama. Oh,
go to bed, she said impatiently. The strange, frozen indifference

(04:37):
which had gripped her was beginning to pass, leaving in
its place a growing feeling of resentment. Resentment against Gerald
for degrading himself like this, against herself for ever having
found glamor in the man. It humiliated her to remember
how utterly she had once allowed his personality to master hers,

(04:58):
and under the sting of this human aliation, she felt
hard and pitiless. Dimly, she was aware that a curious
change had come over her to night. Normally, the sight
of any living thing in distress was enough to stir
her quick sympathy, but Gerald, mourning over the prospect of
having to go back to regular work, made no appeal
to her, a fact which the sufferer noted and commented upon.

(05:24):
You're very unsimp unsympathetic, he complained. I'm sorry, said Sallie.
She walked briskly to the door and gave it a push. Gerald,
still clinging to his chosen support, moved out into the passage,
attached to the handle with the air of a man
the foundations of whose world have suddenly lost their stability.

(05:47):
He released the handle and moved uncertainly across the passage.
Finding his own door open before him, he staggered over
the threshold, and Sallie, having watched him safely to his
journey's end, went into her bedroom with the intention of
terminating this disturbing night by going to sleep. Almost immediately,

(06:07):
she changed her mind. Sleep was out of the question.
A fever of restlessness had come upon her. She put
on a kimono and went into the kitchen to ascertain
whether her commissariat arrangements would permit a glass of hot milk.
She had just remembered that she had that morning presented
the last of the milk to a sandy cat with

(06:28):
a purposeful eye, which had dropped in through the window
to take breakfast with her. When her regrets for this
thriftless hospitality were interrupted by a muffled crash, she listened intently.
The sound had seemed to come from across the passage.
She hurried to the door and opened it. As she
did so, from behind the door of the apartment opposite

(06:49):
there came a perfect fusillade of crashes, each seeming to
her strained hearing, louder and more appalling than the last.
There is something about sudden loud noises in the stillness
of the night which shatters the most rigid detachment. A
short while before, Gerald toying with the idea of ending

(07:10):
his sorrows by violence, had left Sallie unmoved. But now
her mind leaped back to what he had said, and
apprehension succeeded indifference. There was no disputing the fact that
Gerald was in an irresponsible mood, under the influence of
which he was capable of doing almost anything. Sallie, listening

(07:30):
in the doorway, felt a momentary panic, a brief silence
had succeeded the fusillade. But as she stood there, hesitating,
the noise broke out again, and this time it was
so loud and compelling that Sallie hesitated no longer. She
ran across the passage and beat on the door two.

(07:52):
Whatever devastating happenings had been going on in his home,
it was plain a moment later that Gerald had managed
to survive them, for there came the sound of a
dragging footstep, and the door opened. Gerald stood on the threshold,
the weak smile back on his face. Hullo, Sallie. At
the sight of him, disreputable and obviously unscathed, Sallie's brief

(08:16):
alarm died away, leaving in its place the old feeling
of impatient resentment. In addition to her other grievances against him,
he had apparently frightened her unnecessarily. Whatever was all that noise?
She demanded? Noise, said Gerald, considering the point, open mouthed yes, noise,

(08:40):
snapped Sallie. I've been cleaning house, said Gerald, with the
owl like gravity of a man just conscious that he
is not wholly himself. Sallie pushed her way past him.
The apartment in which she found herself was almost an
exact replica of her own, and it was evident that
Elsie Zadoland had taken pains to make it pretty and

(09:02):
comfortable in a nigly feminine way. Amateur interior decoration had
always been a hobby of hers, even in the unpromising
surroundings of her bedroom at missus Meecher's boarding house, she
had contrived to create a certain daintiness which Sally, who
had no ability in that direction herself, had always rather envied.

