Say Yes Samantha

Reflection 2-1

Reflection 2It’s funny how unexpected things happen in life.

When I climbed out of bed that Saturday morning, five months ago, I had no idea that it was to prove a milestone – or should I say a turning point? – in my life.

It was just like any other morning.

I awoke to hear the birds singing in the garden and thought that it was still very early and there was no need for me to hurry.

I suppose it was because I was nervous of oversleeping after Mummy died that I made myself wake up at about seven o’clock every morning so that I could get Daddy’s breakfast.

Of course on Sunday I had to be earlier still because the first Communion Service was at eight o’clock and he liked to be in the Church at least twenty minutes before the congregation, if there was any, arrived.

Anyway, that Saturday, after I was awake, I suddenly remembered that it was the day of the Church bazaar and there were a million extra things to do.

I jumped out of bed, washed rather quickly and started to dress.

I was not going to put on my best dress, which was rather a pretty green muslin I had made myself, until the last moment. So I just slipped into one of my old cottons, which was too tight. But it wasn’t likely that anyone was going to see me.

I ran downstairs, started to prepare breakfast, and found, when Daddy joined me, that he had forgotten all about the bazaar and thought that it was just an ordinary Saturday.

He had become more and more forgetful after Mummy died or perhaps his mind was so concentrated on remembering her and being so unhappy that it was difficult for him to think of anything else.

I gave him his breakfast, reminded him that he had promised to look in on the choir practice at nine-thirty and told him to put on his best coat and a clean white collar before he came up to The Castle.

“Thank goodness it’s a nice day,” I said. “Otherwise, if it was like last year, we should be even more in debt than we are already.”

“Yes, of course, Samantha, we should be grateful for the weather,” Daddy said, rather in a tone of voice as if he was surprised he could be grateful for anything.

He had always been so happy and so gay when Mummy was there.

I felt sometimes like crying, knowing how difficult it was for him to make an effort to sound cheerful merely because he thought I expected it.

“Is Lady Butterworth opening the bazaar?” he asked.

“Of course she is, Daddy,” I answered. “You know she wouldn’t let anyone else have the honour and the glory.”

I saw the expression on his face and knew that, if Daddy was capable of hating anyone, he hated Lady Butterworth.

Daddy was a Clyde and the Clydes had owned The Castle since the Norman Conquest or something like that. But they couldn’t afford to keep it up and it had become more and more dilapidated until the ceilings fell down and there were damp stains in every room.

Then the Butterworths had come along and bought it from Daddy’s father – my grandfather – just before he had a stroke.

I don’t think they paid very much for it. At the same time it had been a help, because when my grandfather died and his debts were paid the money was divided between Daddy and his sister.

The Butterworths then proceeded to ‘do up’ The Castle and live in it.

Sir Thomas Butterworth had made money in Birmingham, where he had enormous factories. Now because he was so rich, he and his wife wanted to be ‘County’.

Of course, they hadn’t the slightest idea of how to set about it and The Castle, although luxurious, was furnished in excruciatingly bad taste.

I used to see Daddy wince as soon as he entered the hall and I always suspected that he shut his eyes in the drawing room.

But as I said to him once,

“Surely it is better for the Butterworths to live there than for it just to fall to the ground and become full of nothing but birds’ nests and bats?”

For a moment I thought Daddy was going to storm at me and say that he hated the Butterworths spoiling everything with their money and that he much preferred it as it was.

Then, with what was an obvious effort, he had said,

“They have been generous in the village, Samantha, and we must learn to thank God for small mercies.”

Personally I find it difficult to think of Lady Butterworth, who must weigh at least fifteen stone, as being a ‘small mercy’, but in fact she has a kind heart.

She gave us heating in the Church, which was something we never had before, a pavilion for the cricket field and a water trough on the green.

The last actually was quite unnecessary as there is a very good pond from which the horses still drink, ignoring the water trough, but at least she showed willing.

When I arrived at The Castle carrying baskets of cakes and garden produce for the Vicarage stall, Lady Butterworth was already reorganising everything and altering all the arrangements that had been familiar for years.

Mummy was the only person who never minded having to change the position of her stall or being told to rearrange the cakes.

The other people in the village minded dreadfully.

I saw as soon as I got there that they were all muttering beneath their breath and looking resentful.

Knowing it was my job, I tried to pour oil on troubled waters.

“You are late, Samantha,” Lady Butterworth said, severely.

“I’m sorry,” I answered, “but I had a lot of things to do before I could come here.”

“I can think of nothing that is more important than our own special Church bazaar,” Lady Butterworth said with a beaming smile.

I nearly replied that, as The Castle was packed with servants, she had nothing else to do!

There was no doubt that she enjoyed every moment of the bazaars, village concerts and even the Church meetings at which she talked far more than anyone else.

In my opinion she found it lonely at The Castle after living in Birmingham.

