"I still don't see why I have to go," murmured Sallie. She slouched down in her chair, entirely improper according to 'Aunt' Susan. She picked and stabbed at the dinner before her, not feeling particularly hungry after her mother confronted her and told upfront that she were to attend a dinner party that her father hosted for his business partners. Knowing her parents, she was to also be particularly cordial to the sons of the business partners.
"That's enough, Sarah," 'Aunt' Susan admonished. Sallie resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her real name. She preferred the nickname of her real name (Sallie) to her birth name (Sarah). "Really! It's far past time you stopped all this nonsense, grow up, and start acting like a young woman!"
"A young woman such as yourself should be focused on marrying and raising a family, not wasting time on futile efforts such as this doctor gibberish," her mother agreed.
Now, Sallie was used to 'Aunt' Susan's argument, but what her mother said, about medicine being futile, raised her ire. Sallie didn't waste her time on anything she deemed nonproductive. And helping people medically was anything but.
"Yes, I agree that being educated is important in any young woman's life," said 'Aunt' Susan. "But you will never become a doctor. Women simply are not meant for such life styles. We are far too delicate."
Delicate! Sallie felt her body temperature rise and she bit her tongue to keep her temper under control and not do something she was sure to regret.
"But about the dinner," said her mother, "you will be there, you will dance with many of the agreeable gentlemen there, and you will be pleasant throughout the entire evening, do you hear me?"
Sallie closed her eyes and counted to five before saying, "Yes, Mum."
And that was that. Sallie knew better than to try to get out of the dinner after this conversation. That would be a futile effort. The only thing left to do was when the dinner came, she would grin and bear it – then slip away at the first opportunity.
One compensation would be that the dinner would be hosted at Grandpa Digory's house, seeing it was large enough to accommodate a large party. That meant there would be at least one person amid the throng whom she could count as an ally as oppose to insurgents massing attacks on her personal life and her feet.
"Excuse me," said Sallie as she stood from the table. "Dinner was lovely." With that, she turned and left the room before either her mother or her aunt could make any remarks about her eating habits.
She headed straight upstairs to her room, locking the door behind her. Without a second hesitation, she changed into pants and a tunic of forest greens and browns that she had bought at a Renaissance fair (she claimed they were for her brother, which she didn't have), down to the boots. Seeing her in this outfit would make her mother faint in indignation.
Sallie could still pretend and imagine, and her favorite role was the woodswoman.
Donning a black cloak and hood, she slipped out of the room via the window and maple tree. There was a firewood shack near the house, which only one of the servants went into. Thankfully, Sallie was on good standing with them and never told her mother or her aunt about her stash there.
Her home bordered a wooded area in which Sallie loved to wander about. She would need this retreat to store her fortitude for the dinner tonight.