(09:23):
As a decorator, Elsa's mind ran in the direction of small,
fragile ornaments, and she was not afraid of over furnishing.
Pictures jostled one another on the walls. China of all
descriptions stood about on little tables. There was a profusion
of lamps with shades of Parti colored glass, and plates
were ranged along a series of shelves. One says that

(09:46):
the plates were ranged and the pictures jostled one another,
but it would be more correct to put it that
they had jostled and had been ranged, for it was
only by guess work that Sally was able to reconstruct
the scene as it must have appeared. Before Jare had started,
as he put it, to clean house. She had walked
into the flat briskly enough, but she pulled up short

(10:07):
as she crossed the threshold, appalled by the majestic ruin
that met her gaze. A shell bursting in the little
sitting room could hardly have created more havoc. The psychology
of a man of weak character under the influence of
alcohol and disappointed ambition is not easy to plumb, for
his moods follow one another with a rapidity which baffles

(10:29):
the observer. Ten minutes before, Gerald Foster had been in
the grip of a clammy self pity, and it seemed,
from his aspect at the present moment that this phase
had returned. But in the interval there had manifestly occurred
a brief but adequate spasm of what would appear to
have been an almost berserk fury. What had caused it

(10:53):
and why it should have expended itself so abruptly, Sally
was not psychologist enough to explain, but that it had existed.
There was oculiar evidence of the most convincing kind, a
heavy niblick flung petulantly or remorsefully into a corner, showed
by what medium the destruction had been accomplished. Bleak chaos

(11:15):
appeared on every side. The floor was littered with every
imaginable shape and size of broken glass and china. Fragments
of pictures looking as if they had been chewed by
some prehistoric animal, lay amid heaps of shattered statuettes and vases.
As Sally moved slowly into the room after her involuntary pause,

(11:37):
china crackled beneath her feet. She surveyed the stripped walls
with a wondering eye and turned to Gerald for an explanation.
Gerald had subsided on to an occasional table and was
weeping softly again. It had come over him once more
that he had been very, very badly treated. Well, said

(12:00):
Sallie with a gasp, you've certainly made a good job
of it. There was a sharp crack as the occasional table,
never designed by its maker to bear heavy weights, gave
way in a splintering flurry of broken legs under the
pressure of the master of the house, and Sallie's mood
underwent an abrupt change. There are few situations in life

(12:22):
which do not hold equal potentialities for both tragedy and farce.
And it was the ludicrous side of this drama that
chanced to appeal to Sallie. At this moment, her sense
of humor was tickled. It was, if she could have
analyzed her feelings at herself, that she was mocking at
the feeble, sentimental Sallie, who had once conceived the absurd

(12:45):
idea of taking this preposterous man seriously. She felt light
hearted and light headed, and she sank into a chair
with a gurgling laugh. The shock of his fall appeared
to have had the desirable effect of restoring orring Gerald
to something approaching intelligence. He picked himself up from the
remains of a set of water colors, gazing at Sallie

(13:08):
with growing disapproval, no sympathy, He said, austereily, I can't
help it, cried Sallie. It's too funny. Not funny, corrected Gerald,
his brain beginning to cloud once more. What did you
do it for? Gerald returned for a moment to that

(13:30):
mood of honest indignation which had so strengthened his arm
when wielding the niblick he bethought him once again of
his grievance. Wasn't going to stand for it any longer?
He said heatedly. A fellow's wife goes and lets him down,
ruins his show by going off and playing in another show.
Why shouldn't I smash her things? Why should I stand

(13:52):
for that sort of treatment? Why should I? Well, you haven't,
said Sallie, so there's no need to discuss it. You
seem to have acted in a thoroughly manly and independent way.
That's it. Manly independent. He waggled his finger impressively. Don't
care what she says, he continued, Don't care if she

(14:13):
never comes back. That woman. Sallie was not prepared to
embark with him upon a discussion of the absent Elsa.
Already the amusing aspect of the affair had begun to fade,
and her hilarity was giving way to a tired distaste
for the sordidness of the whole business. She had become
aware that she could not endure the society of Gerald

(14:34):
Foster much longer. She got up and spoke decidedly, and
now she said, I'm going to tidy up. Gerald had
other views. No, he said, with sudden solemnity, No, nothing
of the kind. Leave it for her to find, Leave
it as it is. Don't be silly. All this has

(14:56):
got to be cleaned up. I'll do it. You go
and sit in my apartment. I'll come and tell you
when you can come back. No, said Gerald, wagging his head.
Sallie stamped her foot among the crackling ruins. Quite suddenly
the sight of him had become intolerable. Do as I
tell you, she cried. Gerald wavered for a moment, but

(15:20):
his brief militant mood was ebbing fast. After a faint protest,
he shuffled off, and Sallie heard him go into her room.
She breathed a deep breath of relief and turned to
her task. A visit to the kitchen revealed a long
handled broom, and armed with this, Sallie was soon busy.
She was an efficient little person, and presently out of chaos,

(15:43):
there began to emerge a certain order. Nothing short of
complete redecoration would ever make the place look habitable again.
But at the end of half an hour she had
cleared the floor, and the fragments of vases, plates, lamp shades,
pictures and glasses were stacked in tiny heaps again the walls.
She returned the broom to the kitchen, and going back

(16:04):
into the sitting room, flung open the window and stood
looking out with a sense of unreality. She perceived that
the night had gone over the quiet street below there
brooded that strange metallic light which ushers in the dawn
of a fine day. A cold breeze whispered to and
fro above the housetops. The sky was a faint level blue.