I expect she had friends there who popped in to see her, whilst at The Castle she sat alone in her glory, hoping against hope that one of ‘the County’ would call on her.

“Poor thing,” Mummy said once. “I am sorry for her. She is like a fish out of water. You know as well as I do, Samantha, that even if the Hudsons, the Burlingtons and the Croomes accepted the Butterworths, they would have nothing in common.”

I think it was pity that made Mummy go out of her way to be kinder and in a way more effusive to Sir Thomas and Lady Butterworth than she was to anyone else.

Mummy never worried about being social and, like Daddy, she hated parties.

“I gave them all up when I married your father,” she said to me once. “I was very gay when I was young, Samantha, and then I fell in love.”

“Didn’t you miss the balls, doing the London Season and being presented at Buckingham Palace?” I asked.

Mummy laughed.

“I can honestly say, Samantha, and you know I never lie, that I have never for one moment regretted marrying your father and being terribly poor, but very very happy.”

It was only after the War when I grew older that Mummy began to wish sometimes that I could enjoy ‘coming out’ as she had.

“I would love to present you at Court, Samantha,” she said once, “but we just cannot afford it. I suppose, if your grandparents had been alive, it would have been different.”

Mummy had been an only child and her parents had died during the War.

Although she had not seen much of them after she married Daddy, since they lived in the North, I know she missed them once they were dead.

I think everyone, when they are orphaned, feels as if a prop or support has been knocked from under them.

I know that when Mummy died I felt as if I was missing an arm or a leg and when Daddy went – but I mustn’t think about that!

But to go back to the bazaar, it started like every other bazaar that I had ever attended, the same disputes, the same disagreeableness, the same frantic search for drawing pins to hold up the muslin draperies in front of the stalls and the same arguments over prices.

Mrs. Blundell, the baker’s wife, took umbrage because the iced cake she had made was not, in her opinion, priced high enough.

She was only slightly mollified when she learnt that Lady Butterworth had asked particularly that the cake should be reserved for her.

I seemed to be running hither and thither and ordered about by everyone, before the stalls were finally ready and the cakes and lavender bags, doilies, knitted scarves and the other articles we had all been making were arranged and Daddy arrived with a bag of small change so that every stallholder would have some cash to start with.

I slipped home just before luncheon to get some food ready for Daddy and to snatch a bite myself.

I did not have to change my dress because I had put on the green muslin before I went up to the Castle.

I couldn’t have gone in the dress I wore for breakfast, but I did go up to my bedroom to tidy my hair and collect the hat that I had trimmed myself especially for the occasion.

It was really very pretty, decorated with water lilies and some green muslin left over from my new dress.

I thought it was just as good as some of the creations I had seen at Cheltenham, which were priced at fifteen shillings!

I looked at myself in the mirror and hoped that no one would think I was too overdressed for the Vicar’s daughter.

I was well aware that many of the ladies disapproved of my looks. I had overheard one of them only the week before, saying,

“She’s such a nice girl. It’s a pity she looks so theatrical.”

I had gone home and looked at myself in the mirror.

‘Do I really look theatrical?’ I asked myself.

Of course, my hair is red. I can’t help that, but it is not a violent ugly red. It has a kind of gold undertone so that it is quite a soft colour, although it does shine rather brightly when it is first washed.

My eyelashes are long and very dark – I can’t think why – and my eyes sometimes look green and sometimes grey.

Mummy always said that I must be careful of my skin and insisted on my wearing a hat even when I went out in the garden, so my skin is very white with just a faint touch of colour on the cheeks.

Certainly my new hat gave me a rather dressed-up appearance, but then everyone dressed up for the bazaar, which was the most important event of the year as far as the village was concerned.

I suppose in a way it was more of a fête than a bazaar because the Church Wardens arranged races for the children.

There was also bowling for a pig given by our richest and most important farmer, a hoop-la, a coconut shy and skittles lent to us by the landlord of The George and Dragon.

When I had a pony, there used to be pony rides for tuppence each, but Snowball had now grown old and there had been no money to buy me a bigger horse.

I looked at my new hat again and pushed the water lilies, which I had bought very cheaply in a sale, a little flatter against the crown.

I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but I knew only too well how critical and fault-finding the people in the village were, especially the Church Wardens’ wives.

Feeling rather self-conscious I went back to The Castle and slipped behind the Vicarage stall to await the customers.

There were three other people to help me and, although hardly anyone had as yet arrived, they said to me reproachfully,

“Where have you been, Samantha? We missed you.”

“I had things to do at the Vicarage,” I answered.

I wasn’t going to admit that I had to cook Daddy’s lunch because Mrs. Harris, our daily help, wouldn’t come in on Saturdays when she had her husband home.

“Well, you are here now,” one of the ladies said, “and that’s a good thing, because Lady Butterworth intends to make her speech at exactly two o’clock and, as she is bringing a party down from The Castle, she expects us all to gather round so as to look a crowd.”