(16:28):
She left the window and started to cross the room,
and suddenly there came over her a feeling of utter weakness.
She stumbled to a chair, conscious only of being tired
beyond the possibility of a further effort. Her eyes closed,
and almost before her head had touched the cushions, she
was asleep. Three Sallie woke. Sunshine was streaming through the

(16:55):
open window, and with it the myriad noises of a
city awake, and about its footsteps clattered on the sidewalk.
Automobile horns were sounding, and she could hear the clank
of street cars as they passed over the points. She
could only guess at the hour, but it was evident
that the morning was well advanced. She got up stiffly,

(17:16):
her head was aching. She went into the bathroom, bathed
her face, and felt better. The dull oppression which comes
of a bad night was leaving her. She leaned out
of the window, reveling in the fresh air, then crossed
the passage and entered her own apartment. Stertorus breathing greeted her,
and she perceived that Gerald Foster had also passed the

(17:39):
night in a chair. He was sprawling by the window,
with his legs stretched out and his head resting on
one of the arms, an unlovely spectacle. Sallie stood regarding
him for a moment with a return of the distaste
which she had felt on the previous night, And yet
mingled with the distaste there was a certain elation. A

(18:00):
black chapter of her life was closed forever. Whatever the
years to come might bring to her, they would be
free from any wistful yearnings for the man who had
once been woven so inextricably into the fabric of her life.
She had thought that his personality had gripped her too
strongly ever to be dislodged. But now she could look
at him calmly and feel only a faint half pity,

(18:23):
half contempt. The glamor had departed. She shook him gently,
and he sat up with a start, blinking in the
strong light. His mouth was still open. He stared at
Sallie foolishly, then scrambled awkwardly out of the chair. Oh
my God, said Gerald, pressing both his hands to his

(18:44):
forehead and sitting down again. He licked his lips with
a dry tongue and moaned, Oh, I've got a headache.
Sallie might have pointed out to him that he had
certainly earned one, but she refrained, you'd better go and
have a wash, she suggested, Yes, said Gerald, heaving himself

(19:05):
up again. Would you like some breakfast? Don't? Said Gerald faintly,
and tottered off to the bathroom. Sallie sat down in
the chair he had vacated. She had never felt quite
like this before in her life. Everything seemed dream like.
The splashing of water in the bathroom came faintly to her,

(19:26):
and she realized that she had been on the point
of falling asleep again. She got up and opened the window,
and once more the air acted as a restorative. She
watched the activities of the street with a distant interest.
They too seemed dream like and unreal. People were hurrying
up and down on mysterious errands. An inscrutable cat picked

(19:49):
its way daintily across the road. At the door of
the apartment house, an open car purred sleepily. She was
roused by a ring at the bell. She went to
the door and opened it, and found Bruce Carlyle standing
on the threshold. He wore a light motor coat, and
he was plainly endeavoring to soften the severity of his
saturnine face with a smile of beaming kindliness. Well here

(20:15):
I am, said Bruce Carmle, cheerily, are you ready? With
the coming of daylight, a certain penitence had descended on
mister Carlyle. Thinking things over while shaving and subsequently in
his bath, he had come to the conclusion that his
behavior overnight had not been all that could have been desired.

(20:35):
He had not actually been brutal, perhaps, but he had
undoubtedly not been winning. There had been an abruptness in
the manner of his leaving Sally at the flower garden
which a perfect lover ought not to have shown. He
had allowed his nerves to get the better of him,
and now he desired to make amends, hence a cheerfulness

(20:55):
which he did not usually exhibit. So early in the morning,
Sallie was staring at him blankly. She had completely forgotten
that he had said that he would come and take
her for a drive this morning. She searched in her
mind for words and found none. And as mister Carlyle
was debating within himself whether to kiss her now or

(21:17):
wait for a more suitable moment, embarrassment came upon them
both like a fog, and the genial smile faded from
his face, as if the motive power behind it had
suddenly failed. I've er got the car outside. And at
this point speech failed, mister Carlyle, for even as he

(21:40):
began the sentence, the door that led to the bathroom
opened and Gerald Foster came out. Mister Carlyle gaped at Gerald.
Gerald gaped at mister Carlyle. The application of cold water
to the face and head is an excellent thing on
the morning after an imprudent night, but as a tonic
it only goes part of the way. In the case

(22:03):
of Gerald Foster, which was an extremely serious and aggravated case,
it had gone hardly anyway at all. The person unknown
who had been driving red hot rivets into the base
of Gerald Foster's skull ever since the moment of his awakening,
was still busily engaged on that task. He gazed at

(22:25):
mister Carlyle Wanly Bruce Carmle drew in his breath with
a sharp hiss, and stood rigid, his eyes burning now
with a grim light flickered over Gerald's person and found
nothing in it to entertain them. He saw a slouching
figure in shirt sleeves and the foundations of evening dress,

(22:45):
a disgusting, degraded figure with pink eyes and a white
face that needed a shave, And all the doubts that
had ever come to vex mister Carlyle's mind since his
first meeting with Sally became on the instant certainties. So
Uncle Donald had been right, after all, this was the

(23:06):
sort of girl she was at his elbow. The stout
phantom of Uncle Donald puffed with satisfaction. I told you so,
it said. Sallie had not moved. The situation was beyond her,
just as if this had really been the dream. It
seemed she felt incapable of speech or action, so said

(23:31):
mister Carlyle, becoming articulate and allowed an impressive aposio pieces
to take the place of the rest of the speech.
A cold fury had gripped him. He pointed at Gerald,
began to speak, found that he was stuttering, and gulped
back the words. In this supreme moment, he was not

(23:51):
going to have his dignity impaired by a stutter. He
gulped and found a sentence which, while brief enough to
insure against this disaster, was sufficiently long to express his meaning.
Get out, he said. Gerald Foster had his dignity too,
and it seemed to him that the time had come

(24:12):
to assert it. But he also had a most excruciating headache,
and when he drew himself up haughtily to ask mister
Carlyle what the devil he meant by it, a severe
access of pain sent him huddling back immediately to a
safer attitude. He clasped his forehead and groaned get out.

(24:34):
For a moment, Gerald hesitated, Then another shooting spasm convinced
him that no profit or pleasure was to be derived
from a continuance of the argument, and he began to
shamble slowly across to the door. Bruce Carlyle watched him
go with twitching hands. There was a moment when the
human man in him somewhat atrophied from long disuse stirred

(24:57):
him almost to the point of assault. Then Dignity whispered
more prudent counsel in his ear, and Gerald was past
the danger zone and out in the passage. Mister Carlyle
turned to face Sallie, as King Arthur on a similar
but less impressive occasion, must have turned to deal with Guinevere,

(25:19):
so he said again. Sallie was eyeing him steadily, considering
the circumstances, mister Carlyle thought, with not a little indignation,
much too steadily. This, he said ponderously, is very amusing.

(25:39):
He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing.
I might have expected it, said mister Carlyle, with a
bitter laugh. Sallie forced herself from the lethargy which was
gripping her. Would you like me to explain? She said.
There can be no explanation, said mister Carlyle, coldly. Very well,

(26:01):
said Sallie. There was a pause. Good Bye, said Bruce Carlyle.
Good Bye, said Sallie. Mister Carlyle walked to the door.
There he stopped for an instant and glanced back at her.
Sallie had walked to the window and was looking out
for one swift instant, something about her trim little figure

(26:23):
and the gleam of her hair where the sunlight shone
on it seemed to catch at Bruce Carlyle's heart, and
he wavered. But the next moment he was strong again,
and the door had closed behind him with a resolute bang.
Out in the street. Climbing into his car, he looked
up involuntarily to see if she was still there, but

(26:45):
she had gone as the car, gathering speed, hummed down
the street. Sallie was at the telephone listening to the
sleepy voice of Ginger Kemp, which, as he became aware
who it was that had woken him from his rest
and what she had to say say to him, magically
lost its sleepiness and took on a note of riotous ecstasy.

(27:07):
Five minutes later, Ginger was splashing in his bath, singing discordantly.
End of Chapter seventeen, read on March eighth, two thousand nine,
in San Diego, California,